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Last week, the Town Council finalized the 2023 budget for presentation at the Financial Town Meeting on May 2. Town Manager Maryanne Crawford summarized the changes, explaining that an additional $25,000 would be going to the Block Island Volunteer Fire Department, by shifting $5,000 from the Medical Center and $20,000 from the GIS and Technology […]

“I’m going to hold firm that we should not be paying for them,” Town Manager Maryanne Crawford told the Town Council at its April 13 meeting.First Warden André Boudreau had asked Crawford if she had an update on the situation with the R.I. State Police. It has been suggested by the state police that the

The old adage “the third time’s a charm,” held true this past week for National Grid in its latest attempt to splice the electronic transmission cable that runs from Block Island to the mainland. National Grid was foiled in its first attempt last spring when the conduit that holds the cable became clogged with “debris”

The April 4 meeting of the New Shoreham Town Council began, as meetings so often do, with public comment. Alicia Martin of the ad-hoc group Block Island Affordable and Attainable Housing spoke to the council about the ongoing shortage of quality affordable housing on the island and the need to fund housing development. Martin suggested

As the Town Council sharpens up its pencils and works to crunch the numbers in the budget for fiscal year 2023, it is increasingly running up against a hard truth. “We are in a zero-sum situation,” Council Member Keith Stover told the group on April 6 at the public hearing on the budget. “In order

New Shoreham is looking into the possibility of creating a new tax structure, based on classifications of different land use types. The goal of creating this tax structure, per the accompanying documents on the town’s website, is to “Modernize New Shoreham’s property tax system to deliver fair and equitable distribution of the relative costs of

A group of 15 students, one teacher and an additional chaperone from the Block Island School spent six days in Washington, DC from March 20 to 25, meeting with members of Congress and talking about key issues the United States faces today. In Washington, the group successfully completed the demanding “Close Up Washington” student program.

Pysanky eggs are a Ukrainian springtime tradition dating back centuries that utilizes a wax resist technique akin to batik. This year with the war in Ukraine, the tradition is gaining in popularity all over the world. The eggs pictured here were brought to the island by Marlena Paulson of South Kingstown for the workshop she

Back in January, somebody asked Mimi Leveille if Block Island did anything for Earth Day. Upon hearing the answer, he then said: “It’s getting to be a big thing, you know.”And so it was that Leveille found herself in the middle of organizing the island’s first fair to commemorate both Earth Day and Arbor Day,

Ballard’s Beach ResortBallard’s Inn Realty, LLC appeared before the Historic District Commission to present its plan to build a new second floor deck and raise the roof on part of the building to accommodate a second floor. As Eric Zuena of ZDS Architecture and Interior Design explained, the basic plan is taking a “vaulted space and