Richmond Joins Tri-town Food Drive

November 5th 2025

RICHMOND – As many families in Richmond, Hopkinton and Charlestown begin to feel the impact of cuts to federal SNAP food benefits, the three towns have joined forces to collect donations of money and food for the Rhode Island Center Assisting Those in Need (RICAN).

At Tuesday’s Town Council meeting, Interim Town Administrator Erin Liese announced the Tri-Town Community Food Drive.

“The Governor reached out to all the cities and towns to try and offset the impact on the SNAP benefits,” she said. “Richmond does not have a distribution center, and Hopkinton does not have a distribution center, so we coordinated with both the town managers to decide that we would do a community outreach drive to support RICAN, which is located in Charlestown.”

Liese said she had reached out to RICAN to see what the center needed most, and was told that monetary donations would be preferred, followed by donations of food.

While there was no mention of the drive on RICAN’s website or social media page at the time of this writing, Liese said flyers had been widely distributed throughout the three towns.

The Shannock Fire Tower

The town is still awaiting approvals from the USDA and the Rhode Island Historical Reservation & Historic Commission to install a new emergency communications tower at 147 Shannock Hill Road.

The old tower was destroyed by a fire in July 2022, and Police Chief Elwood Johnson explained that the town has been using a tower on loan from the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency.

“This is all critical emergency communications,” he said. “It’s vital. It’s not a want, it’s a need.”

The town has received American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding and Congressional discretionary funding totaling $605,000, to build a new tower.

That federal funding, however, would be managed by the USDA, which, in turn, introduces additional requirements.

“Endangered species, bugs, rodents and animals and things like that, the Narragansett Indian Tribe had to be notified, they have a checklist of things that have to be done with the USDA,” Johnson explained.

The town has already gone out to bid for the project but must now wait for the USDA approval.

“We’re waiting for the Historical Society and the USDA. and we have to wait for the shutdown to end,” Johnson added, referring to the current federal government shutdown.

The council approved a motion by council member Jim Palmisciano directing town staff to “draft a resolution, or letter of support to the Rhode Island Historical Society, reinforcing the position of our police and fire to expedite at all possibility, completion of this process to get our tower replaced.”

Other Police News

In his report to the council, Johnson requested and received approvals of two promotions in his department. Detective Drew Bishop and Patrolman Michael Ellis will be promoted to Corporal.

Johnson also received approval to award a bid for painting at the animal shelter.

The Transfer Station

Councilor Jeffrey Dinsmore proposed renegotiating the payment terms of the use of the Richmond Transfer Station by the Town of Hopkinton.

Dinsmore said he and Liese had been meeting with DPW Director Gary Robar and his staff to discuss the volume of trash that Hopkinton residents were disposing of, which exceeds the volume generated by Richmond residents.

Richmond has issued about 703 stickers to use the facility while Hopkinton has issued 1,113 stickers.

“Seeing those numbers, we felt we should reach out to and try to renegotiate our payment terms,” he said.

The towns have no formal contract. Hopkinton pays Richmond $70,000 per year to use the facility, an arrangement that began in 2022 at Hopkinton’s request.

“We’re looking at it in a very holistic approach become revenue neutral so that we are not in a deficit,” Liese said. “We don’t want either community to be caught off-guard. This will obviously have to be incorporated in their budget, and so, we need to start those conversations, what it would look like, wo make sure that we’re in the black.”

Ongoing Project Updates

Councilor Dan Madnick introduced six items that were continued from the Oct. 7 council meeting.

“I just felt that it would be a good time to kind of discuss some of the items that we’ve been working on and where we’re at, just to provide the public with an update,” he said.

1.  The further discussion of an ordinance creating the  Richmond Redevelopment Agency is on hold as the council works on other economic initiatives, which may render the ordinance unnecessary.

2.  The proposed sale of surplus town assets will not take place, because the town does not have excess assets to sell.

3.  Amendments to the town’s Title 5 business licensing have also been put on hold. Liese explained that during the current period of business license renewals, she did not want to confuse business owners, so the amendments are on hold.

4.  The proposed ordinance pertaining to mobile food trucks is also on hold.

“It’s just to not confuse our business owners during the renewal process,” Liese said.

5.  Liese also noted that staff are exploring possible government funding sources for Town Hall modifications, which include modifying and moving a door and relocating a window. The work is expected to cost between $50,000 and $74,000.

6.  Madnick briefed the council on the Community Choice Aggregation program.

“Rhode Island has one of the highest electricity rates in the country, so any way we can help people save money, I think, is a benefit. It’s worth looking into and seeing if it’s something worth doing,” he said.

A final item, “Hazard Mitigation Plan Actions and Priorities,” was continued to the next meeting, when Richmond Emergency Management Director Nicholas Linacre will be present.

Surveys of Residents

Jim Palmisciano asked the council to consider introducing a standard platform that would be used to conduct surveys of residents.

“There’s definitely ways that both council members and staff could utilize these survey tools to really connect with the public,” he said. “We may think we know what the right thing is to do, but people might tell us otherwise.”

Palmisciano proposed using the town’s Microsoft account, which includes the “forms” survey tool. Residents who do not use computers would be accommodated.

Palmisciano asked the council to review his recommendation and agree on a survey process, however, other council members were skeptical about whether residents would participate.

Madnick said his experiences with two surveys – one on the comprehensive plan and the second on housing needs – both had very low levels of participation, about 300 responses out of a population of 8,000.

Wilcox said she was concerned that the platform might encourage the creation of too many surveys.

“I just didn’t understand the purpose of this,” she said. “I don’t want to survey people to death because I feel that that will almost hurt engagement.”

Council Vice President Mark Reynolds added,

“Typically, you don’t get a lot of responses to surveys,” he said. “You get people who want to respond, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the few people you get responses from are reflective of everybody else out there who didn’t respond.”

Reynolds said he preferred letting departments, committees and commissions decide for themselves whether to survey residents.

Madnick made a motion, which the council approved, asking Palmisciano and town staff to work together to develop a standardized process for surveys.

Town Administrator Search Update

During the public forum, resident Tom Marron asked about the current search for a Town Administrator. Erin Liese has been the interim administrator since Karen Pinch retired last June.

“I’m interested in an update,” he said. “How close are you to making a decision? How many finalists do you have? And the last thing is, do you have qualifications in terms of educational background – bachelor’s degree, master’s degree? Have you specified the number of years of experience as Town Administrator that you’re looking for?”

Wilcox replied that the minutes of search committee meetings were posted online, as required by the Open Meetings Act, and added that more information would be forthcoming.

“We’ll have an update on that at the next meeting, I believe,” she said.