Newport staff present draft bond package that prioritizes water and wastewater; council gives general consensus

City staff presented a draft capital bond package at a March 30 Newport City Council work session that prioritizes water and wastewater projects, and councilors indicated general consensus to advance the list for communications work and polling.

Nina (city staff) told the council staff had spent about a year developing a ranked list of 21 priority projects using a 10‑category scoring matrix — including public health/life safety, infrastructure condition, funding leverage and readiness — and that the top 15 projects from that matrix form the basis of the recommended package. “Our staff team has been working on this for about a year,” she said, and the matrix results are included in the meeting packet. John (city staff) reported the community outreach included open houses and an online survey; staff said there were 162 survey respondents and roughly 400 unique clicks to the survey from an email list of about 3,000 utility accounts.

Councilors repeatedly emphasized that water and wastewater were the highest community priorities. John summarized the outreach: “Water system resiliency, wastewater infrastructure… kind of leading the charge,” and staff said the list also includes parks and transportation projects that scored highly with residents. Nina said the recommended package includes the top ranked projects plus required items such as elevator compliance upgrades and a modestly sized secure impound facility; she described the $2.5 million project‑management line as roughly $125,000 per year in salary and benefits over 20 years to administer a bond program.

Staff outlined next steps: consulting with Wright Public Affairs to develop plain‑language messaging, polling planned for April or May to test baseline support and messages, and work with bond counsel to craft ballot language that is specific enough to describe uses (for example, water and wastewater) but still flexible enough to adjust for final engineering costs. Nina said the council’s direction today was to reach a general consensus on the package so consultants can develop outreach materials and talking points. “We’re just wanting to get to the point where we have general council consensus on what the list is so we can move into… how we talk about it,” she said.

The city did not take a formal vote during the work session; staff said the council will approve the final referral and ballot language at a later formal meeting. The council’s next bond work sessions will include polling results and continued discussion of messaging and ballot drafting.