Monday, May 25, 2026 | Edition #37
GOOD MORNING, WARWICK. I hope you’re enjoying your Memorial Day despite the crappy weathah. Memorial Day is supposed to mean cookouts, lawn chairs, and the unofficial start of summer. Instead, it rained like the sky had a grudge against your potato salad, your carefully assembled lawn furniture situation, and you specifically as a person. Beaches were open. Parking lots were empty. Somewhere a man in a rain jacket stood at the water's edge out of pure spite, and honestly, that man deserves a trophy. The rest of us watched from inside and told ourselves we needed a long weekend to rest anyway. We rested. We did not ask for this much indoors time in late May but here we are.
Here’s what’s goin ahn.
TODAY’S SNAPSHOT
⏱️ Sunset Time: 8:08PM
🌔 Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous
⛽ Avg. Gas Price: $4.43 (click here to find the cheapest gas near you)
💧 Chance of Rain: 90%
WHAT’S GOIN’ AHN
💵 Warwick’s Budget: APPROVED
After two nights of hearings and one final vote, the Warwick City Council passed Mayor Frank Picozzi's $393 million FY27 budget Thursday, 7-2. The approved budget holds the tax increase to 3.86 percent, just under the 4 percent state cap, and fully funds the School Committee's $203 million request. For the median Warwick homeowner, that works out to a tax bill of $4,786, up $174 from last year.
The biggest driver is $15.8 million in annual debt service on the bonds voters approved for the two new high schools. Picozzi did deliver one piece of good news: state reimbursement kicks in once Certificates of Occupancy are issued, pulling the timeline up roughly two years ahead of schedule. He called it a "game changer," and on paper, it is.
The next year or two will ask a lot of Warwick taxpayers, with rising energy costs, school funding pressures, and bond payments all hitting at once. But if the high school reimbursements arrive on the new timeline and the fund balance holds, the city may actually come out the other side in better shape than expected. Call it cautious optimism, the financial equivalent of getting struck by lightning and thinking, “well, at least I don't have to mow the lawn this weekend.”
📚 Cuts at the WELC
Tucked inside that $203 million school budget is a cut that has parents and teachers at the Warwick Early Learning Center frustrated. The proposal eliminates roughly half of the full-day classrooms at the WELC and cuts a number of teacher assistant positions, with some TAs reassigned as floaters throughout the district rather than staying with the youngest, highest-needs students in the building.
Teachers and parents packed City Hall during the hearings to push back. School officials confirmed that all Individual Education Plans will still be legally met, which is the minimum required by law, and landed about as well as you'd expect in a room full of concerned parents.
The broader schools budget is already built on shaky assumptions, including nearly $1 million in projected retirements and $500,000 in transportation savings that have not yet materialized. School Committee Chair Shaun Galligan acknowledged there is very little margin for error. The WELC cuts are where that pressure is showing up most visibly.
🚗📸 Speed Cam Forecast Flop
When Warwick installed its speed camera network, the operating company projected $6 to $9 million in annual fine revenue. The city, playing it conservative, budgeted $4.2 million. Nine months into the fiscal year, total collections stand at $1.4 million. The city has since dropped its projection for next year all the way down to $2 million.
Mayor Picozzi says the Police Department is now conducting a "very comprehensive study" to determine why the cameras are not catching as many violations as expected. A few theories: drivers see a camera and slow down, the cameras are not in high-volume locations, or Altumint's original projections were, to be generous, optimistic. A fourth theory: the cameras are exclusively targeting my wife, who received a speeding ticket this week and is now the subject of her own very comprehensive study conducted by me from the couch.
If the cameras are genuinely changing driver behavior, that is a public safety win. But the city built a budget around $4.2 million in collections, got a third of that, and the answer is apparently a task force. The finding that people slow down near cameras has been available for free since cameras were invented.
⛪ Warwick's Own Is One Step Closer to the Collar
Nicholas Jones, a lifelong Warwick resident, was ordained a transitional deacon this week, putting him one formal step away from full ordination to the priesthood in the Diocese of Providence. For those unfamiliar with how this works, a transitional deacon is essentially the final stage of the priestly formation process, a kind of sacred internship where you can baptize, preach the Gospel, distribute Communion, and witness marriages, but you are not quite a priest yet. Think of it as clearing final exams before graduation, except the diploma is a collar and the graduation ceremony is a Mass.
Jones is about as Warwick as it gets. He grew up here, attended St. Kevin parish school for nine years, moved on to Bishop Hendricken High School, and then headed to URI where he double majored in secondary education and history with a minor in philosophy. The man was preparing to teach people things long before he decided to dedicate his life to something bigger than a classroom.
His home parish is St. Kevin Church on Sandy Lane, where the Diocese of Providence ordination ceremony also took place this week, which means Warwick essentially hosted its own moment of history without making a big deal about it. That tracks.
Congratulations, Deacon Jones. Warwick is rooting for you.
WEATHAH THIS WEEK
QUICK HITTERS
🪪 Identity Heist | Link | A ransomware group hacked Warwick-based Beacon Mutual four months ago, swiped 275 gigabytes of data including Social Security numbers, medical records, and financial information belonging to 131,000 Rhode Islanders, then posted about it on the dark web like it was a Craigslist listing they were proud of. Beacon Mutual waited until May to start mailing letters, which is one way to handle urgency. At this point Rhode Island residents should just assume their data is public and move on.
⚖️ Shekarchi Eyes a Seat on the Bench | Link | Former Rhode Island House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi will formally interview for a seat on the Rhode Island Supreme Court on July 28, one of five candidates being considered for the $228,325-a-year lifetime appointment. There's just one wrinkle: an ethics complaint was filed against him on the same day he gave his farewell speech as Speaker, with watchdogs arguing his candidacy violates the state's revolving door restrictions that prohibit sitting legislators from jumping to another government gig within a year of leaving office. Shekarchi says the Supreme Court is a constitutional office exempt from those rules, and the Ethics Commission meets June 2 to decide if that's actually true. Rhode Island civics: where the application, the complaint, and the farewell speech all happen in the same week.
🏫 Aldrich Middle School Building Back on the Market | Link | The former Aldrich Junior High School on Post Road has been sitting mostly untouched since the city sold it to Boston-based Winn Development for $2 million back in 2023, and now the city is looking to find a new developer after Winn failed to apply to Rhode Island Housing this spring and missed performance benchmarks in their agreement. A preliminary plan shows potential for a 93-unit development on the site, and the Planning Board has recommended a zone change to allow residential use, though the building's wide hallways, sunken courtyards, and space-eating staircases make a cost-friendly conversion to apartments about as straightforward as assembling Wayfair furniture without the instructions. On the bright side, a new bidder would have to beat $2 million, which means Warwick might actually come out ahead on this one. Real estate glow-up pending.
EVENTS THIS WEEK
(Today) Monday, May 25: 🎗️ Gaspee Days Arts & Crafts Festival (Final Day) | Info Link | Pawtuxet Park, 10AM-4:30PM. Free admission. Show up, spend money locally, and call it a holiday.
Tuesdays through September 15: 🚗 Oakland Beach Cruise Nights | Info Link | 4-8PM. Free for walk-ins, $3 per vehicle. Classic cars, oldies tunes, food trucks, and Narragansett Bay views. Warwick summer doesn't get more classic than this.
Friday, May 29 : 🎵 Live Music Night at Harbor Lights | Info Link | 150 Gray St., Warwick Neck, 7PM. Waterfront views, live music, and cold drinks at a slept-on spot. Beats watching it rain from your couch, which you already did all weekend.
Fridays through October: 🌽 Goddard Park Farmers Market | Info Link | Goddard Memorial State Park, 1095 Ives Rd, 9AM-1PM. Fresh produce, local vendors, and a reason to be outside before noon on a Friday.
Saturday, May 30: 🎷 Providence Porchfest | Info Link | The fourth annual Porchfest takes over the East Side of Providence with live music performances spilling out of porches, stoops, and front yards all afternoon. Free to attend, all kinds of music, no wristband, no cover, no excuses.
LOOKING AHEAD
Beginning Saturday, June 6: 🥬 Conimicut Village Community Market | Info Link | 9AM-12PM. Free admission. Support local!
Saturday, June 13: 🏃🏼➡️Gaspee Days 5K | Sign Up Here | One of Warwick's most iconic events is just 3 weeks away. The streets will be decked out in red, white, and blue. My friends will be trying to keep pace with my dad. I better see you there.
BRAIN FOOD
🧠 Where in Warwick
Where in Warwick was this photo taken? Answer shown at the end.
📖 The Warwick Word of the Day
Pandiculation (pan-dic-yoo-LAY-shun) | Noun: The act of stretching and yawning, especially upon waking.
A Warwick man's morning pandiculation last Tuesday was so aggressive it measured 6.2 on the Richter scale, rearranged his spine into something his chiropractor described as "ambitious," and separated his rotator cuff from any further professional obligations. He is booked at the chiro through October. Fine wine gets better with age. His chiropractor gets a boat payment.
Thanks to Angela L. for submitting today’s word of the day! You can submit a word of the day yourself, here. I’ll be sure to include it in the next edition!
ONE LAST SIP
✅ Where in Warwick Answer: Harbor Lights Golf Course. Harbor Lights sits on Gray Street in Warwick Neck, right on Narragansett Bay. Originally opened in 1965 as Seaview Country Club and designed by renowned New England architect Geoffrey Cornish, it was built to give everyday golfers an affordable alternative to the private clubs of the era. It has since grown into a full waterfront destination with a marina, pool club, and event space, but the nine-hole course remains the anchor, and that par-5 fourth hole overlooking the bay is still one of the most scenic spots in Warwick golf.
That's it for today. Share it. Forward it. Leave it open on your phone at the barber so someone asks what you're reading. Mention it casually at a cookout. Become the person who knows what's goin' ahn.
As always, thanks for reading. Keep smiling!
