Council in the Spotlight
The League of Women Voters and Newport This Week, along with other sponsors, hosted a forum for all Council candidates. The event, moderated by John Marion of Common Cause, explored topics from ICE and schools to housing and affordability. Watch the full event here. I was proud to share my vision of how we can take bold action for a livable future for Newport. Thank you to Newport This Week for helping feature candidates in this forum and writing about it in the next issue! Read the article on the NTW website or see the full text below.
City Council Candidates Discuss ICE, Homelessness, Affordable Housing
By Zane Wolfgang, NTW, 10/1/2026
The 11 candidates for Newport City Council faced the public at a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Newport County on Sept. 24, where the topics included the presence of agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, homelessness, and affordable housing.
At-Large candidates Charlie Holder, Stephanie Smyth, Christine Sullivan, Elizabeth Cullen, Taryn Mazza, James Dring and Meagan Landry , along with Ellen Pinnock and John Michael, running in the First Ward, and Emily Conklin and John Walker running for the Second Ward seat attended the forum. At-Large candidate Jane LeBoeuf and Third Ward incumbent David Carlin did not attend.
Moderator John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, began the forum by asking candidates how they intend to protect the community from increasingly harsher immigration policies in the face of a surge of ICE activity.
Holder called the national ICE situation “abhorrent,” while Sullivan said it is a “terrifying time for a lot of our community members,” pointing out that a high percentage of Newport’s public school families are Hispanic and those children have a right to a public education.
“We should not be cooperating with federal law enforcement or ICE federal enforcement, because these surges are based on terror, not on real threats,” Conklin said. “We need to make sure the community understands that we are here to protect them.”
Walker pushed back on Conklin’s statement that the city should refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, saying, “I think outright telling the federal government we are not going to comply is a dangerous position to take for a city that needs conservatively half a billion dollars of infrastructure we cannot pay for.”
At this point, a woman in the audience shouted, “So we hand over our neighbors for funding?”
Pinnock said 45 people in Newport have been taken by ICE so far and characterized Newport’s immigrant population as a “community under siege.” She received applause when she said the city needs stronger policies to protect the immigrant community.
Cullen and Dring focused on Newport’s school policies in their answers. Cullen said she received an email from Supt. Peter Sanchioni about a district-wide policy if ICE was seen on a school campus.
Dring, who is the chair of the Newport School Committee, said there has never been an incident of ICE in Newport schools, nor in the entire state, according to the Rhode Island Department of Education. “Whether you’re for ICE or against ICE, it doesn’t matter; it should not be in the schools,” he said.
On the topic of developing year- round affordable housing, Conklin said the answer is to reform the city’s zoning code by making multi-unit housing allowable by right in more areas.
Mazza agreed about the need for zoning reform but also spoke about short-term and seasonal rentals that cut into the year-round housing supply.
Sullivan disagreed with Conklin about zoning for higher unit density, citing the approval of a planned apartment building at 525 Broadway as an example of a proposal with “way too many apartments on this kind of lot.”
“I think we have to be careful about increasing density and changing zoning because our historic character in Newport will be lost forever,” she said.
Walker did not think increasing density and changing zoning should be Newport’s first solution, instead citing parking and traffic issues and Newport’s old sewer and water infrastructure as challenges. He suggested the city could increase rental inventory if more Salve Regina and Naval War College students lived on campus.
Dring was also against zoning changes to increase housing density, saying, “We do not want to oversaturate our neighborhoods. We do not want to turn Newport into Worcester, with Accessory dwelling units and four-family homes all up and down the streets of our city.”
Marion then turned the candidates’ attention to Newport’s large homeless population and the role of city government in addressing their needs. Pinnock and Michael offered different perspectives on the city’s role, with Pinnock saying it is the city’s responsibility to implement programs and seek state and federal funding to support the homeless, while Michael said the city should not be 100 percent involved and that nonprofits should take the lead.
Mazza, who works for a local nonprofit, said the organizations that work with Newport’s unhoused residents are maxed out. “I think it is part of the city’s duty to get involved and work with those agencies,” she said. “Newport Mental Health has the RIO team out there constantly checking on people. Jimmy Winters is paying people’s rent so they don’t get evicted. Our unhoused population needs more help than it is getting right now.”
Landry drew applause for pointing out that not every unhoused person suffers from drug and alcohol addiction and the city “needs to come up with real solutions, not to make [unhoused people] go away but to find a place for them.”
Holder said the city’s main role in serving the homeless is to provide funds to nonprofit agencies working with unhoused people, but Smyth drew applause when she said, “Maybe it’s time the city looks at properties themselves to be able to institute an additional shelter.”
Candidates also answered questions about the need to diversify Newport’s economy and the council’s rocky relationship with the school committee.
View the video recording of the forum here at newportthisweek.com