EAST PROVIDENCE — At its meeting Tuesday, Sept. 3, the super majority of the East Providence City Council rejected a request from the administration of Mayor Bob DaSilva to institute a gift card program as a means of dispersing some monies into the community from a Washington Bridge closure crisis relief package funded by the state.

According to the resolution, DaSilva was seeking the ability to contract with Yiftee, Inc., a California-based vendor with employees located in Massachusetts, "to Administer a Community Gift Card Program Related to the Washington Bridge Closure."

The administration proposed using half ($600,000) of the $1.2 million earmark to East Providence from a pool of state money addressing the closure for the gift card program. The funding was approved in the 2024 session by the Rhode Island General Assembly and actually doubled the initial allocation of $1.3 million suggested by the governor's office.

The city would have paid Yiftee a total of $74,426, $25,000 of which was direct compensation to the company with the remainder used to run the effort.

The proposal was to give $50 gift certificates to spend at "registered small businesses" in the area to certain city residents in a specific "low and moderate income census tracts as determined by the United States Census Bureau" comprised of approximately 8,071 households, mostly in the areas of Warren and Taunton Avenues and Broadway at the points of ingress and egress to Interstate 195 and the bridge.

The administration issued a Request for Proposal on the matter back in June. Yiftee was one of two respondents. The other, Rellevate, Inc. in Connecticut, submitted a bid of $80,306.45.

A total of $2.6 million was included in the Assembly aid package, derived from the state's remaining federal COVID-19 pandemic American Rescue Plan Act funds, with the other most sizable chunk of $800,000 provided to Providence. The remaining $600,000 will be available to small businesses statewide.

The Council, by a 4-1 vote, rejected the mayor's proposal. Ward 1 member Frank Rego, Ward 2's Anna Sousa and Ward 4's Rick Lawson were joined by At-Large member and body president Bob Rodericks in opposition. Ward 3 member Frank Fogarty was the lone affirmative vote.

To a person, those opposed said they wanted the funds to go directly into the hands of small businesses affected by the bridge closure while Fogarty said he did not have an issue with giving residents the money to spend at their discretion.

Earlier this week at a press avail in East Providence, Gov. Dan McKee and Rhode Island Secretary of Commerce Liz Tanner formally introduced the overall grant program, which, in fact, does allow for businesses of a specific scale to apply for relief. It allows owners of appropriate-sized businesses to apply for grants ranging from $500, $1,000 and $2,500.

"I was advocating for more money in general," Providence Mayor Brett Smylie said at the event Monday morning, Sept. 9. "The entire pot of money is relatively modest. But what I heard from business owners is something is better than nothing. That's certainly how I feel. I'm grateful the General Assembly actually increased the total pool of grants beyond what the governor had initially proposed. And, so, it's a start."

Eileen Harvey, owner of Skeff's Pub located on North Broadway, spoke before the Council earlier this year during the heart of the closure crisis last winter.

Asked later in the day September 9 about the mayor's gift card proposal, she said, "I don't under how the gift card thing would have worked. I don't know the details, so it's hard for me to comment on that, but what I do know about gift cards, that people outside industry don't often realize, is that those customers don't usually come back and they seldom tip. That's been my experience and other people I speak to it's been their experience as well. I think maybe the intention was good, but in practice I don't know how it would work."

Harvey, as she did in her earlier remarks to the Council, said the grant program reminded her of the COVID-19 crisis and that the solutions were also tied to how the public and private sectors interacted during that response.

She suggested using the same formula state and federal agencies did to dispense monies then, which was based on the number of employees at a business and off a percentage of its losses.

Skeff's employs 12 people at any given time And since the closure on December 11, 2023, Harvey said Skeff's has lost between 30-40% of its income, and that does not include revenue the pub didn't earn from a host of holiday parties cancelled late last year once the bridge was shuttered.

"The bottom line is, what, the most you can get is $2,500 and it's based on 10 percent of your losses? Well, we lost a helluva lot more than $2,500, well over 10 percent. And my losses are a helluva lot more than someone else's, and someone else's is a helluva lot more than mine. While anything we can get is appreciated, we'll still catching up. The $2,500 is a like a piss hole in the snow," Harvey added.

Harvey acknowledged the traffic situation is much better since the eastbound side of the bridge was opened to traffic in both directions during the spring. However, Skeff's and many like it were moving into their "slow months" in the late spring and summer. They fell "into deficits because you lost all that revenue," which they will only now start to recoup.

"Everyone wanted to go to Warren or Bristol, to be by the water," Harvey said. "No one wants to sit outside and have a drink watching traffic on North Broadway."

Providence was out immediately with a link on its city website to the program, the parameters of which included the following: "Eligible small businesses in Providence can now apply for grants that range from $500 to $2500 on a first-come, first-served basis. To qualify, businesses must be physically located in Providence, have experienced a revenue loss of at least $500 and 10% due to the bridge closure and meet other criteria, including a maximum of $2 million in gross receipts. This funding is open to for-profit businesses and non-profit entities established in Rhode Island before June 1, 2023."

Providence's application process was set to go live Tuesday, Sept. 10. Harvey said East Providence businesses were also told to begin applying for the grants as well on Tuesday, but through the RICommerce website, https://commerceri.com.