To the editor:

Thank you to the Bristol Phoenix for the opportunity to speak to voters. Since joining the Bristol Town Council in 2018 we have accomplished a great deal, and real challenges are still ahead of us.

The most important of those is affordability, and doing something about it while still delivering the quality of services residents expect. My philosophy is simple. If this is where you grew up, you should be able to afford to live here. That is why I will continue to support requiring new developments to include income-based units, and why I will continue to support our homestead tax exemption, which gives property tax relief to the people who actually live here.

Schools are roughly 42 percent of our town budget, which makes school funding the largest decision this council makes each year. I have voted to fully fund our schools every year I have served. I also served on the committee that brought us a new school building, with 83 percent of the cost covered by the state.

Environmental protection matters to me both for the residents living here today and the next generation of residents. I have consistently supported infrastructure projects that build nature into their design, and the acquisition of open space. I do not support data centers in Bristol. They bring noise, pollution, nuisances, and intensive use of water and energy that we do not have the capacity to absorb.

I voted against installing a Rhode Island State Police Flock surveillance camera in Bristol. It uses artificial intelligence to scan and store information on the millions of vehicles that cross the Mount Hope Bridge each year, and it came to us with no statewide statute governing its use and no transparency dashboard. A local ordinance did pass, but it reaches only our own police department. The state police own the camera, control the data, and decide who can see it. That is why I regrouped and worked with the ACLU and with residents to strengthen the auditing requirements, require a public log of searches, and limit who has access. Those proposals failed too, but I will keep pushing for them, because control over powerful technologies is central to accountability in a democracy.

Transparency matters in the same way. This year our town went to federal court to obtain a routine safety inspection report on the Mount Hope Bridge. Residents should not need a lawsuit to learn the condition of a bridge they drive across every day, and I will keep working with my colleagues to make these reports public as a matter of course.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve. I bring the same rigor to this council that I bring to directing the Master of Public Administration program at the University of Rhode Island, and you will always know where I stand on the issues that come before our town.

Aaron J. Ley
Bristol

Aaron J. Ley is running for reelection to the Bristol Town Council.