Steph Smyth, a candidate for Newport City Council At-Large, is running on a platform of increased community engagement and transparency in local government.
In an interview with What'sUpNewp on Thursday, October 3, Smyth outlined her vision for leveraging existing resources and creating new avenues for resident participation to address Newport's most pressing issues.
Smyth, who narrowly missed winning a council seat in 2022, brings a background in government contracting and union work to her campaign. She currently works in the contracts department at the Naval War College.
"I've seen Newport evolve over my past 50 years here," Smyth said. "Over the past ten years, I think that we've sort of hit a point where the residents, specifically your middle to lower income residents, along with your retirement age senior residents who are on a fixed income, that Newport has changed dramatically for them."
Smyth believes her experience in government contracting and process improvement could benefit the city. "I think that the city can learn a lot from how the federal government does contracts," she said. "I've seen a lot of the requests for proposals and contracts come down the pike the past couple of years. And I feel as though there's a great opportunity to help the city save some money and to get more competitive contracts out there that does cater to more local small businesses."
One of Smyth's key proposals is to better utilize the city's boards and commissions. "Our city council doesn't leverage the resources that they have enough," she said. "There's a lot of subject matter experts that are on those boards and commissions that aren't solicited enough for their research and their opinion on how to handle some of these issues."
She also advocates for partnering with local educational institutions like Salve Regina University, Community College of Rhode Island, the Naval War College, and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center to address city challenges.
Smyth supports the creation of new commissions to tackle specific issues, including a housing commission and a more active travel and tourism commission. She also proposes establishing a permanent charter review commission to keep the city's governing document up to date.
"Newport has grown so substantially, and yet our city government has not grown with it," Smyth said. "And that is a good portion of the problem."
On the issue of short-term rentals, Smyth calls for a balanced approach. "I am all for owner-occupied short-term rentals," she said. "There are individuals out there that this is what is helping them stay in their homes as a second job or they're caring for family members that are ill and this is how they're able to stay in their home in Newport."
However, she opposes out-of-state businesses buying multiple properties for short-term rentals. Smyth suggests exploring incentives for landlords to maintain year-round rentals.
Regarding education, Smyth emphasized the need for better cooperation between the city council and school committee. "Council and school committee does need to learn how to work together because you can't have a lot of this, this infighting or the show me the test scores and I'll show you the money mentality," she said.
Smyth also addressed Newport's infrastructure challenges, noting that many issues have been deferred for too long. "When you keep pushing something off to the side because it isn't urgent right now, well, yeah, in 5, 10 or 15 years, it is going to become such an urgent issue that something that you could have, say, you know, paid $20,000 to fix 30 years ago, now you're looking at the millions to fix it," she said.
If elected, Smyth plans to serve two terms, focusing on putting processes in place to address long-term challenges. She hopes her campaign will inspire more Newport residents to get involved in local government.
"I want people to be able to say, you know what? I want to get more involved," Smyth said. "I think that we need to have a sort of mentorship process for candidates that those who have walked that line, that have done it and either, you know, like myself, come close the last time or have succeeded, that can be able to say to somebody who's interested in running, okay, you know, here's a, b and c, and this is how you can start off."
In closing, Smyth highlighted her commitment to serving the community, saying, "This is how I can help. This is how I want to help. Put me to work. I want to work for you".
Early voting begins Oct. 16, with the general election scheduled for Nov. 5.
Watch The Conversation
Newport City Council candidate Steph Smyth aims to bridge gap between city and residents