Priorities
I don't want Newport to be the next Nantucket with fewer year-round families left every year.
A Voice for Locals
In Newport, the tide has been going out for a while; all my life, I've been noticing that "the good old days" seem to be receding into memory. I'm expecting my first son in November, and I want this island to give him the childhood I was so blessed to have.
Newport has played host to everyone from founding fathers and aristocrats to navy sailors and tourists – no matter who comes and goes, there's been the Newport I've known on the Fifth Ward, and the Newport I want to fight for: the middle-class, year-round families who keep this island running and who make up the abiding character of our community.
If you share my desire to protect that community, then I humbly ask you to vote for Ian Billings Martins this November.
Family
My father gave me a copy of Thornton Wilder’s Theophilius North, where I read the legend of the nine cities of Newport. He accurately sums up our city, details its unique differences, and the people of all walks of life who share it. He saves the true heart of Newport for last: the "Ninth City" – the American middle-class town, the year-round families, who work here, have children and run shops. That is the city's heartbeat, which is weaker than it was even twenty years ago; I see the contrast even in my father Mike's stories about growing up on the Fifth Ward.
Newport has been a place to call home for generations, and I don't want to see vacationers supplant full-time families. I plan to support policies that encourage families to put down roots in Newport. If you take a look at how many kids trick or treat now and compare it to past generations, that's the canary in the coal mine that says we're losing our community.
Education
An expensive building doesn't make for a better education. In 2020, voters approved a $106 million bond for school construction, and the project was left to run over budget. It wasted a boon from the state, which had agreed to match every dollar up to $96 million, and left the city begging for tax money to make up the shortfall.
I commit to managing taxpayers' money responsibly and ensuring that the city council manages Newport's assets to leave our children in a better position.
Land and Housing
Local, year-round residents are the beating heart of this island, and we must protect their neighborhoods. In recent years, we’ve seen residential housing bought up, essentially commercialized, and rented out as gray-area businesses. We need clear laws against that practice and to enforce them vigorously.
Newport must give all advantages to year-round, residents and families.
Economy
To thrive, a destination city needs a strong economy independent of tourism, too. We need to produce real things again in Newport – goods that can be sold on international markets, as we did in centuries past. This town has never been a one-horse town – we made it big with sheep in the 1600s, shipping and manufacturing in the 1700s, and we make it big with tourism today; we must remain intelligent, resilient, and tough. The city needs to policies that support small businesses offering well-paying, year-round jobs and apprenticeships to skilled workers; that's the only way future generations will put down roots here and keep this the place we all love.
I want to ensure Newport offers middle-class jobs that keep the city prosperous even if tourism flags.
Community
No lifelong Newporter should be forced to sell and leave because taxes have outstripped a fixed income. I saw this happen firsthand in the Fifth Ward, when one of my regular customers had to sell the family house and move off the Island. She had kept and maintained it her whole life, only to feel forced out of a city she could barely recognize.
Transportation
Visitors are welcome to come and say hello, but we need to keep the city running smoothly when they do. Many an Islander dreads the summer because of the traffic, parking, and noise. We need to explore solutions such as Islander-only parking zones, visitor parking lots away from congested areas with a shuttle, and efficient public transport in town. The U.S. Senior Open offered a successful example this year – and both locals and visitors will breathe easier with less traffic.
It shouldn’t take 30 minutes to go to the grocery store when you live two miles away. That’s the simple truth.
Preserving Our Heritage
Living in a town boasting 400 years of history, we have a duty to think about how to breathe new life into the the city's assets. It’s shameful to let Coggeshall School, First Beach, and historic buildings go to ruin while we run over budget on new construction projects already costing hundreds of millions to the taxpayer.
Any city needs to spend money to maintain its infrastructure, but I pledge to take full advantage of the many assets Newport is blessed with before I ask the taxpayer to finance new projects.
Stewardship
We must protect Newport's unequaled beauty. The answers to larger environmental threats are beyond any city council, but if we’re to make any long-term investment, it should be in re-sanding our beaches and reinforcing our seawalls to keep our coastline unchanged for another century.
Focusing on tourists alone for our survival is not sustainable. We need to focus on growing and producing for ourselves once again. We have already lost so many rich, productive fields to vacation homes and over development; we must protect the open spaces that remain.