The Richmond Town Council voted to direct its solicitor to draft a written agreement charging Hopkinton $125,000 for one year of access to the Richmond Transfer Station, up from the $75,000 Hopkinton now pays.
The vote came at a joint meeting of the Richmond and Hopkinton town councils, according to the Richmond Town Council's published meeting recording. Richmond's motion carried on a roll-call vote, with Council President Samantha Wilcox and Council Member Daniel Madnick voting yes and one councilor voting no. Hopkinton's council then approved a matching motion by voice vote, directing its own solicitor to negotiate the same terms.
The agreement would be a memorandum of understanding — a written statement of terms between the two towns — set to run through the end of the current fiscal year, June 30, 2027. Neither council has approved a final document. Both councils must still vote on whatever the two solicitors produce.
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Hopkinton residents currently use the Richmond Transfer Station without paying a per-household sticker fee. Richmond residents do not pay one either. Under the agreement discussed, that stays the same for now: the $125,000 is a town-to-town payment, not a resident charge.
A separate sticker fee of roughly $25 was discussed for the future but was deliberately left out of the motion. The town administrator explained that a sticker fee must be adopted by ordinance, which requires a public hearing, and said the towns are already two months into the fiscal year. Wilcox said any such change would restore language that had previously been in Richmond's ordinance.
How the towns got here
Madnick said the Richmond council began examining the transfer station's finances in earnest in 2025 and concluded it was losing money at a rate the town could not absorb. He said Richmond first asked its administrator to negotiate a written agreement on November 4, 2025, and that Richmond received a counterproposal at its July 21 meeting. Madnick said there is currently no formal agreement between the towns beyond a 2022 arrangement in which Hopkinton stopped selling stickers and began paying $75,000 a year.
Richmond had asked for $150,000, a doubling of the current payment. Hopkinton countered at $100,000. The $125,000 figure splits that difference.
The debate over the numbers
Hopkinton's town manager questioned whether Richmond's data supported the request. He pointed to a chart in Richmond's memo listing fiscal 2026 costs of $367,724 and revenue of $300,100, and said a separate sheet in the same packet listed revenue of $375,100 — a difference equal to Hopkinton's $75,000 payment. Read that way, he said, the station ran a surplus. He also noted that Richmond raised its own transfer station fees in January, and argued the town had not yet seen a full year of that revenue before asking for more.
He questioned line items as well, saying equipment maintenance was budgeted at $40,000 for the coming year after actual spending of $10,875 in fiscal 2025 and just under $17,000 in fiscal 2026.
Richmond's town administrator acknowledged that the earlier figures shared with Hopkinton did not include all public works salaries, benefits, or capital costs, and said a corrected chart was prepared. She said the station has not seen significant infrastructure work in more than five years.
Usage, staffing and rejected loads
The towns also could not fully agree on how much each uses the facility. Richmond tracks red stickers for Hopkinton residents and black stickers for Richmond residents, and estimated 2,400 to 2,800 Hopkinton stickers issued. A Hopkinton councilor said stickers are a poor measure of use because they are free, and said that when Hopkinton residents used Westerly, roughly 75% of them relied on private haulers. Richmond's administrator said staff have been counting stickers at the gate for several weeks and see roughly a 45% to 50% Hopkinton share, with Richmond use also rising as residents look for a cheaper alternative to private pickup.
She said weekly hauling has grown from about five loads in 2022 to 13 to 15 now, and 16 on holiday weekends, at $247 per load for recyclables the town collects for free. Staffing has grown from one worker to three, with a need for a third on weekends. She said the state charges Richmond a $250 administrative fee for each rejected load and that the town has had about 10 this year, often because rain soaks cardboard or because trash gets mixed into recycling when no one is watching. Both councils agreed rejected loads are not caused by Hopkinton specifically.
A tense exchange
The discussion turned sharp. One Richmond councilor repeatedly argued the town cannot afford to "float" Hopkinton and twice asked why Hopkinton does not build its own transfer station. Hopkinton's manager replied that it is a policy choice for his council and that such a facility cannot be built quickly. Wilcox twice called points of order to keep the discussion off the schools, the water line and a community center, and at one point asked members to calm down and route comments through the chair. She also disputed the framing that Richmond gains nothing, saying Hopkinton residents driving into town also shop at local businesses, including the Ace Hardware in Richmond rather than the one in Westerly.
What happens next
The two solicitors are to draft the memorandum for both councils to vote on at upcoming meetings. Richmond's administrator said February is the right month for both towns to reopen the number, since by then Richmond will have close to a full year of revenue under its new fee schedule and both towns will be entering budget season. Madnick said Richmond will need to cover the $25,000 gap between the $150,000 it sought and the $125,000 agreed to, possibly from fund balance or by trimming operating expenses, noting the budget was adopted with a tax levy increase of 3.97%, at the state cap.
Any sticker fee would require a separate ordinance change and a public hearing. Wilcox said Richmond advertises those hearings in the Westerly Sun and through its notification system, and asked Hopkinton to post notice as well so its residents can comment.