Justin, I wonder the very same thing as to where is the outrage? It is people who read/write/contribute to Anchor Rising, who listen to talk radio, who read Projo, who take an ACTIVE interest in their community, that ARE outraged every day of the corruption in RI.

It is those people that sit back, fat and dumb in front of their TV sets, being spoon fed the Entertainment Tonight form of news, that go along to get along and throw their hands up in submission and VOTE, yes VOTE, for the very same people that make us pull out hair out at night.

Fed up with Cicilline? You bet and I hope there's a shred of evidence that will topple King David and cause him to fall off the shoulders of Chief Shiny Badge.

Yeah, in this state that's like standing in the ocean and yelling out, "I hate these waves! I'm so sick of waves coming in over and over again. I'm going to tell all my friends to help me do something about it!"

Yep, the gov't is corrupt, a few of us care, but when 1 in 6 are paid by the state, why in the world are they going to say anything? An even greater number is either related to or friends with someone being paid by the state and won't want to rock that boat. It's pretty disgusting.

Exactly where, Justin, is the "corruption" with respect to Cicilline?

Umm..folks elected a criminal defense lawyer whose father was a top mob lawyer. And they only elected him because the guy they REALLY wanted to elect was doing time in the federal pen.

Why is anyone suprised at this story?

Can't fault your logic Anthony.

Rhode Island gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "mob rule."

Pragmatist, it appears that city officials gave preferential treatment to Cicilline's brother after he cut the fradulent $75,000 check to the city.

If Cicilline knew about the situation and allowed the preferential treatment to occur, it would be a form of corruption.

Still alot of contradictory information, though.

Anthony,

I suppose if you have an extremely broad notion of "corruption", this might qualify, but it's a real stretch on what we know so far and pales in comparison to what we are used to around here.

1. The only evidence we have about the mayor's knowledge is Bizzacco's contradicted statement. And even Bizzacco says that the mayor simply said "take care of it." I don't see what is wrong with the mayor's response. He had his top two deputies in the room, and instead of intervening in a family matter, he instructed them to take care of it. Seems like the right response to me. Was he supposed to call his brother? That would trouble me more.

2. We don't know whether city officials gave John Cicilline "preferential" treatment. We know that they attempted to get him to pay a debt. For a number of months, they tried to settle the matter, and were not successful. Other than the fact that the mayor's top deputies were involved, it doesn't strike me as very odd that they chased a debtor for a while. How many other cases are like it? Dozens is my guess.

3. Even if officials gave John Cicilline "preferential" treatment by not taking more aggressive action to collect, I don't see a crime here on the part of anyone in the city administration.

Maybe there is more to the story that we have yet to learn, but so far, it's a PR embarrasment, but not much more than that.

Pragmatist:
Anyone who doesn't see the corruption from top to bottom in the fat perverted freak's 6 years is suffering from willfull blindness.
Talk to real citizens. Get out of your circle of Millionaire Marxists and Rectum Romeos and you will see this freak of nature has as much chance of getting elected statewide as Craig Price or (more to the point) Marco Ris.

Pragmatist,

The issue of Felix Garcia's tax-lien being lifted, without it being paid for, is the corruption angle that's hard to ignore.

Why wasn't the lien restored when it became obvious the money wasn't there?

Andrew,

Why the lien was lifted is easy. Because the city thought it had a collateral payment.

Why it wasn't reinstated is more difficult, but bureaucratic inertia is a far easier conclusion to reach than "corruption."

Corruption by whom? The mayor? No evidence of that at all. His immediate staff? Doesn't look like it. Was there an allegation of a quid pro quo I missed?

Pragmatist,the lien wasn't restored because Garcia transferred the property to him personally and thus eliminated the entity in arrears.The clock now begins again on the newly titled,yet same,property and the City is out $75k plus interest.Does no one not understand this ? Further,knowledge of a crime ( a check drawn on an acct. with insufficient funds ) and not reporting it is a crime in and of itself.

Pragmatist,

Do you think it's standard-opertating-procedure for the city to release a lien, before even a promised partial payment has actually been made? If this is common practice, the City of Providence should let the public know, and some of the appearance of corruption would go away.

But not all.

By February of 2007 at the absolute latest, the lien should have been restored, yet the property was transferred in May 2007. Why didn't the city reinstate the lien after Feb 2007? (This to me is the strangest part of the affadavit; it describes repeated instructions from above not to cash the check, but never any instructions not to reinstate the lien. Are we to believe that Robert Ceprano, on his own, made a decision to let the matter drop and not to reinstate the lien?)

And even if Ceprano did make that decision on his own, is there any review made by the city's finance department of changes in lien-money owed to the city versus lien-money collected from the city? Was there somebody in city government, other than Ceprano, who should have been aware of a $98,000 difference in those two figures, regardless of what was going on with the $75,000 checks? Or does the City not track its finances closely enough to catch something like this.

Very good questions, Andrew. Who was giving the order not to deposit that check?

Further:

"Do you think it's standard-opertating-procedure for the city to release a lien, before even a promised partial payment has actually been made? If this is common practice, the City of Providence should let the public know, and some of the appearance of corruption would go away."

Oh, more than that. David Cicilline aside, if this is not the only time that the Tax Collection Dept has gone easy on a tax payer [note to anyone who knows of other instances: there are lots of ways of reporting this anonymously, including to your friends at Anchor Rising, and the State Police already have a foot in the door of City Hall], all federal and state monies to the city need to be frozen. Immediately. Tax dollars cannot go to a city which deliberately refuses - especially for political "I know da mayuh" reasons - to fully collect on its tax roll.