March 5, 2011
Cicilline on Defense
Rep. David Cicilline is in town and defending his record as Mayor of Providence, explaining to the ProJo that he cut hundreds of jobs, renegotiated benefits and took other steps to mitigate budget deficits, including tapping into the reserve fund.
If you have groceries that cost $500 a month and this month groceries cost $600 and you take $100 from your savings, you don’t have a deficit...You use some of your savings to pay your groceries; you don’t owe the grocery store more money.Except if you're forced to do that month after month and then your savings runs dry....or if rich uncle Leo (the Federal Gov't) stops sending you the checks...well, you get what we've got right here, and I don't like anymore than you (so to speak).
The fact of the matter is that while Cicilline did take steps to cut costs it was no where near enough to what was required. He's not alone in this. Across the state and nation, political leaders took longer to adjust to the new austerity than was necessary because they hoped for magic bailouts or that things would turn around. It didn't happen and many were voted out of office because of it. David Cicilline got a promotion.
"David Cicilline got a promotion."
For now...
Posted by: Patrick at March 5, 2011 9:24 AMMalfeasance isn't a criminal offense,and I certainly am not qualified to know if his deceptive behavior regarding the bond issue is a crime or not.
What I do know is that the Projo backed up his leis as the truth and performed a character assassination on John Loughlin during the campaign for Congress.
NOW the Projo wants to look into things?BS.They're still in the tank for this little prick.
"Cicilline did take steps to cut costs"
Come on Marc.
Where did this sociopathic little freak make cuts?
Is the city not spending MORE now for teachers, cops, firemen, public works, legal, spokesmen, health care, pensions, etc. now then when the Big Bad Wolf left in 2002?
Gayvid is a failure in every category above.
One part of this story that I've heard a couple of times is that Cicilline prevented the City Auditor from having access to the city's financial data. If that's not a crime, it most certainly should be. If it is a crime, then the State Police should be all over it.
Posted by: George at March 5, 2011 7:38 PMMarc,
With all due respect, in my view Cicilline did not make any serious efforts to cut costs. To the contrary, he spent wildly and irresponsibly on himself (e.g., his endless and expensive personal security details), his family (e.g., the $400K+ "study" by KPMG that he had the city pay to suggest that he was unaware of his brother's bad-check scheme), and his supporters (e.g., the twice-normal salary and benefits that had the city pay to Police Chief Esserman, for apparently improper purposes I won't elaborate on here). Moreover, Cicilline could have put the pension system in the black, early on, if he'd followed the advice of Jim Lombardi (Internal Auditor), who recommended a pension obligations bond. Other examples: exorbitant fees paid for years to ineffective outside arbitration lawyers, exorbitant fees to lobbyists for the city. I could go on and on. To me, sociopath is the kindest of many of the descriptions that come to mind. No politeness to is warranted here to the former mayor or to his knowing enablers (such as the Projo).
Posted by: Bill at March 8, 2011 3:54 PM