Cranston Mayor Allan Fung announced last evening that he will seek a second term as Mayor. After he made his formal announcement, I had the opportunity to ask him a couple of quick questions…
Anchor Rising: Given your two-year track record, and what you’d like to accomplish, what’s the reason people should vote for you to be Mayor of Cranston again?
Cranston Mayor Allan Fung: “We’ve gotten a lot done in the short year-and-a-half that we’ve been in office, getting hard concessions from the unions, not only in monetary savings to the tune of about 12 million dollars from all of the bargaining units, but also structural changes, stuff that’s being talked about in every city and town in Rhode Island, from pensions and co-share increases to healthcare buybacks…I want to make sure that we have fiscal stability for generations to come…” (Audio, 1:00 min)
AR: At the state level, the magic word often being thrown around is “regionalization”. What does that mean to you?
AF: “I am a strong supporter of a lot of consolidation issues. Actually, we’ve done a lot of consolidation in the short time I’ve been in office. I’ve joined a healthcare collaborative that’s saved the cities hundreds of thousands of dollars on our healthcare administrative costs. I’ve been working with the city of Warwick on other types of consolidation of different departments that make sense for us…” (Audio, 1:30 min)
AR: Your two years as Mayor seem not to have produced a high-profile, establishment candidate on the Democratic side, at least not anyone who is admitting to it right now. Any comment on that?
AF: “The voters have a very big choice. They can vote for someone who has been here, leading in difficult times, not only in difficult budgetary times but also during the time of the floods…or we can go back to the old way…” (Audio, 0:52 min)