Justin Katz
During an interesting conversation, last night, a long-time Tiverton resident suggested to me that members of Tiverton Citizens for Change “don’t care about Tiverton.” The storyline is that we’re newcomers simply looking out for our own financial interests, as opposed to townies willing, I suppose, to put the town’s needs before their own. With a…
Well, here we are, at what’s sure to be a tense school committee meeting — as the teachers demand their retroactive pay and a handful of us concerned citizens try to explain that it would be insane to dig our financial hole deeper, with the state facing such a daunting task. You know it’s got…
From the masked Flash movie director who brought you the pre-election history lesson comes: RItanic!
Over the past few days, there seems to have been an upward ratchet in the amount of sarcasm. I’ve certainly been whacked with some in the comments sections and in personal email (especially from Tiverton teachers). This letter in today’s Providence Journal — even though I share its underlying frustration — makes me think that…
Be sure to take in RI Treasurer Frank Caprio’s infomercial-style ad proclaiming Rhode Island’s lack of sales tax on clothes. As the Providence Journal reports, the above-linked Web site is part of a broader campaign (and I don’t mean Caprio’s 2010 bid for governor): Through a billboard sign that went up yesterday morning on Route…
The really disheartening thing is that I don’t believe our elected officials have the intellectual or ideological framework to get us out of this: Rhode Island government is probably facing a deficit of $486 million for the fiscal year that begins next July 1. And the House fiscal office predicts that deficits will grow by…
As I admitted this morning, I haven’t been entirely sure where TransformRI fits into a complementary strategy for the advancement of reform in Rhode Island. Looking at the group’s Web site, my impression is that, beyond reinforcing grassroots efforts, the group’s role should be to liaise between the Republican Party and the various groups that…
Dear Tiverton School Committee members: It so happened that, the Friday before you’ll decide whether to approve the arbitrated teacher contract, my boss called me on the construction site to tell me that, after I take my five paid days of annual vacation this week, he and I will have to sit down and agree…
If the statewide election results accomplished anything, this year, it was to up the ante for pessimism in Rhode Island. Whereas we used to ask each other how bad things would have to get, here, before voters would begin to wake up, it is beginning to seem more realistic to ask whether the state can…
Travis Rowley has an op-ed in today’s Providence Journal responding to Bill Lynch’s attempt to redirect blame for Rhode Island’s economic collapse from his astonishingly dominant political party. Rowley makes one point that is critical to understanding the state’s predicament: There is not a conservative reform that a Republican governor can recommend without causing the…
