Justin Katz
The topic is energy production, but the implications are much broader for the cast of characters who call Rhode Island, and New England, home. Exhibit A: The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has given final state approval to a Somerset power plant to use a new technology called coal plasma gasification. State environmental officials say…
Here’s how yesterday’s Peoples and Gregg production begins: Desperate to close the state’s largest budget deficit in modern history, former Gov. Bruce Sundlun did not wait for labor union leaders to come to his office to discuss the situation. The Democratic governor went to them. In 1991, several weeks after he was elected, Sundlun personally…
Mark Patinkin makes a reasonable point — one that is often leveled in an accusatory tone at conservatives: Stanley O’Neal, the ex-head of Merrill Lynch, was booted for losing billions betting on the garbage now known as sub-prime loans. His punishment? An estimated $161-million sendoff package. The issue isn’t even that he didn’t deserve it,…
The National Education Association couldn’t have asked for better coverage of the Tiverton School Committee meeting on Tuesday from the Providence Journal’s Gina Macris if the union had paid for it: Amid the continuing rancor over an unsettled teachers’ contract, School Committee member Leonard Wright injected a conciliatory tone. The town has high-performing schools and…
That it hits so close to home makes the omission that much more glaring, but Lynn Arditi’s article in yesterday’s Providence Journal about floundering Rhode Islanders leaves out a huge component of their plight: The Federal Reserve’s surprise rate cut yesterday came too late for Steven A. Bigelow. His home remodeling and carpentry business, which…
Something jumps out about this isolated parenthetical “correction” in today’s story about the state of the state address in the Providence Journal, by Katherine Gregg, Steve Peoples, and Cynthia Needham: With respect to state workers, he said: “The average state employee earns $61,000 per year in salary with fringe benefits valued at another $34,000 (a…
I didn’t see or hear Governor Carcieri’s state of the state speech last night, and I haven’t had a chance to catch up on my news reading, yet, so there’s not much that I can say about the specifics. (Of course, I suspect that anybody who follows the local news without the inherent denial of…
Although I missed the budget discussion, I’m glad that I stopped by the Tiverton Town Council meeting, because discussion of a particular contract for an administrative assistant turned into debate of the contract policy overall. (My money’s on the likelihood that the position will remain unfilled.) Some key highlights that councilors throughout Rhode Island ought…