Monique Chartier
In an excellent post at Legal Insurrection entitled “What Did Former Providence Mayor David Cicilline (D-RI) Know, And When Did He Know It?”, William Jacobson points out, among other interesting items, that David Cicilline was endorsed by the Providence Journal. One’s initial reaction is, sure, they endorsed him; he was the Dem candidate. And this…
Yes, for six months, David Cicilline, you willfully withheld from the City’s Internal Auditor financial documents. Yes, James Lombardi – an auditor for the City of Providence, not some meddling outsider – had to file a public information request under the state’s open records law (!) in order to obtain from your administration the documents…
When a new audit confirmed last month that David Cicilline had depleted Providence’s reserve fund, he defended the action, saying We had to make some difficult choices, people can disagree with those to accomplish a balanced budget, I believe those were the right choices in terms of protecting services and balancing all the equities. Then-Mayor…
Providence’s Mayor Angel Taveras “blasted” the following last night to his e-list. [Note to NBC Nightly News correspondent Kevin Tibbles: painful as it may be to admit, Mayor Taveras is a (D), not an (R).] Mayor Taveras’ affirmation of a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers as well as his reminder of our collective “moral responsibility” to…
Copied below is an excellent analysis compiled by John (under this post). To it, I would append one item – an additional culpable party: decades of elected officials who possessed the power to implement realistic benefits for tens of thousands of public employees and chose, instead, to further their own selfish political ends by making…
Normally, it would have been big enough news that the magnitude of Rhode Island’s unfunded pension liability is such that it made PBS’s NewsHour (tonight, best I can tell). This has been completely dwarfed, however, by some remarkable statements made during the program by Rhode Island’s General Treasurer. [NewsHour Economics Correspondent] PAUL SOLMAN: So, what’s…
Further to Marc’s post, David Brooks outlined additional differences between public and private labor unions in a piece Tuesday about the Wisconsin situation. Private sector unions push against the interests of shareholders and management; public sector unions push against the interests of taxpayers. Private sector union members know that their employers could go out of…
From the AP via Turn to Ten. Rhode Island’s U.S. senators are asking that part of the $2.5 billion in funding for Florida’s high-speed rail projects be redirected to their state after Florida’s governor turned down the money earlier this week. See, there was a reason Florida turned down that money, a reason that the…
The protests at Wisconsin’s capitol have been carried out for the children. Truly! Just ask the Reverend Jackson and the protesters. Speaking to a near-capacity crowd from the second level of the Capitol rotunda, the civil rights activist [Jesse Jackson] led protesters in chants of “Save the teachers. Save the children.” Protesters swayed as Jackson…
It is now being reported that, in exchange for leaving inviolate collective bargaining rights, Wisconsin’s public labor unions are purportedly ready to discuss monetary concessions. Some newspapers have reported this development as full capituation by the unions on all matters of monetary compensation in the bill. (Let’s keep in mind that this would still place…