Patrick Laverty
Based on some Twitter chatter this morning, I learned that the property tax assessment letters are going out today in Providence. The citizens of our capital city are learning what value their homes and land will be taxed at. There is always some confusion as to what this means. First, the city should be using…
In today’s Providence Journal, Common Cause’s John Marion wrote a letter to the editor about the lack of leadership and democracy shown at the Statehouse by Speaker Gordon Fox. After State Rep. J. Patrick O’Neill made a motion to pass House Bill H 5498, got it seconded, and then got it passed, the Speaker and…
I had an interesting revelation when I was a teen and working in the stock room at my local JC Penney. When inventory arrived, I was to put the price tags on the items. The sheet that I was given to derive the prices from also had the store’s own cost for those items. The…
Yesterday, the Providence Journal also came out against the single party voting option, better known around here as the “master lever.” In the editorial, the Journal cites itself from another editorial written in 1948, describing the origins of the master lever. We note that the lever law passed under very dubious circumstances, after an all-night…
I have to admit, I’m torn on this one. The headlines and many people are screaming because Gov. Chafee wants to give two 3% raises to his cabinet members, just six months apart. Yeah, he wants to give more than a 6% raise, in less than a year to directors already making well into the…
This story sounds way too much like the long car trips when the kids in the back seat get on each others’ nerves enough to where the parent screams “Do I have to separate you two?!?” This might be necessary with the state’s Republican party. I’m sure by now, most Anchor Rising readers are familiar…
Baseball is a sport that is built on numbers. How many home runs a player has, how many strikeouts a pitcher has, his ERA or a hitter’s batting average. Most fans understand these numbers, how to figure them out and generally what they mean. A hitter who gets a hit three times out of ten…
According to Kim Kalunian’s story on 630WPRO.com, 30 out of 50 of the adult test takers received a score that wouldn’t allow them to graduate from high school. At least on the first try. However, what does that tell us? Does the correlation say that these people who scored poorly will not be a success…
I try to be an equal-opportunity curmudgeon, but when the General Assembly does some good, it’s only fair to point that out as well. Referred by a tip from Ian Donnis’ twitter feed I found out that Capitol TV is now available online, both streaming and archived video on demand. This is great for someone…
The movement to abolish the master lever, or more accurately in Rhode Island, abolish straight party voting (SPV) seems to be gaining steam. A couple days ago, Andrew wrote about the majority of the House Judiciary Committee is also in favor. Tomorrow night (Wednesday) at 4:30, the committee will hear public testimony on the bill.…
