Rhode Island Politics
One wonders whether Senate Democrat Doyenne Teresa Paiva Weed feels that this came out wrong: But while House leaders have declared themselves in support of the move [to require legislators to contribute to their healthcare costs], which has both financial and symbolic significance in a year when the state is facing a huge deficit and…
The appraisals which justified and, therefore, facilitated the purchase of wet, polluted, unusable land from former Mayor William Macera (D-Johnston) and his family by the RIRRC, aka the Central Landfill, for many times its actual value. Mike Stanton reported in Sunday’s Providence Journal: Resource Recovery paid $163,000 an acre for the property, the current audit…
Allan Fung, former Cranston citywide Councilman who lost a 2006 Mayoral bid to current mayor Michael Napolitano by less than 100 votes, announced last evening his intention to run for Mayor of Cranston again this year; here are a few excerpts from his announcement address…Tonight, we stand here two years and a world apart from…
The state of Rhode Island is in a deep financial crisis. Resolving its large budget deficits will require real and significant structural changes to the status quo. The status quo was best summed up in a passing comment by Representative Gorham last night on the Matt Allen show: Gorham talked about how the state budget…
On the Tuesday evening Matt Allen WPRO show, Matt interviewed State Representative and House Minority Whip Nick Gorham about Gorham’s bill H-7664, which would redefine the scope of issues subject to bargaining for RI public employees. During the interview, Gorham noted that there are very different approaches across the 50 states as to what issues…
When both Anchor Rising and RI Future agree on the merits of a piece of legislation, one would think passage through the House would be a no-brainer, no? I haven’t seen anyone who doesn’t agree with Rep. Nick Gorham’s Legislative Grant Sunshine Bill. It would require that all such grants: …must be included in the…
See, here’s the sort of proposal that illustrates that our legislators truly do not understand and/or are unwilling to address the structural problems that plague Rhode Island: After a lengthy debate, the House put off a vote on a bill sponsored by Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox, D-Providence, that would require all state public works…
The current news and politics atmosphere has something of the feel of a transition. We’re between the passage of the supplemental and the initial markers presaging the debate over next year’s budget. We’ve seen the parade of interested parties, and we’re well aware that discussion has returned to the back room. What’s next? Well, the…
It appears that Woonsocket Mayor Susan Menard has been channeling Richard Nixon. She had a secret recording operation set up in her office. The mayor has a concealed audio/video recording system installed in a credenza behind her desk in her City Hall office. The device recently came to light during a work session regarding the…
I tried to excerpt down Jim Baron‘s weekly column in today’s Woonsocket Call, but couldn’t find much to cut out. It’s worth fighting through the lack of proper spacing between paragraphs to read the whole thing.