Rhode Island Politics

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…

Here is Governor Carcieri’s prepared State of the State speech. The ProJo covers it and gets reaction from the usual suspects complaining about how the Governor isn’t working with them. “He says, ‘This is my agenda and everybody has to work on it.’ That’s a corporate approach. That’s one-side unilateral approach. That doesn’t work,” said…

William Felkner of the Ocean State Policy Research Institute appeared in the third segement of today’s Newsmakers to discuss the state budget. Felkner voiced the thought of many of us that while the Governor’s proposed initiatives in the supplemental budget are a good start, they may not go far enough. [Side note: there are rumors…

While we try to understand how a city can issue a Demolition Permit for an historic building, let’s take a look at the June 20, 2006, minutes of the State Properties Committee meeting at which the Purchase & Sale Agreement and the deed were approved, during which Chairman Jerome Williams repeatedly expressed concern that the…

In response to my inquiry to RI Senate President Joseph Montalbano as to the reason that “not one of the proposals that came out of last year’s [small-business economic] summit, including revisions to the stringent new fire code, made it into law,” Senate Director of Communications Greg Paré emailed that Senator William Walaska (D, Warwick)…

Kenny Cicerone, of North Providence, has caught the online-activism bug. His North Providence Taxpayers Association is seeking to file an ethics complaint against Senate President Joseph Montalbano “for being a municiple court judge in North Providence, where he solicits votes, and he was appointed as judge after voting to give the town council a raise…

Of the four General Assembly members whom I’ve contacted regarding the RI Economic Summit article in yesterday’s Projo, only Tiverton/Portsmouth Rep. Joe Amaral has gotten back to me. (That’s more a plus to him than a minus to the others, considering that it’s Sunday.) I’ll definitely say this: I was much too hard on him…

A growing grumble in the comments sections relates to the odd exclusion of Rhode Island state legislators from news coverage of events in the state, particular related to its looming collapse, and the accusation is certainly something worth watching. The print edition of a Providence Journal story about the latest annual meeting fo the RI…

During the commute home tonight (having worked some necessary overtime), I heard State Representative Joe Amaral — my representative — attempting to explain to Dan Yorke why he is the lone Republican in the House not promising to forgo the rub’n’tug grant system. His arguments were mostly about process and equity from town to town,…

On its face, making sure that the executive power is transferred to the Lt. Governor when the Governor can’t act (like when he’s in Iraq during an 8″ snow “storm”) is, well, a freaking good idea, no? But the problem is that there is a deeper root problem not being addressed by any of the…