Providence City Council President David Salvatore is calling on the web site GoLocalProv.com to return about $67,500 in ad revenue to the city, due to what Salvatore described as a questionable deal arranged before he became council president.
In a statement released by the council, Salvatore said the past advertising arrangement with GoLocalProv was uncovered through an audit.
Salvatore said the ad contract appeared to have been made to avoid the city’s competitive-bidding process. He said the deal called for GoLocalProv to provide former Council President Luis Aponte with “relevant information” and consult with him regularly. Salvatore said the arrangement was unnecessary since the city created a site for publicizing public meetings in 2013.
In a story on the site, GoLocal CEO Josh Fenton said GoLocal’s contract with the city ran from 2016 to 2018.
“We were asked to help increase the awareness about city meetings, the opportunity to bid on matters before the board of contract and supply and all other council related public meetings,” said Fenton, a former Providence city councilor. “GoLocal posted upwards of 500 meeting notices online and promoted them on social media and in the eblast”
But Salvatore said, “When you have the city paying for a service it doesn’t need, the deal appears to be set up to skirt city purchasing requirements, and the owner of the company is a former city councilman [GoLocal CEO Josh Fenton] who should know the rules, it raises serious questions as to whether this was a blatant attempt to defraud the city.”
Salvatore said he was calling for GoLocalProv “to return the funds it received from the city and make a full accounting of what kind of ‘relevant information’ it was providing to former Council President Aponte. Was he getting tipped off to stories related to Providence City Hall? Was there an understanding he would receive positive coverage in exchange for this contract? GoLocalProv needs to explain why it agreed to some sort of consultation deal as a part of what should have been a simple advertising contract.”
Fenton referred an inquiry to GoLocalProv’s coverage of the story, which describes Salvatore’s criticism as retribution for the web site’s coverage of the council president.
According to GoLocal’s story, “State House lobbyist and Providence City Council President David Salvatore is swiping back at GoLocal after the news organization wrote a story on Friday that raised questions about his dual role as a lobbyist for the RI Association of Realtors and his role as City Council President.”
The story continues: “Salvatore has repeatedly refused to voice an opinion on the largest private development project in the city of Providence since the Providence Place Mall — the Fane Tower, a mammoth 46-story residential real estate project.”
