Thanks for stopping by for my weekly column. Another hectic Friday, so we’ll keep the preliminaries short while continuing to welcome your attention on the twitters. Here we go.
1. Another week, a bunch of pension settlement votes, and still no clarity on what it all means. During an appearance this week on RI Public Radio’s Political Roundtable, former state Supreme Court justice Robert G. Flanders Jr. backed the conventional view — that the state maintains the upper hand if the pension dispute goes to trial. “I frankly think that it’s a stretch to conclude that a statute is tantamount to a contract,” Flanders said. Even Robert Walsh, one of Rhode Island’s most astute union officials, told his membership that the public sector is unlikely to win in court. Yet the pension fight is an emotional matter for many union members, and that helps explain why some union locals have voted down the proposed settlement. So what’s the criteria for determining whether the settlement takes effect or not, and how was it arrived at? For now, we can only wonder, due to the gag order imposed by Superior Court Judge Sarah Taft-Carter.
2. Providence lawyer James Skeffington, the new president of the PawSox, is pushing back at questions about whether a new privately financed ballpark would detract from attempts to bring high-wage jobs to the former I-195 land. “The land that we’re talking about that we have targeted as a potential site for a ballpark is a portion of the land they had set aside for passive recreation,” Skeffington said in an interview that will air Monday morning on RI Public Radio. “So this isn’t the land that was designed or intended to generate new jobs of high-paying nature, bio-med fields, for example — it’s the land across the street from this site. The potential site that we’re talking about for the development of a ballpark should enhance the prospects of attracting the kind of bio-med/life science industries that we want to have in Rhode Island that pay such great wages. In fact, I have received reports from developers who are considering introducing proposals to develop that land across the street for the very type of jobs that we had all envisioned when they talked about the 195 redeployment. They’re very excited about the idea of having a ballpark right across the street because that’s the kind of environment that companies are interested in seeing around those types of parks.”
3. Of course, the merits of a PawSox ballpark in Providence can’t really be vetted in the absence of a formal proposal. Skeffington said the team’s new ownership group is still conducting its due-diligence, examining questions such as whether a storm water treatment facility beneath the site is compatible with a ballpark. Skeffington, who said he has had a series of what he called information meetings with Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor and I-195 Redevelopment District chairman Joseph Azrack, expects the evaluation process to end in two to three weeks. “We have looked at other sites in Providence,” he added. “We’ve looked at the ones that are available and we haven’t found any site that would be suitable for us at this time except for the one we’ve identified, and that’s why it’s number one on our list. And if for any reason we can’t build it there, then we’ll have to start talking about a Plan B …. looking at other alternatives to that site, in-state and out-of-state.”
4. One of the firms the new PawSox ownership is working with on its envisioned downtown ballpark is the architecture outfit Populous, which has offices across the globe and a record of work on professional sports venues including ballparks and arenas.
5. Reporters don’t like gag orders. The Rhode Island Press Association doesn’t, either. And according to Robert Flanders, who declined to comment specifically on the restriction in the pension case, “Gag orders in general are disfavored, because they are a prior restraint on free speech. So any time you impose a prior restraint, it should come under the strictest scrutiny. And in the case of the press, it really does put limits on where they can get information. I mean, after all, the best source of information in these cases is typically the lawyers in the case — the people, the parties who know what’s going on. And so it has implications for the press’ ability to report accurately on what’s going on here.”
6. Flanders still has doubts about whether Providence can fix its financial problems without going into bankruptcy. Back in 2012, then-Mayor Angel Taveras didn’t appreciate Flanders’ candor when he spoke out on the subject.Asked this week during RI Public Radio’s Bonus Q+A if his concern remains, Flanders said (at about 2:27), “I really feel that the problems have not been solved in Providence. I think, unfortunately, the Mission Accomplished banner shouldn’t be raised there, because I think there’s still a lot of issues. The idea that they could have an 8.25 percent assumed return on their pension is really contrary to reality. I think we’re going to see some real problems as the Elorza administration tries to come to grips with that situation.”
7. With the House Finance Committee set to begin its review of FY16 budget articles next Tuesday, the battle will heat up over Governor Gina Raimondo’s first spending plan. The so-called “Taylor Swift tax” has attracted scorn near and far (National Mortgage Professional Magazine gives conservative writer Justin Katz a shout-out for noting how the tax would yield the relatively paltry sum of about $43,000 from Swift). Yet RI AFL-CIO President George Nee and Democratic activist Don Sweitzer took to the ProJo’s op-ed page to hail Raimondo’s budget as something that will spark RI’s economy. Could there be a link between Nee’s plaudits and how the governor’s budget books $22 million in assumed savings from raises promised to state employees?
8. Congratulations and best wishes to Tim Murphy, retiring today from his post as politics/PolitiFact RI editor. Our own former ProJo scribe Scott MacKay calls Murphy “one of those rare journalists who was a great mix of reporter and writer; fast, accurate and eloquent. He has served in a number of important roles at the ProJo in a career that has spanned three decades, including South County bureau manager, regional editor and editor in the Fountain Street newsroom. In every job he had, Tim was a journalist of dedication, integrity and intelligence. He always treated reporters with respect and was a fabulous editor to work for. I always found him to be unflappable in the face of deadline pressure; he was one of those editors you wanted in the room on election night, or during a hurricane. He will be sorely missed by his colleagues and, perhaps more importantly, ProJo readers.” Meanwhile, with Murphy’s departure, the question remains: what happens to PolitiFact?
9. Some highlights from my RIPR colleagues: John Bender reports on a step against blighted housing in Providence …. Scott MacKay talks wth Providence’s Jack Partridge about his new book …. and Kristin Gourlay has an exit interview with former state Health Department director, Dr. Michael Fine.
10. This past Wednesday marked the one-year anniversary of when House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello ascended to what is commonly called Rhode Island’s most powerful political post. With his stated focus on jobs and the economy — and unquestioned control of the 75-member chamber — the Cranston Democrat has had a strong run in his first 12 months. (Strikingly, the editorial page of the ProJo recently expressed hope that Mattiello will rein in what it considered the worst parts of the governor’s budget.) For now, Mattiello’s political future remains an open book. Time will tell whether he can succeed in emulating his friend, former speaker William Murphy — the rare example in recent RI history of a legislative leader able to leave on his own terms without suffering a hubris-laden downfall (or worse).
11. Check out this classic photo of former WJAR-TV investigative reporter Jim Taricani, along with RIPR’s All Things Considered host Dave Fallon, from when they were working at WEAN way back in 1977.
12. Margaux Morisseau, a leader in the recent fight against payday lending in Rhode Island, praised the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposal this week on payday lending, but said via a statement that it “also includes a gaping loophole that in essence puts a government stamp of approval on unaffordable back-to-back loans with interest rates that average near 400 percent.”
13. Senator Jack Reed will keep gaining in seniority — the coin of the realm in the chamber — with the exit of Harry Reid.
14. Besides being a lawyer, former Central Falls receiver, and former state Supreme Court justice, (and for the Tigers, a minor league baseball player), Robert Flanders is also a former chairman of the state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education, and he was on the board when Deborah Gist was hired. So we asked Flanders a few education questions during his time on RIPR’s Bonus Q+A. He said he still thinks charter schools have a role to play as experimental models to come up with innovative approaches. As far as moving public education forward after Gist’s departure, “First and foremost we have to get a terrific leader in that position,” Flanders said. “We wanted her to be a change agent, we wanted her to push the envelope.” He credits Gist with taking on the role of change agent — at a significant personal cost — even if many of the same challenges remain.
15. Interesting Read, Number One: Jack Shafer on how Facebook wants The New York Times, BuzzFeed and other media entities to make agreements putting their pages inside FB’s apps, Excerpt: “Publishers who crave independence must be asking themselves if they can afford not to make a deal with Facebook. Just a tiny modification of the Facebook algorithm can smother a site’s performance in the News Feed. Facebook may be just too dominant to buck. But is its dominance forever? Time and technology has a way of ousting the incumbent firms from their pedestals. Yahoo, MySpace, Alta Vista, StumbleUpon, GeoCities, Digg, Lycos, Excite, Blue Mountain Arts, and Xoom come to mind. Oh, yeah, AOL, too! I don’t recall when Slate stopped paying AOL for a place inside its walled garden, but the deal didn’t last long. The rise of broadband in the late 1990s was fracturing AOL’s market power, making the company’s dial-up system seem like a Fisher-Price toy.”
16. Interesting Read, Number Two: Some perspective, via the NYT, on our present information overload: “At least since the heyday of ancient Greece and Rome, each generation has confronted the overwhelming struggle to search, sift and sort growing piles of information to make what is known useful. ‘Papyrus, print or petabyte — the history of feeling overwhelmed by information always seems to go back further than the latest technology.’ said Seth Rudy, a professor of English literature at Rhodes College who explores this phenomenon in his new book, ‘Literature and Encyclopedism in Enlightenment Britain: The Pursuit of Complete Knowledge.’ ‘The sense that there is too much to know has been felt for hundreds, even thousands, of years.’ ”
17. Just 10 days until Opening Day for your 2015 Boston Red Sox. Backed by an improved offense and uncertain pitching, the BoSox open the season in Philadelphia. No time like the present to stock up on hot dogs and beer, right?
