Question of the Week: How does ill will in the body politic affect important policy issues? Read on for more on that, and thanks for stopping by for my weekly column. As usual, your tips and comments are welcome, and you can follow me through the week on the twitters. Here we go.
1) We’re fast approaching closing time for 2019; Thanksgiving is less than a fortnight away, followed by the gatherings, celebrations and commercialism associated with Christmas. So while politics rarely takes a holiday in Rhode Island, people and politicians tend to focus on other things in the waning weeks of the year. The bonhomie of seasonal gatherings could also prove a temporary distraction from the sour state of relations between Gov. Gina Raimondo and House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello. This type of relationship invariably waxes and wanes, but things took a turn for the worse after the most recent state budget. Hanging in the background is the case against former Mattiello campaign aide Jeff Britt — and the question of whether any other shoes will drop amid two ongoing grand juries, one state, one federal. (Mattiello has denied knowing until later about the underlying details involving the case against Britt.) For her part, Raimondo continues to share an upbeat message about Rhode Island’s future. During The Boston Globe’s Rhode Map Live on Thursday, she touted growing job numbers and said the state has the wind at its back. But the Ocean State still faces a litany of tough challenges, from improving under-performing public schools and cutting high property taxes, to shoring up under-funded retiree healthcare plans and building a stronger, more sustainable economy. And with the battle between IGT and Twin River set to dominate the early phase of the next General Assembly session, the question is: will the continuing conflict between Mattiello and Raimondo provide a healthy landscape for making sound policy choices?
2) Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 14 points in the traditionally Democratic town of Johnston in 2016, so it’s worth noting Mayor Joseph Polisena’s view of how televised impeachment hearings are playing in the town west of Providence. (Click here for NPR’s guide to key people, facts and documents in the impeachment process.) While Democrats maintain they have the goods on Trump, and Republicans characterize the case as weak, Polisena said the people with whom he speaks have a third view: “The people I speak with, most of them they’re working people — they’re just tired of the nonsense, because they seem to get nothing done in Washington,” Polisena said on Political Roundtable this week. “Whatever the president did, obviously, he’ll be found guilty, innocent, whatever, but they’re upset. People have told me that it seems like he could discover a cure for whatever and they’d go after him. So a lot of people are angry.” The five-term Johnston mayor said he was shocked by Clinton’s loss in that town in 2016; he said she failed to project nationally the same personality she shared in local visits.
3) Meanwhile, in terms of whether Trump did anything wrong during his phone call with the president of Ukraine, Polisena said, “I only hear different things from the news, but I don’t believe anything any more more, because there are so many different stories, on both sides, by the way, from the Republicans and from the Democrats. They just need to get things done, like build our infrastructure, make sure people have healthcare, things like that. That’s what I want to see.” Polisena said he’s a strong supporter of former Vice President Joe Biden, and calls Biden the only candidate who can beat Trump. Biden also said he believes that Democrats will court a big loss if they support a more progressive candidate like Elizabeth Warren.
4) While U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, a Cranston native, appears unlikely to face a tough re-election challenge next year, the battle to replace Allan Fung, the term-limited mayor of Rhode Island’s second-largest city is shaping up as one of the top local races of 2020. Fung’s wife, Barbara Ann Fenton, downplayed her pending name change, to Fenton-Fung, to the ProJo while poking light at the move. At the same time, the GOP activist told the Cranston Herald that the response since an August interview on The Public’s Radio “has literally been overwhelming, from being encouraged by residents in the airport to conversations about policy in the bread aisle at Shaw’s, and I’m flattered by that.” (Fenton remains officially undecided on a possibly mayoral run.) Separately, former City Councilor Maria Bucci, a Democrat, this week reactivated her campaign account with a stated goal of running for mayor. State Rep. Charlene Lima (D-Cranston) tells me she’s still seriously considering a run. Meanwhile, it’s worth remembering the names of the top two council at-large vote-getters in Cranston’s 2018 election, Democrat Steven Stycos and Republican Michael Farina, who placed within a few hundred votes of each other. (UPDATE: “I’m still considering [it],” Stycos tells me.)
5) Speaking of at-large seats, a relative handful of lonely voices have argued for years that the Providence City Council would get a big benefit from the broader citywide perspective that comes with moving beyond ward-based concerns. The counter-argument was that was that Latino candidates could be disadvantaged in citywide elections – a viewpoint disproven by the successive mayoral election of Angel Taveras and Jorge Elorza. Adding three at-large seats for the 2022 election could stanch the pending loss of institutional knowledge on the council, since term limits prevent a number of incumbents from seeking re-election. Yet 2022 is fast approaching and it’s unclear if a wellspring of support for at-large seats will materialize. Council spokesman Billy Kepner isn’t sanguine on the outlook: “I’ve not heard any discussion regarding this, so my answer is unlikely. It would require a change to the Charter.”
6) Sixteen Rhode Island cities and towns are suing Gov. Raimondo, Speaker Mattiello and Senate President Dominick Ruggerio over a continuing contracts law that they say will hurt municipalities and taxpayers. Mattiello and Ruggerio defend the law, asserting that it creates a level playing field. Angel Taveras, the lawyer for cities and towns, said he expects the case to go all the way to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
7) The Gannett-GateHouse Media merger is expected to lead to more cutting at newsrooms across the country, potentially including such local properties as the Providence Journal, Newport Daily News, Fall River Herald News and New Bedford Standard-Times. As Ken Doctor reports, expansive growth in the estimated savings from the merger could produce even sharper reductions: “How much? In any room of eight people at a current GateHouse or Gannett operation, one is likely to see her job gone in 2020. One in eight would add up to 3,450 of the combined companies’ 27,600 jobs. Some observers expect that the final total to be higher than that. And the company won’t wait for the first of the year to begin layoffs: With immediate savings a priority, expect those anxiety-inducing conversations to begin right after Thanksgiving.”
8) The equation is gradually shifting, as Scott MacKay recently noted, in terms of growing support in Massachusetts for better train service linking Boston and Providence. For now, the cost remains the top stumbling block. Still, it’s worth noting a MassINC poll showing that Bay Staters “want new revenue for transit upgrades and say action is ‘urgently needed’ to improve transportation in the state. ‘The urgency that voters are feeling and the urgency voters are expressing, it matches what we’re seeing from business groups, civic leaders and so forth,’ said Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group. ‘Voters are saying they want something to be done.’ The most popular revenue measure — with 73% support among voters — was to charge developers a fee for projects near public transit or highways, the poll found. Most voters — 62% — also want to see gasoline companies charged a fee for bringing fossil fuels into the state as part of a regional effort called the Transportation Climate Initiative, according to the poll. And more than half of voters support increasing the fees on Uber and Lyft trips, the poll found.”
9) Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena supporting instituting term limits, even though that means he’ll have to exit Town Hall after completing his current term. So will he run for lieutenant governor in 2022? Polisena said he’s keeping his options open, although he isn’t above poking fun at the role of the LG: “Quite frankly, as you’ve heard it before, the purpose of the lieutenant governor is to ride around with a Bible in the backseat in case something happens to the governor.”
10) Melinda Lopez — who this week announced a primary challenge to Rep. Deborah Fellela (D-Johnston) — said that if elected she would become the first Puerto Rican to serve in the General Assembly. Fellela, among the quietest members of the House on the floor, is a reliable vote for Speaker Mattiello. Lopez is formally launching her campaign on December 9. According to her campaign announcement, “Melinda is focused on earning the support of all District 43 voters and is starting with a focus on voters who are often ignored by the establishment. Melinda is dedicated to listen and learn from constituents and then lead on issues that affect today’s Johnston community. Melinda’s campaign will start with her current group of supporters and then build a grassroots organization through community outreach, ethical fundraising, events, and door to door canvassing.” Lopez said she was born and raised in New York City, received her B.A. in Psychology from Brown University and a Teacher Certification from Roger Williams University.
11) Are we seeing some real action toward Rhode Island’s unmet housing needs? Via the ProJo’s Patrick Anderson: “[Gov.] Raimondo called the problem here one of supply and demand, where too few homes are being built to meet demand in many segments of the market and periodic affordable-housing bonds are not sufficient to fill the gap. ‘Is it time to have a sustainable annual revenue stream from the state into housing?’ Raimondo asked to applause from the housing advocates in the room. ‘OK, help us figure out how to do it. How much does it need to be? How are we going to get it done? Where is it going to come from?’ Fielding questions from reporters after her speech, Raimondo declined to commit to any particular policy path next year, including borrowing money for affordable housing through another bond, or to elaborate on where permanent state funding could come from. The last affordable-housing bond, authorizing $50 million, was approved by voters in 2016, and the last of the money it made available is to be awarded by the end of the year.”
12) A tale of two messages: 1) Sunrise RI activists disrupted the Globe’s Rhode Map Live event to say that elected officials need to show more urgency in facing climate change. 2) State Reps. Lauren Carson (D-Newport) and Terri Cortvriend (D-Portsmouth) used an op-ed to make a similar message. Excerpt: “As the Ocean State, we should be much more proactive when it comes to resiliency along our shores. We should be exploring the actual risk to each coastal community and each property using up-to-date technology that models expected risks. We must continue to train our municipal planning and zoning boards on the risks of sea rise so they have the tools they need to make sound decisions that do not jeopardize property investments and keep the shoreline open to the pubic under their constitutional rights …. Our state needs a more robust action plan for protecting public and private properties from the ever-increasing risk of coastal flooding, and that plan must include an accounting of where the high-tide line is, and how it is projected to move.”
13) The first meeting of Left Drinking, a kinda reinvention of the former Drinking Liberally series at the Wild Colonial Pub in Providence, was held Thursday. Aaron Regunberg offers this report on the gathering, which is set to continue on a monthly basis: “A big thanks to the ≈150 lovely folks who came out. I saw a ton of useful connections getting made – a candidate meeting a potential campaign manager, someone new to town finding an organization to volunteer with, all the things this event is supposed to be about. Excited to join you all in bringing this tradition back – we’ll see you next month!”
14) My colleague Sofia Rudin closes out her series on foster families in Rhode Island with a powerful audio diary from Amelia, a young woman aging out of foster care.
15) Maybe one day the lovely old Providence Journal building near City Hall will be brought back to life, after a string of past proposals have failed to move forward. Via WPRI’s Steph Machado: “Jim Abdo, who has already purchased the two empty adjacent Westminster Street buildings that years ago housed The Providence Journal and Kresge Department Store, is aiming to build a microloft-style hotel called the Hotel Hive …. The hotel would be a destination for locals as well as travelers, with a pizza joint, co-working space and two bars — one on the main level and one on the roof, Abdo told the City Council Finance Committee. But Abdo’s request for a long-term tax stabilization agreement, or TSA, was met with opposition from unions and skepticism from some members of the committee. The TSA, which has already been negotiated with the city, would mean Abdo’s firm, Westminster Partners LLC, would not pay taxes on the full value of his properties until the year 2040. Instead, he would pay property taxes on a fraction of the valuation, which would increase each year for the 20-year length of the deal. The savings to Abdo would be more than $2.7 million over 20 years, according to the city’s calculations. The hotel would pay $5.5 million in property taxes over the 20 year deal, according to the tax assessor’s estimate, compared to nearly $8.3 million if it doesn’t get a TSA. It would still represent a major influx of tax revenue to the city, which currently receives $143,955 property taxes for the vacant building.”