If you come to a fork in the road, take it. So said Yogi Berra, and the expression seems fitting given recent news. So thanks for stopping by for my weekly column. As usual, your tips and comments are welcome, and you can follow me through the week via the twitters. Here we go.
1. One week after the PawSox unveiled their latest stadium proposal, state Senate President Dominick Ruggerio sealed its fate Tuesday when he said there there wasn’t enough a time left in the legislative session to consider the plan. But it was clear even earlier, when House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello reacted coolly, that the project wouldn’t move ahead without a clear embrace from Governor Gina Raimondo — and the future home of the PawSox now remains highly uncertain. Just a few days earlier, Raimondo called the team’s latest proposal a good deal for taxpayers. But even then, the environment and the timing worked against the pitch; a noisy cohort of Rhode Islanders don’t like the idea of using any public money for a stadium (even if the PawSox said their envisioned home would generate more than enough revenue to pay that back over time). Lawmakers are loath in the post-38 Studios landscape to consider a controversial ask in the waning weeks of the legislative session, particularly with a $134 million hole in the current and next budget. And unveiling the plan near end of the General Assembly year certainly didn’t help. Sure, the PawSox proposal looked like a win for Pawtucket, with the prospect of additional economic development. But by the time an actual bill emerged (making the state responsible for backing up Pawtucket’s borrowing), the tide had shifted. Now, as Mayor Don Grebien said Wednesday, the city and state face a potential loss of revenue. To some, it looked as if Raimondo’s office decided that the risk of losing the PawSox is better than the risk of supporting the stadium deal. Others may see the governor as being fiscally prudent for not wanting the state to backstop Pawtucket’s borrowing. Grebien is still holding out hope of winning Raimondo’s support for the stadium at the Apex site — and that’s a prerequisite for a special fall legislative session to consider the proposal. Under a best-case scenario, could the mayor and the governor come to terms after the legislative session wraps in late June? Maybe, but that’s far from certain. (UPDATE: After TGIF went to press, Grebien’s office released copies of letters he sent to Raimondo in an attempt to address her concerns.)
2. Will they stay or will they go? That remains the big question on the PawSox. Worcester and Montreal are considered among the potential destinations. Montreal has a history with minor league baseball, although stadium funding efforts there have also been contentious. Worcester, with a Pawtucket-like driving time to Fenway Park, could benefit from boasting a stronger bond rating than Pawtucket. There are other spots, too. An entrepreneur is building a ballpark in Malden, outside Boston, although plans call for fielding a team not associated with MLB. Would other cities — ranging from New Haven to New Bedford — get into the mix? The PawSox appear likely to explore a range of options.
3. Speaker Mattiello‘s much-anticipated bill to begin a phaseout of the car tax is set to be introduced Tuesday. While the tax is widely disliked, it also generates a lot of revenue. Mattiello has touted plans to eliminate the car tax over six years. The hard part for the state will be making up the difference, in steadily larger increments, for a cost of about $220 million every year.
4. Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza is touting how his latest budget proposal will enable the capital city to have its first rainy day fund since 2012. “It’s huge deal and it’s all what all the credit agencies look for,” Elorza said during an appearance on this week’s RI Public Radio Bonus Q&A. The mayor contends the city has time to deal with a pension system that is only about 25 percent funded. As it stands, though, the city is paying out tens of millions more dollars than its collecting in pension contributions. Elorza maintained that Providence’s contributions are going to climb steeply in coming years, “so we’re fine right now. But it’s going to be very difficult to meet those rising costs unless we do something …. And that’s why we’ve had the most aggressive and the most ambitious legislative agenda that we’ve presented at the Statehouse.” Yet Speaker Mattiello pronounced the city’s attempt to implement a regional water system dead on arrival, raising further questions about how Providence will raise the pension system’s funding level.
5. Dave Butler worked his last day Friday as executive editor of The Providence Journal. The first outsider to lead the newsroom since Charles “Chuck” Hauser in the 1970s, Butler made an imprint on the Journal in his slightly less than two years on the job. The ProJo adopted sharper headlines and a heightened willingness to experiment (a la shaking up assignments and a front-page editorial that triggered a reaction from Speaker Mattiello). Butler was also the face of GateHouse Media management, which has continued to reduce the ProJo’s staffing through a string of layoffs and buy outs. Butler, who came out of retirement to take on his role at the Journal, tells me he’s looking forward to resuming that: “I’ve enjoyed my time in Rhode Island immensely. It’s a fascinating place and I hope to return to visit from time to time. [Incoming Executive Editor] Alan [Rosenberg] and Mike [McDermott] have done such a good job in their roles since being promoted some time back that it was clear to me that now was the time to turn over the place to them, so I finally can retire just before my 67th birthday. There are lots of hard working, great folks at the ProJo. It’s been a privilege to work with them. I would have to say I am looking forward to not hearing the following terms: 195 land, 38 Studios, Pawsox! But seriously, [I] am looking forward to staying in touch with my colleagues. And I hope Rhode Islanders can pull themselves out of the funk that seems to permeate things. This is wonderful place to live and people deserve to catch a break.”
6. Allison “Alli” Rogers, the hard-working policy director at the state Department of Administration, is getting set to leave DOA in mid-June. No word yet on her next move. “I am extremely grateful to have been able to serve with so many talented team members throughout all of state government over the last five years,” Rogers tells me. “I want to express my gratitude to each of them for their service to Rhode Island and, second, for making the State of Rhode Island such a wonderful place to work.”
7. Montana Republican Greg Gianforte‘s body-slam of a reporter this week sparked thoughts of contentious interactions between the media and news sources back here in RI. Many of us who have been around for a while can recall being yelled at by Buddy Cianci (who once encouraged his biographer, former ProJo scribe Mike Stanton, to go play in traffic). As one reporter observed, Raymond L.S. Patriarca didn’t assault the media, he just flicked a cigar in their direction.. And as we’ve noted before (#8), Keven McKenna offered one of the top tirades when his then-wife, Marlene McKenna, lost a 1992 race for state treasurer: As the ProJo reported, McKenna chased reporters from his wife’s election night hotel suite by saying, “Get the [expletive] out of here before I stone you. I don’t want any sluts from the media here.” (Back in the present, Gianforte won his special U.S. House election in Montana, leading Politico’s Gabriel Debenedetti to write, “The ending was shocking, but the result was no surprise.”)
8. Crimetown Live is coming to the Columbus Theatre in July — an ironic setting since one of the podcast’s subjects, Buddy Cianci, led a move to have the City of Providence condemn the venue in 1998 and take it by eminent domain. (The RI ACLU warded off the attempt, through a First Amendment defense.) Cianci was sensitive to how out-of-towners perceived Providence, his own headlines notwithstanding; in 2000, he rebuffed an attempt to stage a local event related to the HBO hit The Sopranos. (Now, apropos an ABC6 story, Mike Stanton observes via Twitter, “Cianci family feels ‘betrayed by @crimetown – the podcast they wouldn’t have landed a possible TV deal without.”) Mayor Elorza is also not a big fan of Crimetown. “If it was a different time and the show wasn’t ending at the same time that one of our council people was getting arrested and another one was getting recalled, maybe my answer was different,” Elorza said on Bonus Q&A. “But it just comes at the wrong time.”
9. The news conference staged this week by House Minority Leader Patricia Morgan (R-West Warwick) and trucking industry representatives is a reminder that critics of RhodeWorks aren’t about to fade away. As John Lynch, a senior vice president of the American Trucking Associations put it, “I can tell you ATA is going to drag this thing out for years, if necessary. We will seek federal solutions, we will seek legal solutions, but we’re not going to sit back and allow a state to view our industry as a rolling ATM machine.” The state DOT didn’t seem particularly concerned about the renewed criticism, waiting until the next day to respond to Morgan’s charge that the tolling program will produce only about $7.4 million in net revenue from $45 million in annual tolls. In a statement, DOT said, “The net revenue from tolls is $42.3 million annually or 10 percent of RIDOT’s total revenues. The net revenue will be used only to repair Rhode Island’s bridges and will provide a reliable source of funds to keep our bridges in good repair in the future.”
10. The Costs of War project at Brown University puts the cost of post-9/11 wars at more than $4.79 trillion.
11. Kevin Olasanoye is the new executive director of the Rhode Island Democratic Party. “Kevin is a gifted and highly respected attorney who has a deep appreciation of what’s at stake in the Democratic Party, and for this state and nation,” Chairman Joseph McNamara said in a statement after RIPR reported the news. “He comes to us with experience in government — particularly with service to women, minorities and people with disabilities — and has recruited and trained volunteers in national and statewide campaigns, including Connecticut’s Obama for America, and was a staff assistant to U.S. Senator Jack Reed in his Washington, D.C. office. Kevin will be a true asset in building our Party for the pivotal elections ahead.”
12. Regardless of what happens with the future of the PawSox, the team’s stadium quest will likely become fodder in next year’s gubernatorial race. So we asked Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, an expected GOP candidate, where he stands on the stadium and under what terms he would support it. Here’s the response, via spokesman Mark Schieldrop: “This pitch is better than the previous proposal by the PawSox. But as you know, the mayor is not a fan of special deals. Right now, he’s not willing to speculate how much public funding or borrowing he’d support for this proposal, particularly because the plan is unlikely to get consideration by the General Assembly this session. That said, he’ll look at any proposal on a case-by-case basis.”
13. Scott MacKay on the issue of student loan debt: “Our state’s students graduate with an average of about $33,000 in debt, ranking the Ocean State the fifth highest among the 50 states in this dubious measure. Massachusetts students rank close behind at an average of $32,000. It’s scant solace that graduates in our New England neighbor states of New Hampshire and Connecticut have even higher levels. Just about every politician — including President Donald Trump during his campaign — decries student debt, but no one does much about it. Trump’s new budget calls for getting rid of a major student loan forgiveness program that helps those who enter government service or work for non-profits, where salaries are generally lower than the private sector.”
14. Little surprise that President Trump‘s budget has sparked a withering reaction from Democrats. Yet a proposal by Trump to cut biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health by $5.8 billion, including eliminating the NIH’s Fogarty International Center, has sparked a strong bipartisan reaction. Via Bloomberg: “So instead of the cuts, a key Republican who runs a congressional committee responsible for the NIH’s budget wants to honor the legacy of late Democratic Representative John Edward Fogarty, for whom the center is named, with a portrait that would hang in the subcommittee’s meeting room.” Fogarty, of course, served in Congress for close to three decades and was the uncle of former lieutenant governor Charles Fogarty and state Sen. Paul Fogarty.
15. Mayor Elorza said he’s willing to support a local ordinance that would institute spot audits of campaign finance accounts, “and we’re taking a look at that right now.” Notwithstanding the pending cases involving Luis Aponte and Kevin Jackson, Elorza said, “I truly believe that we’re turning the corner. It’s not like it used to be, and there’s no tolerance for these kinds of things. I think that the residents of Ward 3, with the statement that they sent — over 90 percent voted to recall [Jackson] — I hope that that’s a message that really resonates with anyone thinking of cheating or dipping into the till.”
16. Is RI’s jewelry industry bouncing back? Via WWD: “Rhode Island’s jewelry manufacturing is a nearly self-sustaining ecosystem — invisible to those not in-the-know. Stuffed into unassuming pre-war millhouses, their floorboards are worn to a sloping sheen and the sound of arcane machinery fills the air with a droning hum. While factories’ appearances are subdued on the outside, their interiors yield a bustling scene of industry: machines stamp tiny charm findings and precious metal wire is punched into snake chain of varying widths. Other warehouses yield acres of untouched, closeout component merchandise — millions of backstock Austrian crystals and Sixties Lucite. Beads have been left untouched so long that crystals marked ‘Made in Occupied Japan’ sit like precious rubble in 80,000 square feet of unrealized treasure. ‘Slowly but surely a lot of people want Made in America, higher-quality goods. We’ve seen people migrate to Rhode Island. This is the hub of casting, plating, stamping beads. People don’t realize this is still here,’ said Jim Simeone, director of sales at John F. Allen.”
17. With critics questioning subsidies for baseball stadiums, don’t forget that baseball enjoys some extraordinary protections. Even in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court was unwilling to hear a challenge to an antitrust exemption granted to the National Pastime in 1922.
18. URI grad Thomas Farragher was part of the Pulitzer-winning Boston Globe team that shined a light on sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. He returned to URI for a recent commencement address.
19. “How Far Should Societies Go To Prevent Terror Attacks?“
20. Airbnb founder Joe Gebbia is slated to speak at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce’s economic outlook luncheon on June 5.
21. State Rep. Bob Quattrocchi (R-Scituate) has a modest proposal on legislative grants: Via news release: “House bill 5373 would provide that legislative grants would be awarded by senators and representatives in equal prorated shares, one half (1/2) in each chamber. ‘It goes without saying that dividing up legislative grant money equally between each member of the General Assembly is a fair and equitable way to distribute money to those in need. Currently, money is doled out unfairly and the only one’s getting hurt are the residents of Rhode Island.’ “
22. A soldier’s story: “When the Iraq war started, nearly 40,000 members of the military were not U.S. citizens. Army Pfc. Diego Rincon was one of them.”
