The march to the start of a new school year continues, with a lot on the line for Providence and the entire state. 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) It’s no coincidence that the initial timeline for the state takeover of Providence schools – three years – is the same duration as Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green’s contract. That shows how Infante-Green is being given unusually broad latitude to make the changes she considers necessary to overhaul under-performing schools. The power to break contracts? Check. The ability to intercede in other communities? Check. Infante-Green has spoken in support of a collaborative process, so the extent to which she uses these superpowers remains to be seen. But there’s certainly more of a consensus on the need to improve Providence schools than at any time in recent history. “I believe that working with the state will help us transform our schools into the places our kids deserve,” Mayor Jorge Elorza said in a statement. City Council President Sabina Matos calls the state takeover necessary, adding, “Although I have concerns that the state is taking control of more than half of the city’s budget, I remain committed and supportive of this process.” So Infante-Green’s moment for action is fast approaching. What happens over the next three years will offer an early verdict on her efforts.
2) Former state Rep. Doreen Costa of North Kingstown and East Greenwich developer Gerald Zarrella are hoping to become co-chairs of President Trump’s Rhode Island campaign for 2020. Also interested in the post is former House GOP leader Patricia Morgan of West Warwick. Morgan, who staged a GOP run for governor last year, touts Trump as an advocate for “the little guy.” Costa said she’s been a Trump supporter from the beginning. Zarrella, a Democrat-turned-Republican, previously hosted Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy at his summer home on Block Island, but is now an unabashed Trump fan. Zarrella said he switched parties because he thinks Democrats moved too far to the left and remain too fractured. Trump’s campaign organization is expected to pick its next Rhode Island as soon as September. Meanwhile, Costa and Zarrella are staging a pro-Trump rally (with RI GOP National Committeewoman Leann Senick) at the Statehouse at noon on Sunday, September 29.
3) GOP activist Barbara Ann Fenton, who is married to Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, is keeping the door open for a possible campaign to try to succeed her husband next year. Speaking on Political Roundtable this week, she said one consideration is how Fung is being recruited for potential private sector, non-governmental, and higher ed jobs. “Right now, we’re trying to balance kind of what we’re going to look at from a family perspective and what makes sense,” she said. “Allan’s being recruited by several different places and we just want to make sure before we make that commitment that we’re going to be here and living in that home in Cranston.” (Term limits prevent Fung from seeking re-election; Fenton said after our taping that Bryant University is not among the employers inquiring with the mayor.) At the same time, on Bonus Q&A, she did not rule out the possibility of Fung making another run for governor, in 2022.
4) Fung touted his conservative credentials last year during his second run for governor. Fenton, though, described Fung and more so herself as “probably more on the moderate to liberal side” of the Republican spectrum, while the at the same time criticizing what she calls a takeover of the RI GOP by “ultra-conservative” elements. Fenton said she could have handled it better “stylistically” when she stepped down earlier this year from the GOP state central committee, after Sue Cienki’s election as chairwoman. Nonetheless, Fenton remains a critic of Cienki: “She turned the one reliably Republican town in this state completely blue,” after serving as town manager in East Greenwich. “It was so toxic.”
5) The mass shootings last weekend in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, have put a renewed back on the spiraling cycle of gun violence. Here in Rhode Island, legislative leaders point to the relative absence of shootings in outlining their opposition to some gun-related measures. “Rhode Island’s gun control laws are among the strongest in the country,” House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and Senate President Dominick Ruggerio said in a joint statement this week. “Over the past two sessions, the General Assembly has passed several laws that have made it even more difficult for those that pose a danger to the community to obtain firearms. In 2017, a law to take guns away from domestic abusers was passed. In 2018, Rhode Island was one of the first states to pass a ‘red flag’ bill which enables law enforcement and the courts to take guns away from those who are deemed to be dangerous to themselves and others in the community. Additionally, Rhode Island was among first states to ban ‘bump stocks,’ which are devices that turn guns into automatic weapons.” Mattiello and Ruggerio also point to a new creating ‘threat assessment teams’ for each school district in the state. Gov. Gina Raimondo, meanwhile, renewed her call for a ban on semiautomatic rifles. According to The Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence, Rhode Island gets some things right on preventing gun violence, “But there is much that remains to be done, and Rhode Islanders are running out of patience with leadership in the General Assembly. Rhode Island still lags behind our immediate neighbors Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey who all have all passed assault weapon bans, making our state more vulnerable to mass shootings than others in our region. And Rhode Island remains an outlier even compared to states with generally permissive gun laws like Texas in allowing the completely unregulated concealed carry of firearms in our K-12 schools. This past year Rhode Island General Assembly failed to allow a single votes on any gun violence prevention legislation, and year after year has allowed an assault weapon ban, a high capacity magazine ban, and a bill restricting the concealed carry of firearms in schools to die in committee.”
6) If you want to count your Rhode Island blessings, be grateful that for the most part we’re absent the choking traffic that has made Boston a victim of its own success.
7) The fight over Rhode Island’s future gambling business entered a bit of a new phase this week with the move by Las Vegas-based Scientific Games to hire lobbyist Lenny Lopes, a familiar presence at the Statehouse. Scientific is a potential partner for Twin River’s attempt to get the business now handled by IGT. While the perception of a no-bid 20-year contract extension doesn’t play well in Rhode Island, Gov. Raimondo doubled down this week on her argument that preserving about 1,000 IGT jobs in Rhode Island (as part of what she calls a better contract) has to take priority. Both the House and Senate plan to hold hearings on the proposed IGT extension some time later this year, so the full-court press of lobbyists will eventually segue into a series of public inquiries.
8) Rhode Island is among 10 states who election systems are vulnerable to hackers, according to a report by VICE’s Motherboard. In a statement, Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea urged the state Board of Elections to review the report: “I have often said that cybersecurity it not a destination. All of our elections systems require regular assessment to identify and mitigate new risks that could compromise our elections. [The] Motherboard – Tech by Vice article provides valuable new information as we continue to secure our elections systems. I urge the state Board of Elections, the agency responsible for maintaining the state’s voting equipment and Election Day operations, to review in detail the allegations in the Motherboard article. Specifically, as to the modems: as I stated earlier this week at their meeting, the Board of Elections should convene public and private sector cyber experts to discuss the security risks of both the modem transmissions of unofficial Election Day results versus no modem transmission and the hand delivery of USB drives with official Election Night tallies.” In a lengthy statement, the BOE calls many of the assertions in the Motherboard report “inaccurate or outdated.”
9) The New York Times’ Astead Herndon offers a look at how progressive activists on climate change – including the Sunrise movement, which has been heard from in Rhode Island – is pushing the Democratic Party to the left: “Sunrise’s story, of a fledgling organization that has become a political power player in less than two years, is emblematic of the growing power of the grass-roots left. Several liberal groups, including Sunrise, Justice Democrats, Indivisible and MoveOn.Org, have seized on the crowded and diverse Democratic primary race to increase their own political power by pushing their preferred issue or policy — no matter how big, bold or expensive.”
10) On one hand, Providence’s new pedestrian bridge is being welcomed as a charming (and costly) new attraction in the capital city. On the other hand, bicycle activists are alarmed about another move by state DOT to cut funding for pedestrian/cycling projects.
11) Amid questions about the outlook for the proposed takeover of Gannett by GateHouse Media (owner of the ProJo and papers in Fall River, New Bedford, Worcester, Newport and elsewhere), Ken Doctor offers this update: “Is this the best future for these companies? ‘Look, it’s the best deal we could get,’ one insider told me this week. And that, in a nutshell, sums it up. This current deal is far from ideal for either company, or its shareholders, or its employees, or its readers. And for Gannett, it’s better than being captured by Freeman. For Gatehouse, it’s the best available alternative as the company has hit a strategic wall, its $1.1 billion-fueled acquisition-heavy strategy and good dividend no longer wowing investors. Fortress Investment Group, the money and strategy behind Gatehouse’s gargantuan growth, saw its next opportunity. It seized it — and now the private equity company will continue to manage the big merged company for the next two years, through CEO Mike Reed, its key employee.”
12) Rhode Island progressives notched another win with Alex Kithes’ special election victory for a seat on the Woonsocket City Council. Via Lauren Clem in The Valley Breeze: “[Kithes] reiterated his campaign priorities, including climate change, support for public education and economic growth. He also issued a warning to city office-holders that the days of running on name recognition and experience were over. ‘It means that incumbency is no longer the basic strategy for politics in Woonsocket. It means that everyone in city government is on notice,’ he said. The win means council meetings will likely have plenty of fireworks going forward, as five sitting council members and the mayor were all heavily critical of Kithes in the race. He hinted to UpriseRI that every council meeting will now be must-see viewing.”
13) Brown alum Andrew Yang this week qualified for a September Democratic primary debate, since he registered at 2 percent support in a recent Monmouth poll in Iowa. While Yang remains an extreme long shot, he has raised awareness about the concept of universal basic income, or what he calls the Freedom Dividend. According to Yang’s web site, giving $1,000 a month to every American adult over 18 “would enable all Americans to pay their bills, educate themselves, start businesses, be more creative, stay healthy, relocate for work, spend time with their children, take care of loved ones, and have a real stake in the future.” While this concept carries a big cost (and critics question the underlying math), Yang argues that the benefits are worth it. Regardless, with automation displacing a growing number of workers, we’re bound to hear more about similar proposals.
14) Should reporters be involved in helping to dispel mistaken beliefs about news organizations? Here’s a look at one such effort in St. Louis, where preaching to the choir was cited as part of the challenge.
15) Are your pleasant summer-time diversions soured by the foreboding knowledge that Social Security reserves are expected to run out amid a wave of Boomer retirements in 2037? But some observers are not overly concerned. “Given the strong public support for the program, it is inconceivable that Congress won’t step in sometime before 2035 and put things on an even keel,” Paul Van de Water, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, tells The New York Times. “It’s a source of concern, but not something to lose sleep over.”
