Question of the Week: Has Twin River tilted the balance in favor of open bidding for a major contract with the state of Rhode Island? That’s my top item this week, so read on. 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) IGT Global Services used a shotgun-style approach in House Finance on Thursday: company executives touted IGT’s place as a market-leader with no fewer than 25 state contracts. (“When someone says 75 percent of the lottery revenues in the United States flow through our systems, it’s meaningful,” said Chairman Robert Vincent. “It means something. The industry has spoken.”) Dozens of IGT employees, clad in light blue t-shirts swarmed through the Statehouse, in a show of force (and many stuck around to testify as part of a hearing that ran from 3:43 to 11:30 p.m. One IGT exec touted the company’s diversity. But the biggest headline from the hearing was how Twin River Management Group has enlisted Greek firm Intralot as part of its partnership. That goes directly to Gov. Gina Raimondo’s criticism that Twin River/Camelot Lottery Systems lack the technology to do the work done by IGT. Meanwhile, the argument from Twin River exec Marc Crisafulli (“We just think we deserve a chance”) holds allure for lawmakers concerned about the perception surrounding a no-bid $1 billion deal. And Steve Frias, a two-time rep GOP rival to House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, showed up with a detailed argument against an absence of competitive bidding. But this fight isn’t over, and there may be many more twists and turns before this issue gets decided.
2) RI Republican Chairwoman Sue Cienki on GOP preparations for General Assembly elections next year: “We took a deep dive into the data to look at where we had a good chance of winning in 2020,” she said on Bonus Q&A on The Public’s Radio this week. “And we identified about 39 representative districts and 16 senatorial districts that we think if we put creditable candidates up there, we’d have a good chance of winning. So we’ve had a candidate recruitment drive, we’ve had a volunteer recruitment drive, and we had a full house – a lot of people interested. We’re going to train our candidates starting in February. We’ll have a four-week training class, and we also will have them hitting the road in March, to be out there knocking doors, trying to get some ground game going.”
3) You don’t have to be a political scientist to know that legislative races are where Republicans can make the biggest impact in Rhode Island politics, at least in the short term. So Chairwoman Cienki gradually returned the subject to Rhode Island when asked about President Trump’s invitation for Ukraine and China to investigate Joe Biden. Like most Republicans, she is lining up behind the president while blaming other forces for House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. “What I believe is this impeachment inquiry is a hyper-partisan event, with both sides picking and choosing a side, and no work is getting done,” Cienki said on Political Roundtable. Pressed on whether there’s anything wrong about Trump asking foreign countries to probe a political foe, she said, “The president has a wide range of where he can ask certain people for help in criminal matters ….” Looking ahead, the question becomes whether the impeachment issue helps or hurts efforts to elect more Republicans in Rhode Island.
4) On the other hand, could President Trump put wind in the sails of Rhody Republicans in 2020? That might seem unlikely. But traditionally Democratic Johnston had the biggest swing from D to R back in 2016. And as Ted Nesi notes, Rhode Island is one of the president’s best states in New England.
5) Come hear former ProJo investigative reporter Mike Stanton, the Boston Globe’s Amanda Milkovits and yours truly talk about the role of journalism in an era of shrinking newsrooms. This will take place Monday, October 7, from 6-8 pm in the alderman’s chambers at Providence City Hall, a co-production between the Providence Public Library. Of course, we’ll also talk about Buddy Cianci.
6) Speaking of Buddy, former ProJo reporter Dan Barry returned to Providence to take in Trinity Rep’s adaptation of Stanton’s “The Prince of Providence.” Excerpt from his great read: “Adding to the production’s local appeal is the knowledge that nearly all its characters were or are actual Rhode Islanders, and any one of those still alive might very well be sitting in the theater seat beside you. Having worked for several years at the Providence Journal, I recognized the thrill of this possibility during a recent performance, just as I recognized the play’s leading character — a man I knew well enough for him to dislike me. ‘It’s kind of gone beyond meta,’ [playwright] Mr. [George] Brant said by phone recently. ‘The people of Providence play a big part in the play, so it’s directed back at them. Many are cheering the local references, but it’s more about the makeup of the people themselves. Hopefully everyone is asking: ‘This was the longest-serving mayor? What kept him there?’ ”
7) Kudos to Bill Bartholomew, who’s creating a rich podcast archive of interviews with local figures in politics, media, and the arts. I particularly enjoyed with his recent conversation with ProJo education beat reporter Linda Borg, who recalled being paid by the line as a young reporter on Cape Cod and also discussed the state’s changing media landscape.
8) Pew finds that Americans are wary about the role played by social media sites in delivering the news. Excerpt: “Majorities say that social media companies have too much control over the news on their sites, and that the role social media companies play in delivering the news on their sites results in a worse mix of news for users. At the same time, social media is now a part of the news diet of an increasingly large share of the U.S. population.”
9) Positive press for a Providence-based bag-maker Lotuff Leather: “Many of Providence’s factories shuttered in the 1980s and ’90s, and the city rebranded itself as America’s Creative Capital, with tax breaks for artists and cheap studio space in old mills. Instead of seeking to maximize worker productivity, [Lindy] McDonough recruited artists with studio practices of their own, reasoning that a kind of symbiosis was possible between their personal work and their work for Lotuff. Her staff, now 25 strong, has included painters, sculptors, filmmakers, wood-workers, a jewelry maker, a toymaker, and a printmaker. On average they earn $15.54 an hour, five dollars above the Rhode Island minimum wage; those who work 30 hours a week receive health, life, vision, and dental insurance, as well as paid leave.”
10) Don’t miss the latest installment of Mosaic, The Public’s Radio’s ongoing podcast about immigration: “The Irony of Aaron Lopez, the Merchant Prince of Newport.”
11) RI House Republicans have a six-page report about their efforts in 2019.
12) Andre the Giant has a posse. And Shepard Fairey is set later this month to mark the 30th anniversary of OBEY GIANT.
