Brett Smiley took office last month as the new mayor of Providence. The new leader in the capital city quickly filled open positions for police chief and fire chief. And Smiley’s previous experience in city and state government could give him an edge in negotiating some of the tough issues that come with being mayor. But Providence still faces problems that have persisted for years, including under-performing schools and an under-funded pension system. Will Smiley be able to make more progress than his predecessors in tackling the capital city’s biggest challenges? I’m Ian Donnis. This week, I’m going in-depth with the new mayor of Providence, Brett Smiley.
Ian Donnis: Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, welcome back to The Public’s Radio.
Brett Smiley: Thank you. Good morning,
Ian Donnis: You’ve moved quickly to fill two public safety positions in Providence, the fire chief and the police chief. Beyond that, what are your top goals for the first six months of your administration?
Brett Smiley: So we do, we do still have some other positions to fill out. And building a high quality, competent, committed staff remains a top priority. So there’s more work to be done in that front. Outside of staffing, we’ve just started the conversations with the colleges and the hospitals for payments in lieu of taxes, which will be one of the most important things that happens this year. I expect those negotiations will take several months. But I’m looking forward to them. And I’m going into them with a collaborative spirit and have had some great preliminary conversations.
Ian Donnis: You’re at the very start of your tenure as mayor, regardless whether you serve four or eight years, what tangible accomplishments would you most like to achieve by the time you leave City Hall.
Brett Smiley: So I think Providence is poised for tremendous growth. And I’d like to see our city grow. And I hope, after my term in office is behind us, we’ve seen population growth, we’ve seen an increase in our housing stock so that the new people who are moving here don’t displace long term residents, and that there’s a home for everyone in Providence, because it’s clear that people want to be here. But we need to facilitate that growth in a way that maintains the character, and the history and the culture of Providence. I think we can do that. But that’s that’s really what I’m focused on, which is facilitating growth in our city, to keep it the place that’s so special, but also to welcome in the people around the country who are discovering Providence, which is a good thing.
Ian Donnis: One issue that would help to bring more people to Providence is good quality public schools. But to quote Yogi Berra, it seems like deja vu all over again, the state seems to be spinning its wheels, as far as improving public schools. There’s no love lost between the Providence Teachers Union, and the people running the state takeover of the Providence schools. What is your plan for moving the ball forward here?
Brett Smiley: So I’ve been working closely with the governor and the commissioner on their turnaround plans and my job and the city council with us, we need to get ready to take those schools back into local control. I expect that’ll happen sometime in my first term. We don’t know the date yet. And we want to make sure that when that happens, we’re prepared to continue to move the district forward. At the same time today, before the turnaround is over, there’s a tremendous amount of work and value in making sure that the out of school time whether that be after school or over the summer, is high value impactful, that helps students recover from COVID learning loss. Students spend as much time out of school as they do in school. And so while the state’s running our school system right now, I’m going to stay focused on the things that I can control. And that’s providing high quality, enriching, educational opportunities outside of school. I mean, one of the new positions that we hired, we talked about staffing earlier, is a fabulous new recreation director. You know, our rec centers, which have been a hub for sports really could be so much more, and I’m looking forward to that work.
Ian Donnis: You named Oscar Perez, last week as the new police chief in Providence. He says one of his goals is to improve the police department, what would improvement in the police department mean to you? What does that look like?
Brett Smiley: So first and foremost, is to take the next step in community policing. We are a national model when it comes to community policing. But it has now been well over a decade since most residents saw officers regularly walking the beat in their neighborhood, riding their bicycles, and really forging personal relationships in the community. And so that’s going to take additional staffing that’s going to take some different staff allocation decisions. I know chief Perez is looking forward to that. And then he and I have discussed that it’s not just focusing on gun crime and violent crime, which we’ve done an exceptional job of recently, but also getting to some of these, you know, what I call quality of life crimes, everything from loud music, to nightclubs that, you know, spill out into the street and degrade the quality of our neighborhoods and residential life here in the city. And so that is also on the agenda for improvements in the police department.
Ian Donnis: Has the city done enough to make violence prevention, a core function along the order of the resources that go into the police department?
Brett Smiley: You know, I think they I think they have I think today they have. What — one of the things that we hear from our community partners, though, you know, everybody’s awash federal funds right now. But over the last decade or so there have been moments where funding then dips through our community partners and they have to lay off staff they have to retrench from the investments that they’ve made. These are preventative measures require a long term sustained investment, so that it’s not just when city tax coffers are flush, they get funded, and in many cases during an economic downturn is when their work is most important. And so, what I’ve talked to them about, they are well funded right now and have many programs running, is to make sure that we can sustain that funding, or give them predictable funding so that we don’t have these peaks and valleys in terms of investment and support.
Ian Donnis: To shift gears, some RIPTA users are concerned about plans to move buses away from Kennedy Plaza, what is your vision for what mass transit should look like and how it should function in Providence.
Brett Smiley: So in Providence, we’re relatively lucky because it’s the bus hub, there are a lot of ways to get around Providence. Some of the challenges in the RIPTA system get more complicated as you extend out from that hub into the suburbs and exurbs. And so my vision for residents in Providence is that there is frequent reliable bus service. Things like the R line, which is well used and much loved. I think we should try to expand those so that we do have what they call BRT, or bus rapid transit with dedicated bus lanes to really continue to improve that quality of service. And I will, I will say, and I’ve said many times before, I do think a new modern central bus hub will improve the transit experience and is in the best interest of the city. And so I’ve been pushing for and will continue to push for the relocation of Kennedy Plaza, to a new bus hub adjacent to the Garrahy court complex, which in no way adds a stop or makes it less convenient for transit riders but actually adds amenities so that the drivers and riders have amenities that can make that central bus hub transfer experience better, while also have an opportunity to enhance what’s currently a sea of surface lots hopefully with the integration of things like affordable housing and other amenities.
Ian Donnis: We’re talking here with Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, And on a related note, it seems like we often hear about pedestrian fatalities and injuries. In Providence this week Superior Court Judge Richard Licht was struck by a vehicle. What — how will you thread the needle in terms of different views among your constituents? Some are very supportive, and some are very opposed to bicycle lanes and speed humps as a way of controlling traffic. How will you thread that issue?
Brett Smiley: Yeah, I think it’s this week, not just Judge Licht, but we had a hit and run accident on North Main Street. We had two people die on the service road about a week ago in a car crash. And so the conversation, a lot of the oxygen gets consumed in bike lanes. However, pedestrian safety is of paramount concern to me and the city’s great streets plan. And the transit master plan includes not just a conversation about bike lanes, but also a conversation around pedestrian safety, safe crossings. And that’s where my focus is. So things like what they call bump outs where the sidewalk juts out a little bit so that the crossing is actually shorter, are time tested and proved and good safety measures. Proper striping, proper timing of the crosswalks, there are certain crosswalks where the the light doesn’t stay white long enough so that a pedestrian can safely cross that will be my priority and to try to not expend a disproportionate share of energy debating bike lanes, but rather to think about safety for pedestrians, and everyone who uses our roads. And it’s unfortunate and tragic that it’s been underscored by a rough couple of days in terms of traffic accidents.
Ian Donnis: What are your priorities for your legislative agenda at the General Assembly of this year?
Brett Smiley: So in addition to always making sure that Providence receives the budgetary support that it needs and deserves, our legislative package is focused on these negotiations with the large nonprofit institutions in Providence. Over 40% of the land in Providence is tax exempt, which means 60% of the people are paying the bills for 100% of the bills. We have two, two pieces of legislation, one of which will make sure that when these large nonprofit institutions, the colleges and the hospitals own commercial property, that they pay commercial property taxes on it. So we have buildings in South Providence, that you could have two buildings next to each other one’s privately owned full of doctors practices, it pays taxes, the building right next door to it, owned by one of the hospitals filled with the same doctors practices, does not pay taxes only because it’s owned by a nonprofit institution. It’s unfair. It’s a burden on the city. And it’s also unfair to property tax payers who are renting to the same tenants. And this is not just a Providence problem. This is happening in cities and towns across Rhode Island, as the hospitals and colleges buy commercial property and are not using it for institutional use but rather renting it out to someone else for rent. We have a fix for that. That’ll be first on our agenda. Secondly, the large institutions are critical employers. They are some of the most important employers in our states, the colleges and hospitals, however, when they add jobs, that’s good for the state but hard for the city, we don’t receive any taxes from a new job added. So we have a piece of legislation that allows for cities and towns to receive a portion of the payroll tax for new jobs created. To incentivize us, city leaders to help them add jobs, which is good for everybody. And they would return a portion of that new payroll tax revenue to the city. This has never been done before. It’s innovative. It’s exciting. The institutions are happy about it, too, because they make the argument and they say we’re good for the economy. We’re good employers. I agree with that. But some of the tax receipts from those jobs should be shared with the local community.
Ian Donnis: Former Mayor Joe Paolino is one of the bidders for a statue of Christopher Columbus that was taken down from public display in Providence, do you think that statue should be publicly displayed perhaps with appropriate contextual information about the actual history of Columbus in America?
Brett Smiley: So in the previous administration, there’s a commission called The Art and city life commission and they made the decision that the statue should be sold. The board of parks commissioners solicited proposals as you point out, Mayor Paolino is one of those bidders. Those proposals are being reviewed, the board of parks commissioners will vote next month on who the successful bidder was. And I think this conversation that we’ve seen around the country is the complicated history of some of these historical figures. Some of them can be, can remain in the public square with context as so that their full legacy good and bad can be viewed. And some of them should just be retired from public view. Those are some of the questions that are being evaluated as these bids get evaluated. And we’ll have an answer on the future of Mr. Columbus in the next month or so.
Ian Donnis: Finally, one of the thorniest issues in Providence is the city’s underfunded pension plan. That’s risk that has eluded a solution for a string of Mayors. Is this on the backburner? Since you’re at the very start of your tenure?
Brett Smiley: It’s not on the back burner in the sense that it’s not a concern of mine. It’s a primary concern of mine, but our options are very limited. So the city voters and the state legislature enabled us to to seek authorization for pension obligation bond last year, wisely, state leaders inserted a provision that said that if interest rates went up, and the city’s borrowing costs exceeded 4.9%, that we could not go forward. That’s where we are today. Thank goodness they put that provision in because as interest rates have risen over the last year, we could have been in a real tough spot. Had we gone forward with it. But that’s a five year authorization. I think most economists expect rates will come back down in the next five years, that option may become available to us again in the near in the next couple of years. In the meantime, we continue to do the hard work of paying our bills you know, it’s not a glamorous answer to say you have to eat your vegetables, but right now we have to eat our vegetables, which is just keep paying the bill as we evaluate other options. And that’s what we’re doing. It’s not a back burner issue. It’s a front burner issue, but there are limited options.
Ian Donnis: We’ve got to leave it there. Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, thank you very much for joining us.
Brett Smiley: Thank you
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Hundreds of Rhode Islanders filled a club in West Warwick on a Thursday night in 2003. They were there to see a band called Great White. What was meant to be a fun night out turned into one of the worst nightclub disasters in U.S. history. The Station didn’t have sprinklers, so when pyrotechnics were used during Great White’s set, a fire quickly swept through the club. The conflagration killed 100 people and 200 more were injured. Next Monday marks the 20th anniversary of the disaster. You can read about that and a lot more in my weekly TGIF column, posting around 4 this afternoon at thepublicsradio.org or on Twitter @IanDon.
Our producer is James Baumgartner, with help this week from Dave Fallon.
I’m Ian Donnis and I’ll see you on the radio.
