Signature Coverage of Jon Scott, Independent Candidate for Mayor of Providence

Jon Scott is running for Mayor of Providence, an office that is open in this election cycle due to current Mayor David Cicilline's decision to run for Congress...

Anchor Rising: You can make the case that the job of city mayor involves a more intense combination of the administrative aspect of governance and the pulling-people together aspect of governance than does any other political office. How would you say the current occupant of the Providence Mayor's Office has done in these areas?

Providence Mayoral Candidate Jon Scott: "City politics, it's very much in tune with the people. It's very much in touch with the people. The people understand that, if the stoplight at the end of their street doesn't work, they call the Mayor's office and the Mayor makes the stoplight work..." (Audio: 0 min 40 sec)

"But this really, all of the sudden, has become a 30,000-foot job. It has become about 50 million dollars in budget deficit next year, and 100 million in the next year [after]. It's become about 556 million dollars in bond liability. It's become about 108 million dollars in unfunded pension liability. We are talking about a city that's in debt, almost a billion dollars..." (Audio: 1 min 15 sec)

"...the operational part [done by the current Mayor] has been poor, but the big part for him is the 30,000 foot-level that has been poor. Everything he does, he does in the background..." (Audio: 0 min 52 sec)

AR: Speaking of everyone have input into making decisions, on your website is a proposal for changing Providence to having an elected school committee. Would you like to talk about that a bit?

JS: "Having a school committee that's appointed by the Mayor does a couple things very well. It allows the administration to move very quickly. That's a good thing if in fact we are doing that. But we've had status quo, for so long, that we're just kind of floundering out there...we have schools where rain is dropping through the roof onto classrooms. I don't care how good teachers are or how bad teachers are, let's not even get into that, a kid can't learn if rain is dropping on his head..." (Audio: 1 min 1 sec)

"Now an elected school committee, on the other hand, answers to the people, it doesn't answer to the Mayor. And that, in this city, is a big bonus. School committees, ultimately, should answer to the constituency, the parents. We wonder why parents aren't involved. Well, parents aren't involved because it's so far removed from them, the process is so far removed from them, that they feel like they have no say..." (Audio: 1 min 17 sec)

Management-Union Friendship and Money Seeking

Linda Borg's Sunday Projo article, "In Providence, more collaboration than conflict," weaves a tale of cooperation between the the city's schools superintendent and its teachers' union leadership:

Call it a tale of two cities.

While the superintendent and union president have been going at it in Central Falls, Brady and Smith have worked together on a plan to radically reshape five of the state's lowest-performing schools.

Her Saturday article, "Providence teachers face job uncertainty," gives some indication as to why. First of all, Providence has already effectively experienced the "turnaround model" that has Central Falls roiling:

Teachers, however, had to reapply for their jobs, and only 50 percent of the existing staff chose to do so. What made Hope High School successful was that, in the end, the teachers who stayed were committed to making radical changes, from moving to longer class periods to spending more time planning instruction.

Union President Steve Smith credits "the faculty" with initiating that idea, but whatever behind-the-scenes maneuvering there may have been, it was ultimately a difference in the union's behavior, not the district's plan. Further along in the same article, we find a clue that might explain the two sides' inclination to cooperate (emphasis added):

But for teachers to embrace dramatic change, they want the district — and the state — to give them the resources they need to get the job done, Smith said. He is bringing those concerns to School Supt. Tom Brady so that the School Department can push for federal monies to pay for additional support, whether it's creating alternative classrooms for disruptive students or remedial classes for students who are performing below grade level.

Let's take as given that the cooperation in Providence is desirable, whatever its motivation. We still should consider such evidence as the newly proposed funding formula. Providence has been underfunded, and no doubt stands to drink deeply from any pool of Race to the Top federal money that comes to the state. The Department of Education has determined that Central Falls, by contrast, is already receiving much more state money than is "fair."

In summary, the Providence union has already acquiesced to the sorts of changes that the Central Falls union is fighting, and education leaders on both sides of the negotiating table in Providence have reason to expect their good behavior to be rewarded mightily.

Let Them Throw Coins in the Water

Mike, of Assigned Reading, laments that union old-liners and their allies have taken the opportunity of hard times to smash positive education reforms:

Hope High School in Providence has been a beacon in Rhode Island school reform. It was undoubtedly the worst school in the state just five or six years ago. But with RIDE intervention, Hope has turned around. No one can deny the dramatic gains made by the students and teachers at Hope.

The city, however, according to the Journal, is seeking to significantly alter the academic model that was instrumental in Hope's success. Bureaucrats want to curb the autonomy granted to the school, and eliminate the block schedule that has brought teachers together and established a much needed school community. School leaders want continuity among schools, and claim they cannot afford the additional costs of the Hope model.

That last point, additional costs, rears its head in Mike's subsequent post:

Today, the Providence Journal reports the city has allocated $112,000 to restore the Henry Bowen Anthony Fountain. This fountain is located at the head of Blackstone Boulevard in the affluent East Side neighborhood, with the extravagant homes of some of Providence's wealthiest residents.

The same turn of events prompted the following reader email:

This just reminds me of the terrible things I used to hear about the Soviet territories in grade school, where the local political leaders would put themselves into lavish properties while presiding over hunger and poverty, all in the name of 'serving the workers'. Here is the most upper-class, liberal, educated neighborhood in Providence, a city full of crumbling infrastructure, awarding itself a monument (in the name of 'better neighborhoods' and 'fiscal stimulus'). The irony of the fountain being shut down thirty years ago to help close a budget hole does not escape me. The park's main recurring event is the new uber-expensive upper-class farmer's market, which I suppose will now be accompanied by the delightful sound of the entirety of two dozen households' tax dollars percolating through polished marble.

The takeaway for those of a reformist bent is that the governing power base in the city and state has no concern that Rhode Islanders can muster the will to turn them out. Perhaps we can rebrand the fountain as a "citizen request kiosk." Tying wishes to coins is as apt to turn the state around as following the due processes of local government.

Objectivity Isn't Always the Best Approach

Like fairness, objectivity is a generally positive principle that needn't be — shouldn't be — the guiding principle in every circumstance. One circumstance in which a degree of subjectivity is appropriate, applied to a collection of objective criteria is the hiring of teachers, whatever their argument might currently be in Providence:

The union claims that Brady's hiring practice "eliminates in its entirety impartial and objective decision-making" because it requires the district to offer only an "adequate explanation" for teacher assignments.

So, as we've heard before, standardized testing is inappropriate because of all of the intangibles of teaching (i.e., it must be measured subjectively), and the hiring methodology of most of the rest of the economic world is inappropriate because it isn't sufficiently objective. Is Rhode Island done falling for this stuff, yet?

False Emergencies, Real Dollars

Mayor Cicilline has repeatedly expressed concern for the burden of the taxpayer. I'm sure I speak for taxpayers everywhere when I say "thanks".

My question is, does his concern manifest itself anyplace other than the expired firefighters' contract?

Let's be clear. I'm the first to ask for a fair contract between municipality and valued public worker. Commenter and firefighter advocate Tom Kenney said something nice under this post. Loathe though I am to introduce a slightly discordant note, even temporarily, he probably wouldn't be too happy about my likely stance on the terms of the contract now in contention between the mayor and Local 799.

At the same time, the budget for the Providence Fire Department is 6.5% of the city's total budget (FY 2008, PDF ). Does the other 93.5% of the budget get the exacting attention that the Fire Department has received, lately and for the last five years?

What got me thinking about the bigger budget picture is this nonsense, far from the first such incident reported by Michael Morse at Rescuing Providence. More important than dollar cost is the potential human cost of such a diversion of resources. Did someone wind up more seriously injured or worse while Rescue Taxicab One was attending to this woman? At the risk of stating the obvious, public services are provided for use, not abuse and for need, not greed. This woman and everyone who has done likewise should get an invoice - a complete invoice, labor and equipment - for the ride.

Now we have to ask: is this sort of thing going on with other city services? Are city ambulances called like taxicabs reflective of how the city - more specifically, the tax dollar - is managed overall?

Kudos to the mayor for his extreme concern about the firefighters new contract. At the risk, however, of sounding a tad ungrateful (really, I'm not), every budget dollar counts, not just the dollars expended on a department that accounts for 6.5% of the city's budget. And a dollar saved from an abused city service is a dollar that can go back into the budget ... or, in the most dire case, back into the taxpayer's wallet.

Re: Nothing Egregious About This Picket Line

Without coming down on either side of the particular issue on the table (which, whatever else its effects, has helped to highlight the multiple dumbnesses of Rhode Island politics), I have to express an objection to something that Andrew wrote earlier today:

... Vice-President of the United States of America is not a union job. Vice-President Biden's decision not to attend the conference is a purely political one and it is ludicrous to assert that people should self-curtail their rights of free expression and assembly, because the VP of the US needs to be protected from having to make political decisions.

The consideration that's missing from this analysis is that the Providence firefighters should and do have a more direct and more substantial interest in the well-being of Providence and of Rhode Island. It costs Biden next to nothing — and lesser federal functionaries even closer to nothing — to skip the convention. He's in office; he's just started in office. Indeed, bowing out arguably helps him to burnish union bona fides and illustrate independence from political leaders who happen to share the Democrat brand.

He's a politician, and he'll behave politically. Saying that the firefighters' union should not consider the consequences of its actions because they are filtered through the proxy of a politician's decisions is like saying that a dog owner shouldn't seek to protect his pet from having to resist biting guests. In the context of a dinner party, teaching the dog is not the focus; protecting one's associates is. In the context of rallies and national conventions hosted in Rhode Island, the Vice President's development and stagecraft shouldn't be the focus of those whose actions might repercuss in the state; the local community should be.

One could argue that the union's stunt will not have substantial consequences. It would also be reasonable to argue that things played out in a way that the union couldn't have foreseen, and its own political considerations required it to persist. But the general principle that a person or group's responsibility does not extend to anticipating the likely actions of others is not a notion that it is wise to promote.

Nothing Egregious About This Picket Line

I guess I'm to the left of Bob Kerr on this one. I agreed with him in 2007 (and thought he wrote the best single item on the subject) when he wrote that the Providence Firefighter's Local 799 threat to picket a statewide disaster drill, which could have shut down the drill, was wrong. I was glad when the union altered its plans and opted for an informational rally instead.

But the circumstances are different this time, for at least two reasons...

1. A statewide disaster drill is fundamentally different from a mayor's conference. Stuff happens at a large-scale drill that cannot be simulated anywhere else. Had the drill not gone on, there's no guarantee that an adequate replacement could have been put together anytime soon after and the opportunity for coordinated training and learning would have been lost.

   A mayor's conference is no disaster drill. The main activity at a conference is talking and (hopefully) listening. While there is value in getting public officials to talk to one another face-to-face, they will have plenty of other chances to communicate with one another on issues they believe are important. Or, if you prefer a more colloquial expression of this idea, politicians will be able to find other opportunities to talk.

2. Whatever I may think of the principle of union members respecting one another's picket lines, the fact is they do, and it was unfair of union leadership to potentially disrupt the drill by forcing firefighters to choose between their professional responsibilities and their union.

   However, Vice-President of the United States of America is not a union job. Vice-President Biden's decision not to attend the conference is a purely political one and it is ludicrous to assert that people should self-curtail their rights of free expression and assembly, because the VP of the US needs to be protected from having to make political decisions.

Campaign Contributions: Bready to Cicilline

Under Marc's post concerning the lawsuit filed by former Providence Tax Collector Robert Ceprano against Mayor David Cicilline et al, commenter Damien Baldino observes

I don't know if Richard Bready is a generous contributor to the City, but he is a generous contributor to Mayor Cicilline.

Indeed. Richard and Cheryl Bready have made the following contributions to David Cicilline's mayoral campaign.

Richard

June, 2002: $1,000

September, 2003: $500

September, 2004: $1,000

June, 2005: $1,000

March, 2006: $1,000

Cheryl

September, 2004: $1,000

June, 2005: $1,000

March, 2006: $1,000

For a grand total to date of $7,500. The question is, did these contributions, which had reached $5,500 by June, 2005, influence Mayor Cicilline's decision in 2005 to waive the interest that Mr. Bready owed on an unpaid real estate tax bill?

Addendum - More Contributors, More Interest Waived

Under comments, Damien Baldino directs us to a January post on his blog, RI Republican, in which he has compiled the campaign contributions of five additional people. Not just any people but

... some of the people David Cicilline helped with their tax problems. Not surprisingly, all of them are regular contributors to Cicilline's campaign, which currently has an ending balance of more than $600,000.

Listed below are the five individuals mayor Cicilline so graciously helped, including a list of their contributions to Mayor Cicilline and a link to their contribution history at ricampaignfinance.com.

Well, well, well. Five more generous contributors. Five more dollops of interest waived. Coincidence? Or pattern?

Cicilline's Scapegoat Fights Back

Be wary of who you throw under the bus. Like, say, a city tax collector who may know some things (via 7to7):

Fired tax collector Robert P. Ceprano....Ceprano alleges that Mayor David N. Cicilline pressed him in 2005 to waive back interest on unpaid property taxes by Richard Bready, the CEO of Nortek. According to the 86-page lawsuit, Ceprano refused to accept a $25,000 check from Bready in 2005 for two properties that were facing a tax sale for unpaid taxes. The reason: because the check did not include interest, which Bready was asking be waived.

When Ceprano refused, his lawsuit says, Bready instead delivered the check directly to the mayor. The mayor, through then-chief of staff Michael Mello, then ordered Ceprano to remove the properties, at 145 Benefit St. and 24 Stimson Ave., from the tax sale.

According to the lawsuit, Mello told Ceprano that Bready was "a generous contributor to the city.'' Ceprano subsequently wrote a note in city tax records, attached to the lawsuit as an exhibit: "At the request of Mayor Cicilline & Chief of Staff Michael Mello, interest will not be charged on this account.''

Wonder if this has legs?

Speed Reading License Plates

Matt Allen asked a good question this evening: would this be acceptable if it does, in fact, focus solely on cars involved in real crimes?

The Police Department is going to try out a new gizmo installed on its cruisers to automatically read motor-vehicle license plates and give officers a quick read-out of whether a plate is on a "hot list."

The technology, manufactured by ELSAG North America Law Enforcement Systems, is supposed to give officers an advantage in knowing what they may be up against before they get out of the cruisers during a vehicle stop.

ELSAG's proprietary software searches criminal and motor vehicle databases and alerts an officer to any violations or crimes associated with that plate number.

Let us emphasize, conversely, that if the device is to be utilized as some imaginative minds have projected - to identify delinquent parking ticket recipients - it needs to be deployed in a completely non-discriminatory manner. Let no one be excluded from its watchful eye. Not city employees. Not relatives of the Mayor.

In these matters, egalitarianism is a beautiful thing.

Nick Gorham, North Westconnaug Needs You!

The conventional wisdom is that Nick Gorham lost his seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives because of his support for regionalizing Exeter, Foster, Glocester, Scituate, West Greenwich and part of Coventry into a single town of Westconnaug, offending the delicate parochial sensibilities of his constitutents.

I wonder what Mr. Gorham's former constituents from Foster think of former Providence Mayor Joe Paolino's plan, published in today's Projo, to fold the town of Foster into a new Super-Providence…

The Providence County I envision would include Providence, East Providence, North Providence, Cranston, Johnston, Foster and Scituate — 36 percent of the state’s population at present, hardly enough to take over the state.

At least Mr. Paolino is more honest than most about his reasons for regionalization -- Providence needs more tax money from other communities to fund city development…

Providence needs a much larger, growing tax base to launch additional renewal campaigns in the city.

Mr. Paolino also demonstrates the primary reason why people are rightly skeptical of municipal consolidation plans, with this section of his op-ed…

The new Providence County would be created by a “merger of equals,” rather than by an annexation of the other cities and towns by the capital city.

Why is "annexation" even being brought up in this context? Is Mr. Paolino suggesting, perhaps, that if you're not from Providence you should agree to a regionalization plan, because Providence might just annex you anyway if you don't do the right thing?

But if Joseph Paolino and others think that annexation of cities and town is a legitimate bargaining chip in the regionalization discussion, just think how they're going to act towards those (former) cities and towns, when they have taxation and other formal powers over them!

Government as Pension Program

Here's an eye-popper: Cranston spends more than a fifth of its total budget on pensions (not including teachers). Nine municipalities spend over 10%.

While Rhode Island's political leaders wrestle with state pension reform, there's another big pension headache out there — the soaring cost of municipal pensions.

A new study by the business-backed Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council reports that the amount of money that communities spend on pension costs has increased nearly 50 percent in the past five years, from $101 million in 2004 to $149 million in the current fiscal year ending June 30.

But the raw amount, the exclusion of teachers, and the addition of state employees is not all:

The study found that locally administered pension plans were able to fund only an average of 45 percent of their obligations as of June 30, 2006, with an unfunded liability of $1.6 billion. That encompasses quite a wide range, from a Coventry police pension plan that is only 7.9-percent funded, to the Jamestown police pension plan, which is over-funded, at 123.9 percent.

In other words, as much as they're spending, many cities and towns ought to be devoting more resources to pensions.

That's if you look at it as a funding matter. If you look at it as a practical and moral matter, they ought to be devoting less to pensions. It's time to bring public workers back to the real world.

The Mayor's Supplemental Budget: Not Necessarily Better Late than Never

On the one hand, the concessions requested by Mayor Cicilline from 5,000+ city employees sound reasonable and necessary given the constraints on both local and state revenue faced by budgeters. [Side note: Local 1033, the city's largest public labor union, is to be applauded for signing on.]

An increase in the health insurance co-share to 15 percent for union personnel, and 20 percent for non-union workers.

•An immediate wage freeze, effective up to and including fiscal year 2010.

•An increase in the retirement age from 55 to 60 years for employees with less than five years of experience and 62 years for new employees.

•An increase in the number of years of service before an employee is eligible to receive full pension benefits to 30 years.

•A decrease in the allowance for disability pensions from 66.67 percent of salary to 50 percent of salary.

•Elimination of a paid holiday.

Cicilline is also mandating two furlough days for non-union staff and said he does not intend to fill 22 vacant firefighter positions and 8 police officer positions.

The only question as to substance would be the intent of the mayor with regard to applicability to the school side of the budget, including specifically staffing levels.

On the other hand, Providence has never been awash in revenue. The Mayor and the City Council have been fully cognizant of this fact all along, of course. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, if this is good and responsible budgeting in 2009, wouldn't it have been better and even more responsible, say, five years ago?

For some reason, fiscal problems that were serious in nature were viewed as too premature to act on. Only when a situation arose that bordered on crisis did it become appropriate to formulate a responsible budget.

Yet if the Mayor and the City Council had, indeed, acted sooner

1.) the crisis could have been partially or largely averted;

2.) tax dollars would have been saved;

3.) the city would have been in a much better position to tackle the economic downturn that was headed its way.

In short, it isn't enough to say, look, we've finally formulated a responsible budget. Timing is also an intrinsic facet of responsiblility.

Meanwhile, in Providence...

Combining Randal Edgar's story in today's Projo on the likely next step that follows the inability of the parties(*) in Cranston to agree upon a new police contract via negotiation…

After watching a tentative contract go down to defeat, the police officers union is taking its case to a new venue that could ultimately cost taxpayers far more — binding arbitration…

The [rejected] contract, retroactive to July 1, 2008, provided no raises — apart from longevity increases — until January 2010, when officers would have received a 1.5 percent raise. They would also receive a 2.95 percent raise at the start of year three.

…with some of the details from Philip Marcelo's story in yesterday's paper on the state of affairs in Providence between Mayor, City Council and Police Department…

The City Council, which has cast a critical eye over Mayor David N. Cicilline’s spending choices in light of a deficit approaching $16 million this year, has more to consider in its opposition to pay raises for high-ranking police officers and the mayor’s hiring of a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm…

The council maintains that it never authorized Cicilline’s administration to give pay raises retroactive to two years to the officers, some of whom are now retired. Cicilline’s administration has said that the retroactive pay for the nonunion officers matches those awarded to police union members in arbitration in the last fiscal year.

…again raises the question of why an 18-month pay-freeze, with no retroactive make-up in the future, is being considered as something less than a real concession by several members of the City Council in Cranston.

(*) And just so there's no confusion, I am including the City Council in the definition of "parties" in this post; there was some concern at Monday's meeting that the meaning of "parties" didn't include the City Council in the context of contracts with the City.

The End of Education in Providence

What kind of a school system would let this sort of thing happen? It's sure to be the end of quality public education as we know it (emphasis added):

Starting this fall, teacher vacancies in four Providence schools — Hope High School, Veazie Street Elementary School, Lauro Elementary School and Perry Middle School — will be filled based on whether the applicants have the skills needed to serve students in those particular schools. The principals of the district's two new schools — Nathan Bishop Middle School and the Providence Career and Technical Academy — will have the authority to hire their own teachers. The entire school district will move to this new plan at the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year.

For anybody who missed my sarcasm, I'll restate: What kind of school system would allow itself to decay so greatly that such a basic organizational practice seems like a radical innovation? Unbelievable.

Last Word on the Flag Incident

The official last word - what, if any, disciplinary action the Providence School District will take against Mr. Robert Perkins - is now a week overdue, hopefully because the district is reconsidering a bad initial decision.

In the meantime, David Quiroa had a pretty balanced take in Tuesday's ProJo.

First and foremost I have to make clear that I believe that every flag that represents the people of a country must be given the utmost respect because it’s the reflection of the soul of a nation. By now everyone reading this note may be aware of the incident that took place at Roger Williams Middle School, in Providence, the other week when Assistant Principal Robert Perkins allegedly stepped on a flag from the Dominican Republic. I do not condone the action of stomping on any national flag — yes, including our beautiful red, white and blue.

After reading all the reports about this issue in The Journal and hearing the extensive testimony by Mr. Perkins on WPRO’s Dan Yorke Show, I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Perkins did need to give a sincere apology. However, everyone else should let the school authorities wash their own clothes and there is absolutely no need to have the U.N. issue a resolution.

I have five kids and I can tell you that if my kids are running around our living room breaking things and having a food fight and they happen to be holding a Guatemalan flag I would probably take the flag and throw it on the floor — not out of hate to the flag but out of stress. We must analyze every situation in its proper context for justice to prevail.

DAVID A. QUIROA

Newport

Mayor David Cicilline Declares for Re-election

... in the following press release issued at 3:08 pm today.

Dear Friend,

You have been an active supporter of the important work we have taken on together, and I want you to be among the first to know about an important decision I have reached. In these particularly difficult economic times, I am more certain than ever that it is the right one. Today I am declaring my candidacy for reelection as Mayor of our great city.

We have achieved a great deal in the past six years -- maybe more than many of us expected -- but the job is not done and we are in the midst of a serious financial crisis. It is not a time to change focus. I hope you will take a few minutes to review the statement I recorded about my decision by clicking the link or image below. As always, thank you for your devotion to our important work on behalf of Providence.

Providence Middle School Flag Brouhaha

Can someone please explain:

- the flags of which countries are subjugated to rights of free speech and which are not;

- how, when faced with a "situation" in the City of Providence, to determine if it requires a careful, six figure investigation or if it qualifies for an off-the-cuff snap judgment.

Another (Potentially) Huge Development

Here comes another historic, philosophical battle, this time in Providence:

Education Commissioner Peter McWalters has ordered the city schools to begin filling teacher vacancies based on qualifications rather than seniority, an order that could fly in the face of the teachers' contract.

McWalters, in a no-nonsense letter yesterday to Supt. Tom Brady, said the district hasn't been moving fast enough to improve student achievement and that it was time to intervene in a much more aggressive fashion.

Dare we hope that we're seeing the beginning of a revolution of sanity? (And dare we hope that it'll arrive before we reach the utter bottom?)

Municipal Fines: Their Purpose Clarified

... by the administration of Mayor David Cicilline.

Some city officials think Caprio and the three other Municipal Court judges might be a little too forgiving to those who come before them, and it is costing the city money.

Mayor David N. Cicilline’s director of administration, Richard I. Kerbel, says the court — which deals with traffic and moving violations and some misdemeanor offenses — is not on pace to meet the city’s revenue estimates.

So, in not so many words, he is asking the courts to step it up.

Additionally,

The city has not been able to increase its parking-officer staff as fast as it would have liked because of delays in passage of this year’s budget. As a result, the additional revenue has not materialized, and now the city is expecting about $9.5 million from the courts by the end of the fiscal year. It’s a relatively small piece of the city’s $641-million budget, but with all the other financial difficulties facing the city, every dollar counts.

Just so we're clear, then, traffic and parking regulations pertain to something other than public safety and free-flowing traffic.

My objection to any judicial leniency is from the other angle completely. There is no provision in the law for being four minutes late back to a parking meter. Two hours is two hours. As for extenuating circumstances or personal economic hardships, not only do most of us have them but most of them aren't contemplated by the law, either. Why should some people get off while others have to pay?

Alas, the mayor's administration did not cite the slightly loftier basis of a desire for equitable enforcement of laws and regulations but the more questionable goal of a steady revenue stream. As a caller last evening to the Matt Allen Show pointed out, the city is literally banking on the failings of their citizens and visitors.

Former Tax Collector Speaks out; Mayor Responds In Advance

Former Providence Tax Collector Robert Ceprano talks about his termination and events leading up to it in today's front page ProJo story by Mike Stanton. And below is the text of a press release issued yesterday by Mayor David Cicilline responding to the story ahead of time.

Two items stick out from Stanton's story. One is the contrast between the curriculum vitae of Robert Ceprano and David Cicilline, the former notably heavy in the areas of military and public service. The second is this item, about half way down:

But weeks and months passed, the taxes remained unpaid and Cicilline remained elusive. Ceprano, who learned from the city’s lawyer that Cicilline didn’t have sufficient money in his account, enlisted the mayor’s then-chief of staff, Chris Bizzacco, and another aide, Rita Murphy. Both tried without success to collect the money. A few times, Ceprano and the lawyer, Scott Hammer, wanted to cash the check, to force Cicilline’s hand, but Bizzacco passed the word through Murphy that they should hold the check.

[Press Release issued by Mayor David Cicilline at 8:37 pm last night]

Dear friends,

I wanted to let you know about a story that will be featured in tomorrow’s Providence Sunday Journal in which the City’s former Tax Collector Robert Ceprano and his attorney, Artin Coloian, seek to make a case in the press that his original termination last September was not based on performance.

It is not a pleasant thing to discuss someone's substandard job performance publicly, but public trust is critical to effective government and these allegations of inappropriate termination need to be addressed openly and immediately.

The Finance Director has forwarded the information below, which is a summary of the factors that led to his official request for the Tax Collector's resignation on September 15th, 2008:

Upon taking office in October 2007, Finance Director Bruce Miller determined that the Tax Collector's Office was lagging far behind national, and State of Rhode Island, best practices. Deficiencies included:

- inefficiencies due to poor use or non-use of technology
- internal control gaps that rendered the City vulnerable to error and fraud
- inefficient operational practices
- lack of effective policies and procedures

Finance Director Miller initiated a process to bring the Tax Collector’s office from a level of mediocrity to a level of excellence. This began with a discussion of the deficiencies that Mr. Miller had outlined and his request that a plan be developed to correct them. The Tax Collector repeatedly refused to create the plan or initiate the improvements.

After roughly nine months of working with the Tax Collector to make these improvements, Director Miller saw no improvement in the operations of that office. The Tax Collector's failure to act was clearly leading to disciplinary procedures against him, so Director Miller sought to pursue an outcome that might avoid termination. In July and August of 2008, several options were discussed:

Continue as Tax Collector while complying with all the stated expectations, understanding that if expectations were not met then termination would proceed.

Because the Tax Collector had difficulty meeting the expectations of the Finance Department, perhaps another City department would be more suitable. Reassignment to the Police Department was discussed.

The Tax Collector could choose to resign. He was interested in this option and a discussion of the conditions regarding this option ensued.

Finally, last September, the Tax Collector agreed to resign. On September 15th, 2008 Director Miller formally asked for his resignation by email.

This unfortunate episode reflects my view that the citizens of Providence have a right to expect something more than the mediocre performance they were getting from the Tax Collector during his tenure. While operating in a nearly complete absence of standards or procedures might have worked under previous administrations, my view is that it is an invitation to precisely the kind of corruption we were burdened with under previous administrations. The Tax Collector’s unwillingness to raise his performance to a level of professionalism that the taxpayers have a right to expect led, regrettably, to his inevitable resignation.

Our efforts to clean up Providence and set things right will continue.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any further questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

David N. Cicilline

Mayor

Paid for by The Cicilline Committee. Per Rhode Island State Law, individuals may contribute a maximum of $1,000 per year. Business and corporate checks are prohibited. Note: In keeping with Mayor Cicilline’s pledge to not accept campaign contributions from employees and vendors of the City of Providence, any contribution from an employee or vendor will be returned.

The Leadership Dance

Part 2 of Tim White's investigation into misuse of public resources and time in the Providence Sewer Department mainly concerned supervisor Algot Abrahamson's use of a city truck for a spin to a known gambling house. More intriguing, in my opinion, is the similarity in some of the supervisor's phrasing to that of Mayor David Cicilline on White's related Newsmakers show. Says Abrahamson:

What I'm saying is a picture doesn't convince me there is any wrongdoing here, you'd have to speak to the director. I know the men, they are two of the best workers I have. ... Yeah, well, I guess I'm responsible for a certain amount of it, yes. I have so many guys, I can't follow everybody everyday.

And says the mayor:

The city of Providence has about 6,000 employees. We have extraordinary leaders in each of the departments in city government, and I would say without question that what you just saw was an aberration. ...

[Talking about issues in the Providence tax office:] Ultimately, the responsibility for that office, and all of the city offices is mine, but in any organization you have a director of administration, or any government, you have a director of finance who ultimately direct supervises.

Compliment one's workers, accept nominal responsibility, pass the blame down.

Cicilline dodged Arlene Violet's persistent questioning of why it took Tim White to discover abuse, and how he (the mayor) could possibly assert that the workers caught were in no way representative of a larger problem. Referring back to the transcript of White's report, I see that arguably the most egregious of the abuses uncovered — the backhoe traveling across the city with a load of publicly owned sand for the foreman's house — occurred on the very first day of surveillance.

Quite a coincidence.

A Penny Taxed, a Penny Wasted

Channel 12 reporter Tim White did some surveillance of the Providence Sewer Department and in part 1 revealed some observations that certainly wouldn't seem to have involved isolated incidents, this one in particular:

His name - Anthony Cipriano, Jr. Records show Cipriano is a heavy equipment operator for the sewer department, and a shop steward for the local 1033 laborer's union. We also caught him misusing a city truck.

Target 12 cameras capture Cipriano miles away from work, running errands in city trucks for hours; all against city policy.

We catch him: twice taking the city truck into Cranston to pick something up from his second job at a security firm; stopping at a Cranston bank;and several times driving to a North Providence hair salon and staying for more than an hour.

On this day, Cipriano arrives at work at 10:30 in the morning. Two hours later, he leaves and arrives at a Cranston dentist's office. More than an hour later, he departs.

Thinking he's heading back to work, we get in front of him. We're wrong.

"Oh burger king... Burger king."

Apparently, now it's lunch time.

On this five-hour work day, Cipriano spends nearly two hours on personal business.

According to the Transparency Train, sponsored by OSPRI (PDF), Cipriano's total compensation in 2007 was $77,299, including base pay of $46,006.88 and $8,084.93 (the rest being the cost of benefits). The other sewer employee caught in impropriety in the segment, foreman Anthony Greenwood received $85,199.14, with salary and overtime of $55,453.75 and $5,292.38.

Part 2 airs tonight, and the preview highlights supervisor Algot Abrahamson, whose remuneration was $82,715.38, with salary and overtime of $63,913.71 and $4,793.54.

Losing That Old-Time New England Feel

Damien Baldino worries that Obama "stimulus" largesse may spell disaster for Providence's character:

Once Barack Obama is sworn in as President of the United States, his first priority will be a stimulus package to help the economy. I've seen amounts ranging from $600 billion to $1.3 trillion, but the most common estimate seems to be around $800 billion. The money would be used to finance transportation projects, green energy projects, and rennovation/rebuilding schools. Massive amounts of money will be funneled to cities and states to complete infrastructure projects that are in the planning stages. ...

I fear that the money would be used by the city to implement the ideas published in the DeJong study.

If you're not familiar with the DeJong study, it is essentially a study championed by David Cicilline and Donnie Evans which addressed the condition of Providence's educational facilities and how the system could be reconfigured and improved (link below). To summarize, the study had a strong bias toward rennovating historic schools and favored demolishing historic buildings and replacing them with new buildings that will probably be as awful as some of the City's other new schools. Many of Providence's schools are a mess, and they do need major rennovations, which I strongly support. What I oppose is demolishing historic buildings that could become functional and beautiful at a cost that is likely equal to, or below the cost of new construction.

I'm not very familiar with the personalities involved in Providence, but Rhode Islanders in general are a conservationist lot. Although, we also have a talent for extracting losses from win-win circumstances. (By which I most certainly do not mean to suggest that pouring taxpayer money into misguided "stimulus" packages — or politician-and-public-sector wish lists — is a win by any stretch.)