March 2012 – Page 3

March 20, 2012March 21, 2012

Gemma’s Suspicious Facebook Followers

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Anthony Gemma is running for U.S. Congress as a Democrat. He hasn’t formally announced yet, but it’s pretty clear.

For instance, type “Anthony Gemma” in any search engine. See the first result? “Anthony Gemma for Congress 2012.” He’s also taken a leave of absence as CEO of Mediapeel after selling it to Alex and Ani. Mr. Gemma needs to stop beating around the bush and announce already. The ongoing speculation feels like it’s being used as an attempt to drum up buzz, and it’s not helping him. He has been running since he lost in 2010. We know this. I saw Facebook advertisements back in 2011. Mr. Gemma has been attacking U.S. Congressman David Cicilline since the latter took office, every chance Mr. Gemma gets. It’s long past time for him to announce.

Unfortunately for Mr. Gemma, Democrats don’t want him. Maybe it’s the fact he only affiliated with the Democrats when he decided to run for U.S. Congress the last time. Maybe it’s that, as WPRI’s Ted Nesi put it on Newsmakers, “he’s sounding more like a Governor or an EDC chairman” than a congressional candidate. Joe Fleming also makes clear in that video that Mr. Gemma has almost no support from the left or the establishment wings of the Democratic Party, and even his support among its right wing will be shaky. The Party will lock shields around Mr. Cicilline.

Mr. Gemma doesn’t belong in politics. He belongs in business, where he can at least hide somewhat from public view and people are less inclined to challenge him openly. Unfortunately for the all-but-declared primary contender, politics is a public process, where scrutiny comes at you whether you want it to or not. Which is why it’s interesting to see that the candidate’s campaign page on Facebook suddenly leaped up in likes during the month of February.

gemma fb screen2 — A sudden jump in Anthony Gemma for Congress' number of likes; apparently, he's popular in Germany

Just as interesting are the subscribers to his personal page. Who are the 20,000+ people subscribed to Anthony Gemma’s Facebook? And here’s a better question: what’s up with many of their unusual names? And why do most like “Unicorn City Film” as a movie? Or why do Kevin Ubtryvh and Heideo Uthrdl have the same 16 friends (and only 16 friends), the exact same likes in sports teams, music, books, movies, and television, and yet somehow aren’t friends and grew up and went to schools in completely different places? Why are a large majority of their friends sporting the last name “Hic” or else some slight variant on that? Is Penix Jermainebrianne even a real person, or should her parents (assuming they exist) simply be examined for naming her such? Why do so many of Mr. Gemma’s Facebook subscribers follow this basic pattern of an odd first name followed by a last name made up of two names which are usually first names?

Mr. Gemma is about to go up against David Cicilline, a well-financed opponent who has a strong base of support among the Democratic Party apparatus. But Mr. Cicilline may have the money and ground games ready, he doesn’t have anything like Mr. Gemma’s Facebook numbers; totaling a mere 3,456 likes (this is comparable with numbers put up by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse). Mr. Gemma racked up 41,764 likes on February 23rd alone (a date he issued a press release attacking Mr. Cicilline; this doesn’t usually brings tens of thousands to click “Like” on one’s Facebook page). Looking just at his Facebook numbers, Anthony Gemma should be Rhode Island’s most popular politician. Which is why he sits 13 points behind Republican candidate Brendan Doherty in the latest WPRI poll (in comparison, Mr. Doherty has only 5,523 likes).

Now, there’s no conclusive proof that Mr. Gemma is not popular in Germany, Spain, Indonesia, and Dubai; countries where many of his subscribers are from. There’s no conclusive proof that Corinem Yers doesn’t exist (he’s also a fan of Unicorn City Film). But these people don’t show up on a Google search in any other place except Facebook. In contrast, most people tend to at least show up somewhere other than Facebook, because they have lived full lives. Examples include websites for their colleges, or their jobs, or in newspapers, or even the online white pages. Maybe those following the not-yet-a-candidate are merely people who are so cloistered from modern society they’re only allowed limited Facebook access. And maybe Anthony Gemma appeals to those people. In which case, he should be applauded to reaching out to a forgotten segment of our society.

But alternatively, people (especially those who are a bit tech savvy) could take a look at this and come away thinking one thing: Anthony Gemma is utilizing bots to inflate his social media numbers. Even if that’s not true, the appearance is what matters. Anyone looking for big numbers is going to think that more likes on Facebook equals a better candidate. But therein lies a problem. If your social media followers aren’t dedicated, if they aren’t real, then you’ve just lost a social media battle. To technologically competent people, nothing’s worse than a social media phony. People might begin to think like Facebook user Alex Avalos, who put it thusly to Anthony Gemma:

______________________________________________

Updates: RIFuture has attempted to contact Mr. Gemma for a response, but so far, he has not yet responded.

Sadly, an astute reader has pointed out that the Facebook account Penix Jermainbrianne no longer exists.

We also have been getting some emails and Facebook responses about this story. Readers have pointed out that Mr. Gemma’s Twitter followers are likewise odd, and he seems to be able to rally online support in online polls. Last election cycle, the Providence Journal‘s PolitiFact was unable to conclusively evaluate claims made by Mr. Gemma’s campaign about his status on LinkedIn. Likewise, a couple of readers have said this recalls late last year when Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was revealed to have followers who were roughly 80% dummy or inactive accounts. However, that was evaluated to be not far off from a standard political account. The second-to-last paragraph of that story leaves us with the idea that we should apply caution to all online interactions and not take things at face value.

So there is no smoking gun to suggest that Gingrich, or any of these politicians, bought any of their followers. But what this kind of analysis also reveals, says Topsy [a social media search company], is how hard it is to say which Twitter accounts are for real and which aren’t. Spam bots are getting more sophisticated; many now have fake profile pictures, fake bios and generate fake tweets. “The fact is, a large proportion of all Twitter accounts are inactive anyway,” says Ghosh [Topsy co-founder].

March 20, 2012March 20, 2012

RI Progress Report: Tax Increases in Woonsocket, Graduation Rates Drop and Lou Raptakis to Run for Old Seat

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Woonsocket High School (photo courtesy of Woonsocket School District)

What’s the plan to fix budget problems in Woonsocket? A special 13 percent supplemental tax increase this spring. But here’s the problem with that plan. According to the Projo: “the special assessment will cost the average homeowner about $350 in a city where the median family income is about $770 a week.”

— Lou Raptakis, a former state senator, tells East Greenwich Patch that he is going to run for his old seat. Raptakis ran for Secretary of State two years ago and very conservative Glen Shibley ended up winning his seat. EG Patch also reports that Peter DiSimmone, of Narragansett, plans to challenge Sen. Dawson Hodgson, whose district now includes a stretch of that town in addition to East Greenwich and North Kingstown.

— Yes, financial problems of cities and towns is a huge issue for Rhode Island. But so is this one: the number of people who are graduating from high school is dropping. According to a study, RI is one of 10 states in the country to see a decline and, at 75.3 percent, we’re not below the national average.

— Dan McGowan lists the 15 most influential political operatives in Rhode Island. Congrats to Kate Brock, of Ocean State Action, whom McGowan calls, “the face of the progressive left in Rhode Island.” Ray Sullivan, of Marriage Equality Rhode Island, also makes McGowan’s list.

— Did you see where Ernie Almonte said he was thinking of running for governor but doesn’t know if he’ll run as a Republican or as a Democrat? This is the problem with the Democratic party in Rhode Island – it really isn’t all that different from the GOP.

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012

Occupy URI, David Dooley on Tuition Increases

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Protesting years of cuts to public higher education in Rhode Island that have caused rampant tuition increases, Occupy URI mic checked the meeting of the Board of Governors for Higher Education Monday night with a song.

While their tactics were lighthearted, the issue is a serious one. The Board of Governors recently approved a 8 percent tuition increase that will mean this September an in-state student will pay an extra $1000 a year, up from $10,400. Since 2008, said spokesman Mike Trainer, the legislature has cut some $45 million to the three state colleges in Rhode Island. But because the cost of an education is only getting more expensive, students are running up enormous student loan debt to pay for the cost cutting.

There was a brief moment of tension when Professor Scott Molloy, who showed up late, asked to speak even though he didn’t sign up to and Chairman Lorne Adrain asked officers to prevent him from doing so.

Aftewards, I spoke with URI President David Dooley about the issue. He told me that legislators seem to view funding higher education as “discretionary” because when they make cuts, tuition goes up and enrollment doesn’t suffer. He also said the state would be wise to invest more in higher education.

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012

The Moderate Party Needs An Identity

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In 2010, Kenneth Block, Chairman of the Moderate Party took a run at Governor. His decently-publicized (for a third party) campaign achieved 6.5% of the vote (22,146 votes); enough that if only half his voters had shifted to Republican candidate John Robataille, Republican would now be in their fifth term as governor. Considering voter rolls the year before placed the number of registered Moderates at 52 in the entire state, Mr. Block had a good turnout.

More astounding was the Attorney General candidate, the near-unheard of Christopher Little, who pulled 14.4% of the vote and out-did the Moderates’ top-of-the-ticket candidate. Mr. Little had 47,328 voters select him, over 25,000 more than picked Mr. Block. In Providence, Mr. Little actually came in second over the Republican candidate, Erik Wallin. Both ultimately lost to Peter Kilmartin.

Did anyone else in the Moderates accomplish anything? Not really. Four candidates contested seats in the House. Mostly Democrats sailed to victory (often uncontested), with the closest races being where Republicans triumphed over Democrats. Moderates did best in the House races when Republicans weren’t running. Not a single candidate for Senate existed ran.

Ken Block — Kenneth Block, Moderate Party candidate for Governor (via Rotary Club of Providence's facebook)

The argument for me is pretty clear here: the race for Governor was at least a distraction for the Moderates. At best, it should’ve been a rallying point. I seem to recall there were rumors about having Lincoln Chafee on the ticket as a Moderate. Regardless of his policies, this would’ve been a massive boon the Moderates. If it could’ve happened, it probably should’ve. But even with a well-known, and at that time, well-liked candidate, the Moderates wouldn’t have solved all their problems.

Their main problem, is this: what are they about? Well, their website and Wikipedia pages offer their “4 E’s”: Economy, Education, Ethics, and the Environment! Under the economy: be more like Massachusetts, reduce spending, cut spending, and end “waste and fraud”. WPRI reporter Tim White probably has something to say about that last bit. Educations is the slate of education deforms we’ve come to expect from those advocating the corporate model; don’t pay teachers attractive wages, evaluate their students rigorously, put the inexperienced in teaching jobs as though this will make students learn better (it takes about three years for a teacher to become truly effective). Ethics is just a shot at the not-really corrupt political culture. The Environmental policy is actually pretty progressive, and something I can get behind.

Still, all it does is position the Moderates as “not-Republicans”. Just as the Republicans can’t afford to be merely the anti-Democrats, the Moderates have to be more than not-Republicans. Independents function just as well as not-Republicans, and are more reliable in terms of contesting races than the Moderates. So, how to solve these dilemmas?

First, drop the terms “moderate” and “centrist”. First, they’re relative. Moderate to what? The Democrats? The Democrats are all over the map. Moderate really only means “moderate Republican”, because the Democratic Party hasn’t rooted out its moderates in the same fashion conservatives have gone after moderate Republicans. Centrism is likewise a malleable ideal. You’re only in the center in appearance to other parties. If those parties shift (like if Republicans tilt leftward or Democrats tilt right), then you’re no longer centrist. Centrism just means you’re letting other people set the terms of the debate. Let’s put it this way: if you were centrist in the 1850s on slavery, then you probably favored something like Jim Crow. Jump ahead thirty years. Are you centrist any more?

If the counter-argument is that “Democratic” and “Republican” are just as relative terms, that’s true, but not in the same way. See, Democratic and Republican are both terms that their owners give meaning to (well, their opponents are often involved in ascribing negative meanings). It means that the parties never have to be reactionary, they’re almost always setting their issues for themselves.

The other problem with “moderate” is that it’s not really a rallying cry. Take Occupy Wall St. That organization has its battle cry right in its name. It lends itself to posters of shouting people with “Occupy” flying from their mouths. It’s active. When you hear the word “moderate”, you don’t think action. Here’s Thesaurus.com’s list of synonyms for moderate: abstinent, balanced, bearable, careful, cautious, compromising, conservative, considerate, considered, controlled, cool, deliberate, disciplined, dispassionate, equable, even, gentle, impartial, inconsiderable, inexpensive, judicious, limited, low-key, measured, middle-of-the-road, midway, mild, modest, monotonous, neutral, nonpartisan, not excessive, pacific, peaceable, pleasant, reasonable, reserved, restrained, sober, soft, steady, straight, tame, tolerable, tolerant, tranquil, untroubled”. Not all of those are bad things to be associated with, but most don’t lend themselves to partisanship. Untroubled people don’t campaign, they don’t really vote. Impartial people don’t care. Low-key people don’t attend rallies. Monotonous people shouldn’t run for government (although many do).

Logo of the Swedish Moderate Party (via Wikipedia)

But what about the Moderate Party in Sweden? They’re the government. But a quick perusal of their history and you’ll discover that the Moderate name is a rebranding of what was called the Rightist Party previously. Furthermore, they stand for liberal conservatism, not moderation (economic free-market liberalism combined with traditional conservative values). The RI Moderate Party is trying to stake out its own position under the Moderate label, not rebrand themselves to play down their extremism.

But rebranding is precisely what they’ll have to do. Their policies can’t be moderate positions between left and right, they have to be clear alternatives to those presented by Democrats and Republicans; or at least presented that way. Furthermore, liberal voters are a large, reliable portion of the state’s voters, but there is nothing on the Moderate Party’s website that would appeal to them past the environmental issues. If you could attract liberals and progressives on the environment alone, then the Green Party would be a force to be reckoned with.

Second, stop insulting Rhode Islanders. Don’t say the state is corrupt. Why? Because it implies that voters are willingly enabling corruption. Voters tend to trust their own representative to do the right thing, and view other representatives as causing trouble. So a candidate for office can’t succeed by portraying another candidate as corrupt unless that candidate actually is corrupt, and has been proven to be so. Rhode Island is great, and any party has to say they’ll make it better than it is. Even in the depths of its despair, there is still greatness in Rhode Island, and that greatness is what any party needs to focus on. Makes ethics important, but don’t make it a major plank of your party. Furthermore, by not emphasizing it so much, it won’t hurt you as much when you violate ethics laws.

Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France, wry wit (via Wikipedia)

Third, get rid of any “X-Point Plan” that is not three points (the Moderates have a Six-Point Plan for ethics). Anything overly complex leaves you open to Clemenceau’s criticism of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points: “Fourteen? God Almighty only had ten!” People also stop paying attention after too many (Angel Taveras had something like a twelve point plan for Providence, but it’s never mentioned these days). Three points is enough; the weakest comes second and the strongest comes last. This is basic rhetoric.

Fourth, ignore the governor’s office (and most statewide offices). This might seem counterintuitive, but given that the Moderates are on the ballot because of gathering enough signatures, the governor’s office means nothing for them. The Governor can do little in Rhode Island, especially against a Democratic General Assembly which hasn’t had a Democratic governor to cooperate with since Bruce Sundlun. By not competing for the governor, you also don’t get the stink of being a perennial loser on your party. Cities and towns are where the Moderates should be focusing. Successfully run one of those and then you have a case to make about responsible administration to the rest of the state. Take Senate and House seats, but only when you have enough that you are power-brokers should you run for governor. Then you can pass your agenda.

A party shouldn’t be a vehicle for Ken Block to become governor. It needs to be something more. A party persists. By not focusing on down-ticket races, the Moderate Party shows it’s not committed to building a party. Those small races and positions should be thought of as your farm league. They’re going to provide a large portion of the talent that will make any party last. They also point the way on positions and issues that will be important to your party down the line. Furthermore, gathering signatures for the party is such a ground-game method of running, it’s surprising that wasn’t translated into more candidates down-ticket.

Do I think the Moderates will listen to this? Not really. But if their goal is to become a genuine party and not just a Rhode Island sideshow, then hopefully they’re already having this discussion.

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012

ACLU: Flanders Flouts Law By Delegating His Duties

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The Rhode Island ACLU filed a lawsuit today against Central Falls receiver Bob Flanders saying he is improperly delegating authority to his chief of staff Gayle Corrigan.

Flanders, ACLU attorney Jennifer Azevedo said, “is stepping in for the mayor and city council. If he is going to do that he should have to do what mayor and council do. He has no authority to pass off his duties to a third party.”

Corrigan presides over Central Falls public meetings and makes recommendations that Flanders later signs off on. Azevodo said Flanders has no more a right to pass off this responsibility to a third party than would a mayor and council. Her suit contends that by doing so, Flanders is violating the Financial Stability Act, the law that put a receiver in place in Central Falls.

“The citizens of Central Falls have had their mayor and council taken away from them they have no self government,” Azevedo said. “If receiver can’t turn up for meeting himself then the people essentially have no one listening to them at all.”

She said the Rhode Island Supreme Court case Moreau v. Flanders spoke to her case when a justice wrote, according to her press release, “the receiver may exercise the powers of an authority or office to the limits of that authority or office, and no further.” Flanders is a former member of the state Supreme Court.

Flanders told me “there is nothing that requires there to be meetings,” let alone that he attend them. He said the Financial Stability Act empowers the receiver to make decisions through orders and because it expressly says that it is to, as he said, “take precedence over any contrary laws” he can make orders without holding public meetings as a mayor and council would have to do.

In a letter to the ACLU dated January 30, he wrote:

“There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding on your part that “third parties” are exercising the “extraordinary powers” ofthe receiver. Nothing could be further from the truth. With regarding to the parking ordinance, neither myself nor any member of my staff enacted any such ordinance at any public meeting. Whenever I exercise the powers ofthe Central Falls City Council, I do so by order, as R.I. Gen. Laws 45-9-20 requires me to do. I personally execute all orders of the receiver, and I assure you that I have never delegated that authority to anyone. In the case ofthe parking ordinance specifically, a copy of the order that I executed on January 6, 2012, is enclosed.”

The suit is expected to heard on March 30 in Superior Court. It could go before Judge Taft-Carter, who has seen many high-profile cases as of late, though it could also be moved to the business calendar and be heard by Judge Silverstein who has heard other cases relating to Central Falls.

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012

Budgeting for Disaster Part VII: Quasi-appropriate?

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Trick question: Why is Rhode Island’s housing policy not made by the state government? How about economic policy? Why do we have two environmental agencies? Two elections agencies?

The questions sound unrelated, but they have very similar answers, and they’re all related to the state’s bevy of “quasi-public” agencies—whose budgets are in Volume I of the budget.

The Airport Corporation is here, who runs all the state’s airports, including Green. The Economic Development Corporation is also here, along with Rhode Island Housing, RIPTA, the Narragansett Bay Commission (sewers in Providence and Pawtucket), the Resource Recovery Corporation (runs the central landfill), and several others.

Truthfully, it’s more correct to say the outlines of their budgets are in Volume I [B1-331-366]. There isn’t much information there about some very important agencies, and in some cases this was part of the point of keeping them separate from the regular parts of the state government.

Some of the quasi-publics were formed when the state took over existing private corporations. RIPTA, for example, was formed to save the last private bus company. Others have a separate existence for legal reasons. The Turnpike and Bridge Authority, which maintains the Pell and Mt Hope Bridge, was formed to issue bonds against the toll revenue collected at those bridges. But many quasi-publics—along with some other agencies less quasi and more public—were formed out of power struggles between the legislature and the governor.

The Coastal Resources Management Council, for example, our extra environmental agency, was originally formed in the 1970s so that powerful members of the legislature could circumvent new DEM coastal regulations on behalf of their friends who owned waterfront property. Rhode Island Housing (technically the RI Housing and Mortgage Finance Corp.) may have originally formed to access some federal HUD funding, but it was also a creature of the legislature, witness the mortgage scandals of the 1980s. Later, under a stronger Governor, the Economic Development Corporation was created out of the Department of Economic Development to give the Governor Lincoln Almond more control over economic policy (and to pay its executives more like the corporate executives they lunch with).

EDC has another distinction. When it was spun out of the government into a quasi-public, it took over the shell of the RI Port Authority. Why? Because after Bruce Sundlun effectively put the Public Building Authority out of business (it was a campaign promise), the Port Authority was the only agency with unlimited authority to borrow money without voter approval. And boy have they used that authority. EDC now owes debt used for the Fidelity campus in Smithfield, the Shepard’s building in Providence, the Masonic Temple hotel across from the state house, the I-Way boondoggle, the Sakonnet River Bridge, and much more. Subsidiaries owe the debt used to build the airport and renovate Quonset.

Under Ed DiPrete, the PBA’s record of borrowing without voter approval was considered a minor scandal and contributed to his election loss in 1990. But none of these subsequent projects got voter approval. Don Carcieri managed to double the state’s debt, and almost all of it was unapproved borrowing, so it’s difficult to remember why it was such a problem for DiPrete.

There will be more to say about this borrowing when we look at the Capital Budget document. For now, let’s look at one of the quasi-publics that spends a lot of time in the news lately over its budget.

RIPTA

The state’s public transit authority was formed when the private bus company that ran transit in Providence and vicinity went under in the 1960s. It wouldn’t be correct to say it has had an untroubled existence until recently, but it did not always have the persistent deficit it has now.

What’s happened to the agency in recent years is a few things. First, like the rest of the state, it is a victim of our crazy health care system. Ten years ago, employee benefits were $10.5 million for a $28.7 million payroll. (For union employees, pension payments are a fraction of the health care costs, though their growth has tracked the health care costs fairly well.) In 2013, we’re looking at $24.8 million in benefits for a $45.8 million payroll [B1-355]. The cost of health care is going up almost two and a half times faster than payroll costs.

Second, transit for disabled people has taken a tremendous number of resources. Paratransit services between 2001 and 2011 more than quintupled, from a cost of $1.8 million to $9.1 million, and there are other categories of service that provide more or less the same function.

Finally, the gas tax has been a problem of its own. A portion of the gas tax is dedicated to RIPTA. The problem is that the gas tax is constituted as a number of pennies per gallon of gas. When gas prices rise, the gas tax actually falls, as people buy less gas. But when gas prices rise, RIPTA’s cost for fuel also rises. In other words, as gas prices rise, RIPTA’s ridership rises, and so do its costs, at exactly the same time that its gas tax revenue falls. Why does it seem that RIPTA is permanently in trouble? Because its funding system makes no sense, and provides falling revenue when expenses rise.

And for those who wonder what is the value of RIPTA to Rhode Island, take it from me that it’s actually pretty hard to get a seat on several of the lines I use frequently. High gas prices mean lots of riders, and also mean service cutbacks.

Unfortunately, pretty much none of the people who make funding decisions about RIPTA—its board, legislators, the Governor or his staff—actually use the system, so it turns out that RIPTA’s funding problems are thoroughly unaddressed in Governor Chafee’s budget. The documents cheerfully predict a $10 million operating deficit by June 2013 so we’ll be seeing lots of RIPTA headlines in the coming year.

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012

RI Progress Report: Reinvent RI, Receivers and OccupyURI

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The Providence Journal kicked off a great new series on Sunday called Reinvent RI in which the paper does a great job analyzing and identifying the problems with our economy. The Projo says the state’s downturn is a result of a slumping housing economy coupled with a transition away from manufacturing – not high taxes or union dominance as some would have you believe.

Kate Bramson details five priorities for Rhode Island, including taking better advantage of our ports, keeping our college graduates here in state, retraining our workforce and taking advantage of what Allen Tear of Betaspring called our “unfair lifestyle advantage, an unfair cool advantage.”

Of course, Rhode Island’s business climate was also cited as a priority, but Bramson keeps great perspective writing that RI must, “reach out to help traditional small companies and the innovative start-ups that are developing new technologies and will be future job creators.”

— Meanwhile, over on the editorial page, Darth Flanders penned an op/ed with Gary Sasse extolling the benefits of municipal bankruptcy. It read as if Flanders and Sasse were selling the idea of municipal receivers to mayors and managers across the state, even though they led off by saying, “If the reader takes one thing from this article, it is that only after exhausting all other options should financially troubled Rhode Island municipalities” consider bankruptcy. Of course the next sentence started with a big giant, “But…”

— In other financial news from this weekend, Ted Nesi made a great observation about Rhode Island’s economy. Namely that public sector unions aren’t nearly as powerful as people think, and Wall Street is much more so.

“For all the talk about labor unions’ power in Rhode Island, their influence over political leaders is still trumped by the might of another formidable institution: Wall Street. When Rhode Island’s leaders are faced with a choice between investors and public-sector union members, they consistently side with the former. The bondholders law, which explicitly protects creditors over pensioners, is one example of that; the suspension of democracy in Central Falls is another.”

— Economic inequality has become such the debate dejour that they are even talking about it in East Greenwich, home of Rhode Island’s largest concentration of the 1%. Lisa Sussman wrote a great piece for EG Patch about why this upscale suburban enclave really shouldn’t complain about Chafee’s municipal plan. Read the comments to see me get beat up for sticking my nose into the fray!

— Given all this gloomy news about the state of the state, what are we to do about it? Well, Occupy URI will be protesting at the Board of Governors for Higher Education meeting today at 5:30 at the URI Bay Campus “to object to the unrelenting diversion of funds from public education in Rhode Island, and to bring to the Board’s attention grave concerns regarding the constitutionality of those diversions,” according to a press release, which also says:

“In addition to being patently unconstitutional, the diversion of funds from education is morally reprehensible. Nevertheless, The RI Board of Governors, continuing a trend spanning decades, approved an explosive 9.5% tuition increase for the University of Rhode Island for the 2012-13 academic term. This has led to an unconscionable burden on those seeking the opportunities guaranteed to them in the RI Constitution.”

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012

Whitehouse Bill Would Regulate Super PAC Ads

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whitehouse superpac eg — Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse at a community supper in East Greenwich.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is planning on introducing new legislation later this week that would require Super PACs, corporations and other big donors to divulge their associations with political advertisements.

“In the same way at the end of my ads I have to say, ‘I’m Sheldon Whitehouse and I approve this message,'” said the most progressive member of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation, “they would have to have an actual disclaimer in the ads that says we’re Exxon Mobile and we approve this message or I’m a billionaire from Macau and I approve this message so that is clear from the actual advertisement itself who the sponsor is.”

The legislation, Whitehouse said, would apply to “anyone who spends more than $10,000 on electioneering activities, 80 to 90 percent of which is advertising.” It would also apply to phone banks, which make robo-calls and other get out the vote efforts.

He said it is one of the ways a new coalition of Democrats is working reverse the damage the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which allowed corporations and Super PACS to spend unlimited amounts of money on political messaging, has had on public discourse. As an example, he cited the $14 million Mitt Romney supporters spent before the Florida primary on ads attacking Newt Gingrich.

“If you are as far left as occupy movement or as far right as the tea party you’ve got something in common,” Whitehouse told the audience at a community supper Sunday night in East Greenwich. “You do not want to American system of government of, by and for the people, taken over by big corporations that can spend other peoples money … their stockholder’s money, in unaccountable and anonymous ways.”

Watch this short video to learn some of the insidious ways in which Whitehouse says corporate lobbyists can use the Citizens United decision to manipulate the political system.

Likening Citizens United to Plessy vs. Ferguson, the Supreme court decision that temporarily codified separate but equal, he added, “”To my mind it’s one of the worst decisions out of the supreme court. Corporations are not people. They are a way of organizing human behavior that is very efficient when you want to make money … but when it comes to politics there is a huge risk of coprs drowning out the voices of regular people.”

He said he and seven other senators have been working on the bill, which he expects will be introduced this week. He said it has the blessing of Majority Leader Harry Reid and he hopes it will get some floor time this session.

“The goal to get every Democrat on board and show some real momentum and hope we can draw some Republicans over like John McCain, who has a long and proud history of fighting for disclosure,” Whitehouse said.

He said he the coalition also drafted a brief to the Supreme Court about a recent Montanta Supreme Court decision that could reverse the Citizens United decision.

“So the Supreme Court may have an opportunity to rethink that decision,” he said. Noting that Citizens United was a five to four decision, he added, “All it would take is one of them.”

March 18, 2012March 21, 2012

Why Vote Republican?

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Whenever I want to take a break from reality, I go and read a column by RI “Young” Republican Chairman Travis Rowley.

Now, if you’ve managed to avoid the writings of this Brown graduate, I applaud you. But to give you the idea of his writing, it’s just the right balance of out-of-touch, denigrating, arrogant, and elitist opinion that Brown has a reputation for producing (yes, Brown produces it on the left as well as on the right; their centrists are the same as well).

In Mr. Rowley’s mind, Democrats are socialists. No. Wait. They’re Republicans. Obama’s election? A “far-left takeover of Washington“.

It’s not hard to see why Republicans have been marginalized in this state, only electable in traditional strongholds and where Democrats are failing. With Rowley attempting to channel Glenn Beck, their now-former leader in the House being twice arrested for drug use, their former party chairman lying to them about the state of the party’s coffers, and their candidates for national office flubbing interviews, it’s no wonder few Rhode Islanders trust the Republicans to handle the state’s affairs any better than Democrats have. What are they offering?

Indeed, what are they offering that Democrats can’t also provide? There are Democrats who are just as conservative as any Republican. Social conservatives in Rhode Island are quite happy to vote Democrat; especially given the state’s Catholic nature. Rhode Island’s Democratic Party, largely thanks to its willing embrace of immigrant and Catholic communities during the 19th Century, managed to combine social conservatism and economic interventionism and marry it to pro-interventionist social liberals. When it wants to, the Party embraces free-market principles as well, such as implementing the flat tax.

Republicans paint themselves further into a corner when they lob attacks at the cities. However mismanaged they may be, referring to the metro area where the largest swathes of Rhode Islanders live and work as a “black hole” isn’t a way to make oneself beloved to the voting public. Republicans increasingly portray themselves as the party of country elites (as they long have been). Outflanked by Democrats from the left and right, Republicans have further removed themselves right, a strategy tailor-made to increase their already dangerously poor irrelevance.

Another problem is that they’ve begun mistaking Democrats losing for Republicans winning. John Robataille came in a close second in 2010 when Frank Caprio managed to piss off not only the progressive wing of his own party, but also loyal Democratic partisans with his now infamous “Obama can take his endorsement and shove it.” If there’s one thing Rhode Islanders hate, it’s bad national publicity about our state, and we punish those who bring it on us; alternatively, bring us good publicity, and we reward you. Brendan Doherty, who has revealed himself as a currently-inept candidate, is up in the polls only because U.S. Congressman David Cicilline is so poorly regarded in Congressional District 1.

I think largely this type of thinking is because Republicans in Rhode Island look at the national party and say “we must follow their lead.” But Rhode Island despises the national Republican Party. If Lincoln Chafee had not had an “R” next to his name like a scarlet letter, he would still be a senator in Washington, D.C. today. Tea Party politics may have energized the Republican base in 2010, while the Democratic base was depressed by two-year shellacking during the healthcare debate that failed to win anything beyond a Heritage Foundation-inspired healthcare system, previously supported by Republicans. This was a one-time opportunity for the Republicans. They picked up four seats in Rhode Island’s House and four in the Senate while losing the Governor’s office. The strategy simply doesn’t work.

It would be mean of me to lay out the problems without suggesting up solutions, and I aim to do as much. Simply put, the best way to win is to outflank the Democrats. Ironically, two of the Republican-elected officials pointed out the way to do this, albeit inadvertently. Sen. Bethany Moura (R-Cumberland) and Rep. Dan Gordon (Libertarian-Portsmouth)* blasted Attorney General Peter Kilmartin for joining the robo-signing settlement (although Mr. Gordon made a mistake which undermined the central point). Did anyone take the lawmakers seriously? No. But plenty of progressives have been criticizing this settlement since its inception. Maybe this part of a new Republican strategy to penalize the banks and win populist support. Pat Robertson seems to be getting liberal with age, suggesting bankers should’ve been arrested. In which case, that would be an outflanking of the Democratic Party.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Official Photo Portrait — President Eisenhower

Republicans have abandoned their pedigree in favor of a conservatism that’s radically new. Let’s not forget, the Republican Party freed the slaves, joined in fusion with the Populist Party in some states, gave birth to a the Progressive Movement and even some socialist ones. Republicans busted trusts and warned us of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. Their northern wing joined northern Democrats in passing the Civil Rights Act. Even Mr. Conservative himself, Barry Goldwater, has an award named after him for his pro-choice policies.

Republicans in Rhode Island should be drawing on these legacies. Instead of insulting the electorate as “anti-American” whenever it votes against them (saying it doesn’t make it true), Republicans need to embrace an all-Rhode Island strategy. This does not mean throwing aside their libertarian and conservative wings, but rather running candidates to the left of Democrats in districts where that’s feasible. This means, yes, running candidates who will oppose their dogma on immigration policy. Those who will oppose them on tax policy.

This means running on a platform of pro-people values. Radical Randian Objectivism only inspires the greedy. The argument should be that the Republican Party can allow people to transcend their current circumstances. But if the argument is that the poor are leeches and the rich are fleeing the state, well, it’s clear why that argument dooms Republicans to irrelevance. Rowley-style bile isn’t what people respond to. We respond to values we want to associate ourselves with. Republicans can’t win running as the anti-Democrats. They have to stand for values Rhode Islanders want to associate with.

______________________

*Dan Gordon’s political affiliation varies from source to source.

March 17, 2012March 17, 2012

To Burn or to Bury: Is that the Question?

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No gull can eat just one. The seagulls have left the Central Landfill... for now.

It seems the seagull problem at the Central Landfill in Johnston has been rectified, at least temporarily, but the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC) continues to address the problem of odors emanating from the landfill and, given the fact that organic matter continues to be buried there, will probably be dealing with this issue well beyond the estimated 20-year remaining lifespan of the facility.

Meanwhile, the local environmental advocacy community and renewable energy business sector continue to fret over Rep. Jon Brien’s, D-Woonsocket, proposal to overturn Rhode Island’s ban on waste incineration and reclassifying any energy produced through the process as renewable.

The short remaining lifespan of the state landfill is of paramount concern to taxpayers. When the landfill is closed — in about 20 years, if we continue our current disposal habits — Rhode Island will most likely have to ship its waste out of state, either by land or by sea, and that added transportation cost will undoubtedly cause the cost of waste disposal to skyrocket overnight.

Waste-to-energy (WtE) incineration may seem like a solution to some, but the burning of anything — whether it be landfill gases or garbage — carries with it a host of environmental problems. And as we learned last year with the failure of the gas collection system at the landfill, even the strictest environmental controls — like all manmade things — can, and usually will, eventually fail.

It’s no secret that waste incineration, as an industry, is historically notorious for polluting our air and water. The clouds of noxious gases that emanate from improperly controlled, monitored and/or maintained incinerators have racked up many a violation of the federal Clean Air and Water acts.

WtE incinerators, however, don’t eliminate the need for landfills. Most of the ash that is produced by the industry is landfilled, but some states have issued beneficial use determinations for bottom ash, allowing it to be used for road building and, oddly enough, landfill cover.

Landfills carry their own set of ecological problems. Leachate from lined and unlined, closed and open landfills can contaminate ground and surface water. Most modern landfills have sophisticated leachate collection systems, but keep in mind that these systems can and do fail. Our own Central Landfill, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Enforcement & Compliance History Online database, has been out of compliance with the Clean Water Act for the past three years.

The real question for Rhode Island isn’t whether to burn or bury our waste, but how do we reduce our need for either of these options as we move forward? Producer responsibility, changing our approach from encouragement to enforcement of recycling laws in the business sector, composting food waste on a large scale and increasing our municipal recycling rates should be the focus.

Read the full article on ecoRI News.

March 17, 2012March 17, 2012

Bishop Tobin on Gay Marriage: Not Christ Like

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In a not-very-Christ-like op-ed piece titled “Five Problems With Homosexual Marriage,” the leader of the Catholic Church in Rhode Island reaffirmed his objections to same sex relationship equality.

“It’s a sure sign of spring, as predictable as the Red Sox at spring training, the swallows returning to Capistrano, and the flowing of green beer on St. Patrick’s Day,” wrote Bishop Thomas Tobin. “I’m referring of course to the public re-appearance of the determined proponents of homosexual marriage.”

Yeah, nothing says warmer weather to come like people fighting for equal protection under the law. Most unfortunately, when it comes to the Catholic Church, it seems that hate springs eternal.

Not to fear though, Rev. Gene Dyszlewkski, chair of the Rhode Island Religious Coalition in Support of Marriage Equality quickly shot back.

“No Christian I know believes in discrimination,” he said in a statement rebuking the Bishop. “No Christian I know thinks it’s OK to deny basic human rights to a minority class of citizens. I think Bishop Tobin would do well to remember that. These continued attacks on our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters only further perpetuate the notion that some religious leaders are out of touch with members of their faith.”

March 16, 2012March 17, 2012

Afghanistan and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

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The recent news out of Afghanistan is grim. On the heels of a burning of Qurans (along with other Islamic literature) that sparked mass protests in the country, the massacre of 16 civilians, nine of whom were children and three of whom were women, by a lone U.S. gunman; now Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai has demanded that foreign troops of the U.S. & NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) pull out of villages. The Taliban has also announced they are suspending talks with the U.S. in Qatar.

It is perhaps the longest war in U.S. history (this claim is disputed). For much of it’s history, it was unpaid for, and has contributed greatly to our deficit; unlike in past wars, we did not increase taxes for a wartime footing (indeed, we started another unfunded war in the same time period). But this does not mean we have not paid a cost; we have given the lives of my generation to the war. And because this cost has been paid in lives, it has made us irrational.

There’s a thing called the sunk cost fallacy: that if you’ve invested in something, you need to keep investing in it, even if it’s not working and just an unnecessary cost. This describes our policy in Afghanistan. Now, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron have both said they intend to hold the course. But the fact of the matter is that it makes no sense. Afghanistan has become NATO’s sunk cost. We are losing money and lives there, the situation is not improving, and there are clear benefits to leaving.

Even the purpose of the war, as stated by both former President George W. Bush and President Obama, defeating Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, is completely ended. I can remember the night Bin Laden was killed. I came home, went to my computer and checked my Facebook. People were saying that Bin Laden was dead. I checked on it on the news, and sure enough, it was credible. A short while later, a friend contacted me.

“Wow. We got Osama,” he said.

“Yeah,” I replied. Then a short while later, “can we go home now?”

Much has since been made of the celebrations that night; that we reveled in the death of an enemy, that it was unbecoming of us, that we should’ve soberly reflected on what this one man’s death had cost us. I don’t believe that we were truly celebrating Bin Laden’s death. I believe that in our heart of hearts, we were celebrating the end of the war. If President Obama had announced the end of operations in Afghanistan at his press conference, it would’ve been a fitting end to a disastrous war. Instead, we will linger on; unwanted by the people of Afghanistan, unwanted by the people of America.

Our best military officers recognize the situation as untenable. General David Petraeus abandoned Afghanistan for a civilian post at the Central Intelligence Agency rather than have his career blemished by failure in the Central Asian country. Our military policy; “counter-insurgency” (COIN), is based on the writings of an obscure Frenchman who fought in a peaceful sector of France’s defeat in the Algerian War of Independence. Each successive general in Iraq, from David McKiernan, to Stanley McChrystal, to David Petraeus, to John Allen has portrayed their COIN policy as a break from the previous commander’s. Each has failed to produce results.

The reality is that COIN produces no solutions without horrific inhumanity. Its most-cited success, the Malay Emergency, relied on the massacres of ethnic Chinese insurgents by Malays while the British imperials of the time quietly watched (this is called “winning the hearts and minds”). America has no intention of replicating such policy; for good reason. To those who cite the end of war in Northern Ireland, they should be reminded that the IRA managed to successfully change its tactics from targeting people to targeting capital. If a military solution had been successful in Northern Ireland, the British government would’ve never gone to the negotiating table. Military solutions against insurgencies have a terrible success rate. Successful policing and negotiation are the most successful ways out.

As callous as it is, the reality is that we cannot stabilize Afghanistan. We destroyed its stability (what little there actually was), and we cannot replace it. President Bush was mocked by Jon Stewart when he claimed that “success in Iraq is not no car bombs.” Little did we know that he would be right. Can we honestly look ourselves in the eye and say that we won in Iraq? Of course not. There was nothing to win. If anything, we handed a victory to Iran and damaged the useful myth of American superiority. We likewise have found there is nothing to win in Afghanistan.

The victor in these wars will be anyone who chose not to get into them. We have wasted eleven years in wars we should not have fought. President Obama, don’t make us waste thirteen.

March 16, 2012

Chafee’s Municipal Plan Helps Poorest Towns Most

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It’s hard to be happy about something that will hurt so many working class retirees across Rhode Island, as would Governor Chafee’s proposed bills to help cities and towns. But Chafee designed his suite of legislation to help the most cash-strapped communities the most, which is the right way to handle the state’s municipal fiscal crisis that is disproportionately plaguing the poor.

Rather than giving every community the ability to suspend annual pension increases, Chafee’s proposal would only allow those with pension funds less than 60 percent funded to exercise this tool, reports the Providence Journal. While no retiree deserves to have the deal they struck changed, at least this wasn’t a blanket exemption.

Chafee also made a number of cost-saving tools only available to the “most distressed” communities. As we reported earlier this week, those four communities are Providence, Pawtucket, Woonsocket and West Warwick. Ian Donnis has a good list of the relief measures offered to these cities and towns.

While Ted Nesi notes that former Governor Carcieri offered some of the same mandate exemptions that Chafee proposed yesterday, the big difference is Chafee’s bottom-up approach. Carcieri’s proposal was a blanket exemption to every municipality and Chafee’s is need-based. RI Future has held the former governor’s feet to the fire for cutting so much money from cities and towns that had so little. So did Chafee earlier this week.

Here’s hoping that Chafee’s proposal sparks a big debate in the General Assembly about the disparity between the haves and have-not communities in Rhode Island as this is arguably the biggest affliction affecting the entire state. After all, no one is talking about how rough it is for East Greenwich, Barrington and South Kingstown have it. Rather it’s the plight of Central Falls, Woonsocket, West Warwick, Pawtucket and Providence that is pulling our state down.

March 16, 2012March 15, 2012

Two Groups Address West Side ‘Food Desert’

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Mike Giroux and Customer — Fertile Underground produce head Michael Giroux chats up a customer on a recent Sunday afternoon. (Dave Fisher/ecoRI News)

Providence’s West Side is what food policy wonks call a food desert. That doesn’t mean there’s no food available in the area; it means there’s a lack of access to fresh foods such as fruits and vegetables. The neighborhood has its share of convenience stores and smaller markets for meats and such, but, until recently, the community lacked a grocery store within walking distance for the socio-economically diverse area.

Two groups have been attempting to address this need.

Fertile Underground was conceived by a group of artists conversing about ways to directly address the issues of food access, personal health in modern life, creative process and connection to nature. Late last year, the organization opened its grocery/café a few days a week, and about six weeks ago, began opening the store seven days a week.

The store is focused more on supplying fresh produce to neighborhood shoppers, but has expanded its selections to include quite a few dry goods, dairy and frozen goods that are organically and/or locally produced. Fertile Underground also has a small café in the store that offers light breakfast and lunch items, coffee, tea and fresh baked goods.

Urban Greens began as a bulk buying group, organized in 2001 by a group of West Side business people and artists. Urban Greens provides the opportunity for local residents to come together and share in the process of acquiring groceries and save a few bucks at the same time.

Urban Greens would also like to open a full-service supermarket on the West Side. The group initially wanted to open at 1577 Westminster St. — now home to the other group attempting to moisten this food desert, Fertile Underground Natural Grocery — but found the space was too small to support a market that could provide one-stop shopping for West Siders. The group has about 300 members signed on for the co-op, and would like to double that number this year.

…Read the full story on ecoRI News.

March 15, 2012March 16, 2012

RI Mulls Reducing Payday Loan APR: 260% to 36%

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ferri_payday — Rep. FRank Ferri testifies at a hearing last night on his bill that would reform paypay loans in RI. In the background is former Bill Murphy, former House speaker, who opposes the bill.

Roger Paquette works at a bowling alley in Johnston and when needed some quick cash and he didn’t know where to turn. So he took out what’s known as a payday loan. It’s a decision he now regrets, he told a House subcommittee on Wednesday.

“It’s not good,” he said. “There’s no easy way out of it, unless you get lucky.”

Paquette was eventually able to clear his debt. But not before he paid $500 in fees on his $300 loan.

His employer, Rep. Frank Ferri, a Warwick Democrat, decided to do something about it. He has sponsored legislation that would trim the annual percentage rate for a payday loan in Rhode Island from a whopping 260 percent back to the previous rate of 36 percent.

“It’s a debt trap,” Ferri said, prior to the hearing.

Ferri said the rate used to be 36 percent, before the general assembly passed a law that effectively raised the rate to 391 percent. In 2005, it was lowered all the way down to 260 percent. That’s $1,300 in interest on a loan of $500, the maximum amount allowable under by law.

There were 143,201 payday loans made in Rhode Island last year for a total of more than $53 million, said Margaux Morisseau, with NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley, a community-building non-profit based in Woonsocket.Only 2 percent of payday loans she said go to people who pay them all back and don’t take out another one.

“Payday lenders annually drain millions of dollars from Rhode Island families, mostly to out-of-state payday chains,” she told the House committee.

Morisseau said payday loans shops typically set up in the poorest areas of the state. They are illegal for military personnel, she said, as per a bill sponsored by Rhode Island’s own Senator Jack Reed because, as she put it, “they are seen as a threat to our national security.” Because these loans turn over quickly and carry such a high interest rate, they can be very stressful for those who choose them, she added.

Industry insiders at the hearing last night say such loans are the only way some people can get quick access to cash in an emergency. So did Rep. Peter Petrarca, D-Cranston, who exchanged heated words with Ferri.

But Moriseau said at last night’s hearing, “Safe, responsible, alternative products are now available to consumers. Nonprofits and Credit Unions have created easily accessed products that meet the needs of consumers at a reasonable interest rate.”

In an email, she provided these example:

Capitol Good Fund lends $2000 loans at 15% APR. Their customers have taken out CGF loans to help get out of the payday lending debt trap.
West Elmwood Housing Development Corporation is piloting the “Neighborhood Loan Store” that makes loans up to $1500 at 18-25% APR.
Navigant Credit Union also recently launched “Smart Start” a safe, easily accessed alternative product at all of their branches. They loan $600, with a 90 day term, no credit required.

March 15, 2012March 16, 2012

Synchronicity at SXSW

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If there is one word I can use to describe my experience so far down at South by Southwest, it would be synchronicity. On at least two occasions, I’ve mentioned people I wanted to see only to see them no more than 12 hours later, and I met a Rhode Islander working at a car company’s vendor booth!

For those that don’t know, I’m down at SXSW to enjoy the tunes and performances of some of my favorite performers and to conduct interviews for Rhode 2 Africa: Elect the Arts 2012 (R2A 2012). But for now, the pictures above show some of the fun I’ve been having with Riders Against the Storm, the Austin-based band (that used to live in RI) that I am interviewing for R2A 2012, other RI friends who are here, and some of the musicians I’ve caught, including Shane Hall, 5th Elament, and Queen Deelah.

If you want to follow other “Reza Rites at SXSW” updates, follow me on Twitter and Facebook @rezaclif. If you are interested in learning more about R2A 2012, visit www.rhode2africa.wordpress.com or follow the link below to donate toward travel, equipment, and staff supports.

March 15, 2012March 15, 2012

Who Should Be ‘Crashing the System?’

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The recent article by Michelle Alexander appearing in the New York Times, “Crash the System,” has stirred up a great deal of interest among the activist community. Most of the people I have heard from, however, have been those who never faced imprisonment- including many lawyers and law students… i.e., people who actually read the New York Times or have it shared with them on their Facebook wall. Alexander’s article dangles a theory of overloading and “crashing” the criminal justice system: by everyone refusing the plea bargain and going to trial.

This crashing maneuver is nothing new to prisoners. The article itself spawned from a conversation between Alexander and Susan Burton, a formerly incarcerated woman who has since become a trailblazing activist and organizer on criminal justice reform. Having spoken with those who have done time in other states, I know most elements of the system are essentially the same no matter where you go.

When I was facing my own sentence, being held without bail for nearly three years, I counseled hundreds of men regarding plea bargains and trials. I could typically anticipate the first offer from the state, what he should counter-offer, and what the state will settle on. It was very formulaic, and a disappointment whenever someone took the first offer just to get out of the hideous conditions of pretrial detention (yet another tactic). And there was always that guy yelling, “People need to take everything to trial. Shut down that whole damn system.” And there is another guy saying, “I came in alone, I’m going out alone.”

In hindsight, I could have never organized these men to refuse plea bargains and go to trial for several reasons. First, there is something distinctly personal about one’s own sentence. Unlike conditions of confinement that affects everyone inside, the individual sentences can range from weeks to decades for actions that have nothing to do with each other. That early phase of confinement, in jail or “Intake,” is rife with suspicion, ego, and predatory tactics. Nobody is prepared to take a bullet for the person in the cell next to them.

Some of the commentary I have read by activists (who do not live in Highly Policed Communities) suggest that the nation’s arrested (mostly poor People of Color) should take this on. As if we have now found the secret method of change in a nice March On Washington and Occupy Wall Street way. They would put the onus of changing an oppressive system on the lashed backs of the oppressed. Sadly, due to the impotence of the American public at large, it will likely end up being just that. Others have asked the legal community what they can do in this situation, suggesting that a lawyer holds the key to a plea bargain and could actually counsel people to take a stand.

A lawyer’s job is to arm a client with as much knowledge as possible so they can make the best decision. This does not always happen, particularly in the world of young Public Defenders with massive caseloads. Not only does the typical lawyer have little knowledge about the totality of the system, from police tactics to prison conditions, parole hearings to probation violations, or employment discrimination to voting rights… most attorneys would not have time to truly explain this to an accused person.

Public Defenders, AND prosecutors, need to develop an ethical standard about collateral consequences, sentencing enhancements, and reduced standard of guilt (on violation hearings) so that people can intelligently accept/reject a plea. As of now, the accused generally hears “If you sign this, you can go home today.” Or “If you go to trial and are convicted, they will throw the book at you.”

One lawyer mentioned to me that he is currently pursuing a strategy against a sentencing enhancement by arguing how, when he was sentenced before, nobody said anything about getting extra time if he were convicted again. Every state has “bonus” time, such as Three Strikes in California, where people can get as much as 20 years to Life tacked on “just because.” Thus, the enhancement is often higher than all their previous sentences combined. This is a good legal strategy, similar to the successful argument in Padilla, holding that someone cannot be deported for a prior guilty plea when they were not told that the plea can result in deportation. Those in best position to fight a criminal conviction by taking it to trial are often facing lighter crimes at a young age.

My first plea was for marijuana possession. Four of us were traveling in a car, we were pulled over, and the police found a bag after nearly ten minutes. No warrant, of course. My friends all had families to report to, so I claimed it to be mine. When I went to court, the Public Defender met me in the hallway and never mentioned the Fourth Amendment. Instead she explained how if I pay a few hundred dollars the charge will go away if I stay out of trouble for a year. And I won’t have to do any time on it. Up until that point, I had contact with the police just about every year since I was 11 years old. It did not seem to matter to her whether or not I might have contact over the next year. This was a standard deal. Bargaining was not a concept in this plea.

My second plea, within a year of the last, was slightly more complicated, as they offered me five years suspended and five years probation. Same procedure in the hallway, but I insisted two things: I didn’t steal the car, and I was not intoxicated. The prosecutor amended the charge to Receiving Stolen Goods Over $500, and kept the sentence. I took it.

Many years later, when trying to get a driver’s license, the DMV told me I was convicted of refusing a breathalyzer. I felt this was ludicrous considering the police brought me unconscious into the hospital after a car wreck. But it was too late to challenge this, so I was told. The total tab to get back on the road was over $3000, including DWI classes and extra insurance. And yet today, this little bonus conviction doesn’t even show up on my record. Such is the ways of the system.

My final plea is the most telling. I called their bluff. I knew what I was actually guilty of, under law, and they initially agreed to this, and would ask the court to impose the maximum sentence. When I went to court for the official sentencing, they pulled the rug out and wanted a more severe charge. Apparently the Attorney General wanted to keep his statistics up. I demanded a trial. I told my lawyer, “Going through life as a convicted murderer is likely to be much different than being labeled a convicted manslaughterer.”

My lawyer asked what I would take on second degree murder. I told him 15 years. He said they would never go for it. I said “get a jury, let’s go to trial.” He started to explain how summer was coming, nobody wants to do trials, people go on vacation… I reminded him I had been held without bail for almost three years. I wanted my “Speedy Trial,” which is supposed to be within 180 days. My lawyer went back upstairs.

The guys in the holding pen were scared for me. “Man, you’re rolling some big dice.” The few who knew me had to remind me I knew the law and wouldn’t get rolled over. Manslaughter itself carried up to 30 years, and I knew if I lost a trial I would get just that, and hopefully be out in 15 or 20 on parole. I would rather get 30 for manslaughter than 25 for murder. I knew it would have a domino effect on my entire life.

It only took about fifteen minutes for my lawyer to come back down. The prosecutor was going to ask the court to impose 25 years for second degree murder- they knocked off five. If I pled guilty, the judge could still do whatever he wanted. If he went higher, naturally I would have screamed out in the courtroom about “fraud, deceit” and other such things that would get my “plea” thrown out. Upstairs, the prosecutor who previously recommended a manslaughter conviction, labeled me before the court in as vile terms imaginable. He could have said the same things about Osama bin Laden, as there really isn’t much else to say. After hearing statements all around, the judge gave me 45 years, with 20 years to serve. I didn’t scream out, or anything. I was already numb. That chapter of my life was officially over.

Two decades later and I can say with certainty that the label on me does not rest. The label says nothing about what I actually did, but its easy for journalists and others to use- people can attach a set of images and presumptions to it. My lawyer was not overly concerned about this label, nor any collateral consequences. A nice enough guy, it just wasn’t in the cards to discuss anything other than the actual number of years in prison. We did not talk about life on parole, or on probation, and how that will impact me. Ultimately, even a Jailhouse Lawyer like myself who spent years studying the rules of evidence and constitutional provisions, did not make a fully informed choice regarding my plea.

The eighteen year old me could have been part of crashing the system. I had a perfect case for trial that carried a light sentence overall. A good lawyer would have taken the extra hour to get it dismissed. A good lawyer would explain to young people that if one takes the statutory maximum sentence, suspended, and goes home today on probation, they are very likely to serve at least five years on that probation violation… because something is likely to happen between ages 20 and 30- particularly in Highly Policed Communities amongst my Black and Brown brothers and sisters. The nineteen year old me, facing serious charges, needed the benefit of those who keep the system in check. Unfortunately, I’ve found that those without criminal records are waiting on me to keep the system in check.

March 15, 2012March 15, 2012

Error Makes Projo Explain Doonesbury Decision

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Thanks to a “production error,” the Providence Journal ended up giving us an explanation for why it didn’t run Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury cartoon that deals with the Texas abortion law.

This item was in today’s Corrections:

“The distributor of Doonesbury this week offered to newspapers nationwide a choice of two comic story lines. The creator, Garry Trudeau, had drawn a weeklong series of comics focusing on the abortion debate in Texas. Upon review, The Journal elected to use the alternative strip because we believed it was more suitable for our comics page audience. The alternative appeared Monday through Wednesday. Because of a production error, Thursday’s comics page carries the strip that focuses on the Texas debate. The alternative strip will resume in Friday’s Journal.”

Not sure why they couldn’t have told me that when I asked on Monday, but here’s my original story on the controversial comic, and the way I was treated by two editors there when I called for comment.

March 15, 2012March 15, 2012

Woonsocket, and How Chafee’s Muni Bill Can Help

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The Woonsocket School Committee voted last night not to close schools early, which is good news all around. But guess what? Schools were never going to close early. If Woonsocket can’t come up with the money it needs to run them by April 5, which it probably cannot, the state will step in and keep the schools running. The state Constitution says it has to.

Furthermore, under the new state education funding formula, RIDE has all but admitted that it shortchanged the cash-strapped city under the previous funding formula to the tune of $4.6 million, an amount the state will pay to the school district over the next seven years. Woonsocket, along with Pawtucket, is suing the state saying it needs that money right away. Obviously, this isn’t a bluff.

Yes, Woonsocket could have managed its finances better. A lot better. But the state mismanaged how it funds education, too. Couple these blunders with the drastic cuts to cities and towns that occurred over the past several years and you have the recipe for disaster that was cooked for Woonsocket.

Governor Chafee’s municipal aid bill will help. It will not only allow cities and towns to save money by cutting annual pension increases for retirees, but Chafee said on Tuesday it will also allow Woonsocket (and Providence, Pawtucket and West Warwick) to ignore some of the state mandates that drive up expenses.

Providence Journal State House scribe Randal Edgar, who evidently obtained a copy of the legislation, has a little more on what those are: mayors and managers would be given the power to veto line items in school budgets; teacher pay increases will be suspended, bus monitors can be replaced with cameras and allow those communities to stop busing students to private schools.

But at some point, and hopefully sooner rather than later, this state has to come to terms with the fact that top-down policies adopted during the Carcieri era, and a seemingly utter disdain for its poorest communities, has created this problem to a far greater degree than have unfunded pension liabilities.

March 15, 2012March 15, 2012

Budgeting for Disaster VI: DMV Manages for Success

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One part of the Department of Administration that gets a lot of press is the Department of Motor Vehicles, which is actually a unit of the Department of Revenue. DMV, of course, gets press because people don’t like it, and the lines are long, and it’s in an inconvenient place, and so on and on.

Over last spring and summer, the agency saw a turnaround. Spurred on by stories of multiple-hour wait times, Governor Chafee appointed a new director, who made some management changes, shuffled people around, re-engineered the lines, put “greeters” out front to explain things, closed some satellite branches, and generally shook things up. Lo and behold, the wait times plummeted. An inspiring tale of how good management can make all the difference? A story of re-inventing government to do more with less in the 21st century? Well sort of, but not quite.

Watching the ticking clock in line at DMV has been a part of life for all of us in Rhode Island for a long time, but it’s not right to say that it’s been a neglected problem. Lincoln Almond suggested adding $300,000 per year to expand their hours, and Don Carcieri made a point of “fixing” it, too. He even listed new efficiencies and reduced wait times as one of his accomplishments in a 2004 interview.

But time went on and service decayed until it took hours just for routine business to happen. I waited there with my daughter for three excruciating hours one fine day in 2010, along with about three hundred good friends. By the time Lincoln Chafee took office, DMV was a joke, a travesty of government service. Chafee brought in a new interim director, Lisa Holley, to troubleshoot the agency, and — what do you know? — she got results. Wait times shrank dramatically and while it’s still hard to describe a visit to the DMV as a pleasure, the last time I was in one, last August, I was in and out in 25 minutes.

So what happened? What management magic did Holley bring to the agency? What lessons can we learn? Mostly just that it takes people to do the work.

In the dark days of 2004, when Don Carcieri was taking credit for improving wait times, he was adding employees, and adding satellite locations. You can see the progress in the graph to the right, which counts customer service representatives in the department. Service got better with the new workers, and a little worse with the satellite offices. But then around 2006, Carcieri decided it was ok to let the service decay a little bit. He said the state had too many employees, and he started to enforce the statewide hiring freeze on DMV. And then the retirement fiasco of 2009 came, and a bunch of people left, and so in 2010 you had all the satellite locations, and 22% fewer people to stand behind all those desks.

And that’s the crazy thing about management by attrition: you don’t get to plan for the loss of people. Carcieri simply said we’re not hiring any new people and we’re going to encourage people to retire, and that’s that. The only surprise was that people were surprised that service suffered — a lot.

So again, what management magic did Holley bring? She insisted on having more people, that’s what. Chafee asked the Assembly for 25 new workers. They balked, but they did cough up some, and so now there are almost as many people on the customer-facing staff as there were in 2006, at half as many locations. Of course there were some other improvements: line management systems, those greeters, a redivision of labor. But sometimes the big story is the simpler one: we got better service with more people.

There is another story I see lurking here. Governor Chafee saw a problem of poor service and acted to fix it, while Governor Carcieri saw the problem in terms of taxes, and acted to fix that instead, mostly by giving tax cuts to rich people. How did that work out for you?

There is one other feature to the DMV budget that should not go unremarked while we’re here. The RIMS computer system that was supposed to create a whole new class of efficiencies by getting all of DMV’s information about you in a single database is quite a bit behind schedule and over budget. This is pretty much SOP in the database development world, public and private. That is, it’s a shame and a waste of state dollars, but it’s not exactly unprecedented. I bring it up at least in part because you can’t exactly see it in the budget presentation, but you can see it in the Capital Budget, which we’ll get to soon.

NEXT: The Quasi-Publics
Read the previous posts in this series

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