David Pepin – RI Future

July 18, 2012July 19, 2012

Barry’s Hot Over Sheldon’s Break from Bill Debate

Sheldon Whitehouse’s brief break from Monday night’s Senate debate over his DISCLOSE Act left Republican challenger Barry Hinckley a little hot under the collar…hot enough to call a press conference outside Whitehouse’s Westminster Street office on a 95-degree Tuesday afternoon to assail the Democratic incumbent.

He parried questions about these charges by pivoting to jobs.

“Why is he focusing on campaign finance reform when Rhode Island is losing jobs?” Hinckley asked. The answer, of course, being that not only is our economy broken, but so is our political system.

While the political novice was trying to take the sitting senator to task, Whitehouse trumped him by sending out a statement critical of Republicans lack of support on the DISCLOSE Act, which was blocked for a second straight day by Senate Republicans.

“I’m disappointed that so many of my Republican colleagues, many of whom have clearly supported disclosure in the past, chose today to once again defend secret spending by special interests rather than stand up for the voices of the middle class. However, I’m also optimistic that ultimately, we will pass this bill, or something like it, to end secret spending and defend the voices of the middle class.”

Hinckley said supports portions of the DISCLOSE Act, but not the whole thing. He also wouldn’t say definitively that he wouldn’t leave a floor debate for a fundraiser if he were to be elected to congress.

June 10, 2012June 10, 2012

How Sports Shapes Our Politics and Why it Matters

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Still think sports and politics exist only in exclusive hemispheres?

On Thursday, June 7, the Smith Street entrance to the Rhode Island Statehouse was dominated by a two-story Green Monster-green banner congratulating the Boston Red Sox on the 100^th anniversary of Fenway Park.

Inside, state officials were struggling to deal with the aftermath of that day’s bankruptcy filing of 38 Studios, the video game company that Curt Schilling, whose hero status in New England seemed enshrined in granite after pitching the Red Sox to one big victory after another en route to two world championships, brought to Providence…thanks to a $75 million loan guarantee offered in 2010 by the state Economic Development Corporation and supported by the vast majority of state officials at the time.

Would an entrepreneur who had not helped end the Red Sox’ 86-year world championship drought have been offered such a deal? Would an African-American athlete (other than perhaps Magic Johnson) have been the recipient of such largesse at R.I. taxpayers’ expense?

Sports and politics do bleed, clash, and intersect not only on the large stages of society, but also on smaller ones such as the local pro and college teams you follow, and even youth sports, as a quartet of journalists and activists made clear at Saturday’s Netroots Nation 12 forum “How Sports Shapes Our Politics and Why it Matters,” NN’s first sports-related panel

While the sports world may sometimes seem to be another arm of establishment power (athletes and coaches preaching God, country and family, Schilling supporting conservative causes and NBA legend/Nike pitchman Michael Jordan’s famous reason for steering clear of politics, “Republicans buy sneakers, too”), there is something else bubbling beneath the surface, said Dave Zirin, Sirius XM host, author and contributor to ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” who boasts of being once called “state-run media scum” by Rush Limbaugh.

The sports world has given birth to radicals in the past, he said, most notably Muhammad Ali, whose resistance to the draft made him an international celebrity well beyond that usually accorded a world heavyweight champion. While many athletic superstars have arrived since, notably Jordan, Tiger Woods and LeBron James, none have pursued influence beyond world championships and multimillion-dollar endorsement deals.

“It says something about how successful the people who run sports have been at disassociating sports from radical politics,” Zirin said.

Which is not to say progressive politics and pro sports don’t co-exist. This year, he said, the NBA has seen players respond to the Trayvon Martin murder (including Carmelo Anthony’s “I am Trayvon Martin” Facebook photo) and the Phoenix Suns’ protest of Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration crackdown by wearing their “Los Suns” jerseys for home games.

Then there is the “It Gets Better” campaign, born of the rash of suicides among LGBT teens, managed by Eden James, campaign director for Change.org, a website promoting online petitions that has become a go-to source for fans ranging from those wanting coaches fired to seeking apologies from players who have made sexist, homophobic or racist statements.

The series of videos designed to promote acceptance of the LGBT community began last year with a San Francisco Giants fan who wanted to see his team take the lead on the cause. With the support of 6,000 online signatures from Giants fans (and several mayoral candidates), the team produced a video with messages of support from several players and coaches.

“We asked members to start petitions to their own teams. It’s what we call a wildfire petition, taking a national issue to local targets,” James said.

Sam Maden, a 12-year-old Red Sox fan from Nashua, N.H., whose gay uncle Chris had recently died, saw the video and started a petition to the Red Sox to create one of their own, said James.

“The Red Sox weren’t originally interested in a video, but after Sam got national coverage, they realized it might be a PR issue. It became a tipping point,” said James, noting that a number of other teams have joined the Red Sox and Giants in producing “It Gets Better” videos (but the New York Yankees don’t have one yet).

Even though Title IX, which brought about the explosion of growth in girls’ and women’s sports, is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this year, gender equality, identification and sexuality issues in sports still haven’t gone away, said Diane Williams, a teacher and coach at Williston Northampton School in Massachusetts, a former high school and college athlete, and current member of the Pioneer Valley Roller Derby team.

“I’ve heard about young girls not playing sports because they feared being perceived as gay,” she said.

The “lesbian question” has long hovered over the promotion and marketing of the most successful women’s pro sports league in the country, the WNBA. For every lesbian player like Sheryl Swoopes who has come out, there are many whose sexual identity remains under speculation.

“The WNBA has worked to portray a particular identity for its athletes,” William said. “If you were gay, they’d say, ‘That’s great, but please don’t ruin it for us.’ ”

Dr. Eddie Moore Jr., director of diversity at Brooklyn Friends School, wrote his dissertation on a study of African-American football players who attended small colleges in theMidwest, who found many people whose encounters with their race came only via television. He said he was struck by the response of one player in particular: “They believe the myths and stereotypes about you.”

Displaying Forbes’ list of the top 10 most hated athletes (with only two whites, the NBA’s Kris Humphries and NASCAR’s Kurt Busch) and statistics that 97 percent of the nation’s newspaper sports editors are white (94 percent men), Moore said much of what readers and viewers learn about athletes “is told from a white male supremacist viewpoint.”

When athletes’ troubles make the media, he said, “The frame isn’t ‘white athlete,’ it’s ‘nigger.’ Is this frame possible influencing the way in which you do your work?

Sports talk radio is not always distinguishable in viewpoint from news talk radio, admitted Zirin: “It’s a wretched sewer designed to police athletes who speak out.”

But those who sometimes find sports talk shows like WEEI’s morning “Dennis & Callahan” indistinguishable from conservative talk radio perhaps shouldn’t push the next button so soon, Zirin advises.

“It’s one of the few areas where people of all political stripes tune in. It’s an interesting place to challenge ideas beyond the politically segregated world we live in.”

The forum was moderated by Charles Modiano, sports media critic and editor of POPSpot.com.

June 7, 2012June 12, 2012

Live Blog: R.I. House Budget Session

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

3:39 a.m.: The amended budget passes, 57-15. We are done here – off to the sunrise. Get ready to pay higher bridge tolls, and hug your school bus monitor.

3:37 a.m.: Newberry: “This was a missed opportunity. This budget doesn’t do it. Thirteen things were laid on the table tonight. That’s not right.”

3:33 a.m.: Trillo takes on efforts to raise taxes on the wealthy: “Those rich people have lawyers. They have accountants. And they pay about 40 percent of our state’s taxes. When I hear this kind of talk, it drives me crazy. You don’t understand basic economics.”

3:30 a.m.: EDC stays alive, 56-16.

3:29 a.m.: Lima: “The car’s totalled. Junk it.”

3:28 a.m.: Melo opposes the dissolution, saying the governor’s office is studying reforms in consultation with RIPEC.

3:25 a.m.: Gordon wants to keep the EDC, although with removal of loan guarantees.

3:22 a.m.: Watson, who had proposed his own amendment to ban EDC, agreed with Lima but wasn’t certain the economic development portfolio belonged in the lieutenant governor’s office (which would inherit $2.5 million of its $4.6 million budget, with the remainder to go back into the general fund.

3:20 a.m.: Lima submits an amendment to dismantle EDC, less than 24 hours after the apparent demise of 38 Studios. “EDC has lost the trust and the confidence of the state of Rhode Island, and for good reason. ” Her measure would move the responsibility of economic development to the lieutenant governor’s office, and she feels it should be handled by an elected official.

3:12 a.m.: A Costa amendment would eliminate $2.3 million in legislative grants, redirecting the funds to programs for those with developmental disabilities. Rejected, 54-18.

3:09 a.m.: Newberry offers an amendment making a 20 percent health insurance co-pay mandatory for state legislators, an act he termed symbolic. Fox rules it out of order, Newberry challenges, and the body upholds the speaker 57-16.

3:04 a.m.: We’re out of new amendments. Melo offers an amendment cleaning up typos in the final appropriations document, and the changes are approved 70-4.

3 a.m.: DaSilva’s amendment is tabled, 51-16.

2:55 a.m.: DaSilva proposes a bill increasing income tax by 0.5 percent for those making $125,000 or more, and 1.5 percent on those making $250,000, with the new funding going to cities and towns. “We’ve just raised taxes on taxis, dog grooming, and things that are going to hurt the common person. This would given them a little bit of relief.”

2:50 a.m.: Fox rules because a similar bill was held in committee, the amendment is out of order. Baldelli-Hunt is not taking this lying down, sniping back at Fox, who calls for a vote upholding the chair, which passes 52-16.

2:45 a.m.: Baldelli-Hunt proposes consolidation of state advertising, which was passed in the House session but later repealed.

2:40 a.m.: Baldelli-Hunt offers an amendment to limit fees charged by check-cashing services and payday lenders, running up against an industry represented by former House Speaker Bill Murphy. “It takes hold of an industry that has existed since 2005, when special interest legislation was passed,” she says, noting that companies are allowed to charge rates as high as 262 percent under current legislation. The bill is tabled, 49-19.

2:35 a.m.: Lima amendment would force businesses applying for tax credits to sign sworn affadavits on financial records. It dies, 42-28.

Last year, I was in a Providence Newspaper Guild Follies number lampooning the zombification of state legislators at the end of the session (The Rocky Horror Show’s “Time Warp” with a chorus of “Let’s rush adjournment again!”). Tonight, I don’t need stage makeup to feel zombified.

2:20 a.m.: John Savage (I-East Providence) offers an amendment proposing a 0.25 percent state tax hike on incomes over $55.000 and 0.5 percent on incomes over $125,000. It’s tabled, 48-20.

2 a.m.: Jared Nunes (D-Coventry) offers an amendent banning Department of Health employees being coverted from private contractors to state employees from pension and state health care eligibility. Amendment fails, 56-18.

1:57 a.m. Cimini’s amendment is tabled, 53-20, effectively killing it.

1:56 a.m.: Ajello: “In January, if the numbers don’t add up, I’m going to be poking everybody.” Met with a move to table.

1:53 a.m.: Cimini steps up with her amendment to repeal the tax cut for the wealthy.

“We have an obligation to more than offer a balanced budget every year,” she says, adding that workforce development and education must be priorities. Melo rises in opposition, claiming the amendment is retroactive.

Edith Ajello (D-Providence) compares Cimini’s amendment to the Buffett Rule. “I’m saying raise income taxes on highest income, not highest earners.”

1:49 a.m. Budget revision passes, 50-17. Melo asks for new articles.

1:48 a.m.: In response to a motion to table, Guthrie says, “It just seems like we do things to hurt people in this state.” He then raises the fighting phrase “flight of the earls.” Nonetheless, the vote to table carries, 50-22.

1:40 a.m.: Scott Guthrie (D-Coventry) offers an amendment to the revised budget that would restore revenue sharing for cities and towns. Here it is: the attack on the 2006 2 percent tax rate cut for those making more than $250,000, which he says reprsents half of a similar bill to be proposed by Maria Cimini (D-Providence). “If you want to consider the people that put you here, you should at least consider it.”

1:30 a.m.: Is there a General Assembly rule that reps must remain GQ on the floor? After nine hours, there should be a few loosened ties out there. I hardly see any.

1:20 a.m.: On to Central Falls, with a $2.6 million appropriation to fund payments to police and fire retirees who had their pensions reduced by up to 55 percent from fiscal 2012 to FY 2016 under city bankruptcy provisions. They would not receive more than 75 percent of their former pension payouts. It passes, 64-6.

1:17 a.m.: The taxes and revenues amendment, cut up for easy digestion, passes.

1:13 a.m.: This is where things get crazy, when an amendment is broken in sections for a final vote. Because Fox is a member of the PPAC board, which may be affected by the measure, he yields the gavel to Coderre for the first section, which is approved.

1:10 a.m.: Trillo on the main amendment: “This was a pretty good budget, but we loused it up with $10 million in tax increases. We gave something back to people we hurt, than slammed a bunch of new people.”

1:05 a.m.: Grace Diaz (D-Providence) is finally heard from, with an amendment to the definition of “little cigars” designed to keep them out of the hands of children. Backing her is another new voice this evening, David Bennett (D-Warwick). For seemingly the hundredth time tonight, Melo says, “I rise in opposition to this amendment.” It fails, 40-18.

1 a.m.: Baron, via Twitter: “I will give a dollar to any rep who has an amendment and doesn’t introduce it.” With WPRI’s Ted Nesi occupado with Studio 38 today, however, the aggregate tweet count from press row tonight is taking a hit.

12:57 a.m.: Peter Palumbo proposes an amendment to remove sales tax from cigarette rolling papers (or cigarette tubes, which he says are not sold in Rhode Island). The bid to remove tax from your E-Z Widers fails, 49-20.

12:47 a.m.: It’s not just stamina wearing down here; it’s also cell phone batteries. Brien just visited press row to borrow a phone charger from WRNI’s Ian Donnis, whose tweet total by the end of night will be as unbeatable at Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game.

We are debating yet another MacBeth amendment, this one limiting the use of tax credits to the party they were granted to. It fails, 48-15.

12:40 a.m.: To answer a question a composing room foreman at The Woonsocket Call used to ask me around this time of night, we’re not gonna make last call.

The Baldelli-Hunt amendment goes down, 42-27.

12:32 a.m.: Amendment from Lisa Baldelli-Hunt (D-Woonsocket) would eliminate pet grooming tax and eliminate annual $10 fee for retail permits. Also, the $42 right-to-know fee for businesses that maintain hazardous chemicals would be removed. To pay for it, $14 million would be raised from a revision of property tax relief for renters.

12:28 a.m.: From Laurence Ehrhardt (R-North Kingstown), a 14-page amendment revising state business tax credits. “It’s less than the million we came up with for the car wash folks,” he admits. Fails, 48-19.

12:20 a.m.: MacBeth amendment would push back implementation of new taxes from Oct. 1, 2012 to Jan. 1, 2013. It fails, 49-18.

12:15 a.m.: Finally, someone actually proposes a tax: Menard’s amendment would tax school housing facilities rented for purposes other than housing students, families of students, faculty members or school staff.

Menard to Fox: “For someone who believes in transparency, you’re allowing this to run amuck. This is a fairness issue. To lay it on the table like this is a cowardly vote.”

Amendment tabled, 45-23. We’re all up past our bedtime.

12:10 a.m.: Chippendale’s amendment is tabled, 49-20.

12:06 a.m.: Michael Chippendale (R-Foster) is going “there.” His amendment would exempt pet care and pay for it by cutting $1.3 million in legislative grants. In this chamber, cutting legislative grants = fighting words.

12:03 a.m.: The hacks stay under the proposed sales tax, 41-27.

Midnight: Trillo: “Taxi drivers are the working poor. They don’t get pensions or the things other people do. We’re cutting into their tips. What the governor has done is try to expand the sales tax into the service industry. It’s a slippery slope. If we were going to tax a group, the first on the list should be the lawyers, but we’ve got enough of them working in here right now!”

That is how you ring in the new day, the kind of late-night oration budget session buffs crave.

11:55 p.m.: Newberry offers an amendment to remove the taxi sales tax, which would generate $960,000. He points out the average meter fare from downtown to T.F. Green Airport is $26.50, with the average passenger giving the cabbie $30 (which also includes the $1.50 Public Utilities Commission fuel surcharge).

11:50 p.m.: Dickinson: “How many people have ever filled out a sales tax form? How many people have gone out of business because they decided it wasn’t worth the trouble?”

Amendment is defeated nonetheless, 47-23.

11:40 p.m.: Menard: “We’re supporting this (original) amendment in a year when we have a $100 million surplus?”

11:32 p.m.: A MacBeth amendment would remove all other services from the proposed tax hikes (charter buses, taxis, limos, pet grooming, etc.). Disclosure: as the proud owner of a Maltese-Shih Tzu that requires more grooming than the average dog, and also a former taxi driver, I’m not quite objective on this issue.

11:29 p.m.: Mic check! From the west gallery (behind me), OP lets loose with a brief vocal demonstration. Speaker Pro Tem Elaine Coderre (D-Pawtucket) gavels them down, and Fox orders their removal.

Meanwhile, the car wash lobby wins unanimous exemption from the proposed sales tax.

11:25 p.m.: Melo offers an amendment removing car washes from the additional items being taxed, saying people who wash their cars at home use 80 percent more water than a wash.

11:18 p.m. Big one: Removal of state education mandates finally passes, 49-23. Tomorrow will be a happier day for mayors, town managers and school departments. That, along with the earlier passage of the combined Board of Education, concludes the educational portion of our program.

11:12 p.m.: MacBeth: Woonsocket is considering cutting busing because they can’t afford the monitors. “They’re having to put students in harm’s way because of what we’re doing here.”

Menard: “We have been discussing this amendment for four years. This is a cement shoe, not a sledgehammer.”

Occupy has left the gallery. Minority Leader Brian Newberry (R-North Smithfield) disagreed with the banner confiscation, since it did not block other spectators’ view.

11:01 p.m: Rene Menard (D-Lincoln) offers an amendment repealing unfunded state educational mandates…one of the issues at the heart of the municipalities’ demand for help from the state. Jon Brien (D-Woonsocket) backs him up.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Capital Police have confiscated the OP banner. The delegation of about a dozen has remained orderly, however.

10:55 p.m.: Judging from the, well, casual dress of the folks filing into the East Gallery, some elements of Occupy have arrived.

10:45 p.m.: You can almost see the sweat rolling off Melo as he’s working his arguments. Given the bipartisan arguments against the one-board plan, though, we might finally see a leadership amendment defeated (or at least a close vote). Fox is actually enforcing time limits now.

10:33 p.m.: In one of the evening’s most rousing speeches, Spencer Dickinson (D-South Kingstown), whose district includes URI, argues against the combined board: “You’ve got people advocating for kindergarten on the same board with (URI President) David Dooley, who is running an economic engine for this state. He needs his own board.”

10:25 p.m.: While Melo and DaSilva debate boards of education, almost half the reps are out of their seats chatting…at least until Fox’s patience with DaSilva ends and he hands Frank Ferri (D-Warwick) the floor. The late-night punchiness is setting in.

10:11 p.m.: Melo has spent the past 15 minutes or so defending the amendment creating one state Board of Education (and ending the Board of Higher Education and boards of regents for elementary and secondary education) from accusations that it’s not germane to the budget. This is exactly why the budget session causes you to miss David Letterman AND Jimmy Fallon (this debate is turning into a slow jam).

9:51 p.m.: Cut into three pieces, the East Bay Bridge System amendment finally passes. Adjust your E-Z pass budget accordingly.

9:46 p.m.: The Speaker has laid down the law: he’s ready to use parliamentary procedure. Bob Plain’s warning that I might see dawn when I leave here looks a little more realistic.

9:42 p.m.: The Pawtucket Times’ Jim Baron: “Bridge toll discussion going on for so long, I’m looking for one to jump off of.” https://twitter.com/#!/search/jim%20baron

9:30 p.m.: An amendment from Karen MacBeth (D-Cumberland) to reimburse residents and business owners in towns at either end of a toll bridge for debits from their E-Z pass accounts, money which Roberto DaSilva (D-East Providence) called “a $700-$800 tax hike,” was defeated 48-24.

9:06 p.m.: Gordon, pleading on behalf of an elderly constituent who will have to pay to cross Sakonnet River Bridge for medical appointments, waxes biblical: “Let my people go!”

Fox: “If you can channel Moses, we don’t need that bridge.”

8:58 p.m.: Two failed amendments to the Finance Committee amendment on bridge tolls: One by John Edwards (D-Tiverton) to change the composition of the Bridge & Turnpike Authority for more local representation (currently gubernatorial appointments) and exempt Newport County from collecting gas tax, and one by Daniel Reilly (R-Portsmouth) to allow toll money to be used only in Newport County. The original amendment would also distribute money to Bristol County.

The car wash delegation, prominent in an upstairs gallery earlier, has departed. Meanwhile, according to its Facebook page, Occupy Providence has planned a march to the Statehouse if a floor amendment repealing for wealthy residents is heard tonight.

8:41 p.m.: Revised health fees pass 48-21 as we finally get some juices flowing in here. Citing rises in chiropractic license fees from $120 to $210, manicurist licenses from $130 to $170 and physicians’ licenses from $570 to $1,090, Doreen Costa (R-North Kingstown) calls it “a job killer. This is the worst amendment to the worst budget I’ve seen here in some time.”

8:30 p.m.: We’re back in session. Before we get to tolls, we review language in state Department of Health fees.

7:15 p.m.: But before we cross that toll bridge, Speaker Fox calls recess for dinner. Back at 8.

7:08 p.m.: We’re on the 19th amendment, involcing Medicaid global waivers. Coming up next: an amendment which would put the Jamestown-Verrazano and Sakonnet River bridges under the R.I. Turnpike and Bridge Authority. The tolls themselves would not be created until at least FY 2004, and would require federal approval.

The jocularity and bonhomie of two hours ago has faded. We’re battening in for a long night, folks. I sure hope the press row passer-by here who hoped to get home for the second half of Celts-Heat set up his VCR.

6:20 p.m.: We’ve just had a lengthy debate over the leadership-sponsored school aid amendment, which passed easily after discussion of maintenance of (local budget) effort provisions and maintenance of state school building assistance at 35 percent of construction cost.

With this, we have gone through 12 of the 23 amendments recommended by the House Finance Committee. Many involve minor changes in wording or typos.

5:35 p.m.: We’re back…on a largely party-line vote, all referenda are approved for the November ballot. The breakdown just brought the pages handing out chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches to the floor a little early.

5:05 p.m.: In the midst of the bond debate, the voting machines crash. The proceedings take a break while the tech staff tries to fix the glitch – otherwise, we return to the thrilling days of yesteryear: voice votes.

The referenda slated for the November 2012 ballot include $94 million for a new veterans home/assisted living facility and renovations to the existing home, $50 million for building renovation/modernization at Rhode Island College, $25 million for affordable housing projects, and $20 million each for DEM watershed protection and Clean Water Finance Agency infrastructure loans.

4:55 p.m.: First good rejoinder of the day, from Joseph Trillo (R-Warwick) during the debate on $209 million in bond referenda. As Finance Committee Chairman Helio Melo (D-East Providence) was researching figures on state debt, Fox joked about “having someone entertain us.” Dan Gordon (R-Tiverton) angrily replied, “We don’t need an entertainer.” Trillo turned around and said, “You’re gonna have to sit down, then, because you’re the best entertainer in the room.”

4:28 p.m.: Fox gavels the House to order.

4 p.m.: The bell! Speaker is in the House! We may actually be under way shortly, although anybody who took the under on the estimated start (mostly during the 3 o’clock hour) has lost.

Former Minority Leader Bob Watson (R-East Greenwich) may keep his 70-page amendment to abolish the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) sheathed, however, He indicated he may yield to a similar amendment proposed by Charlene Lima (D-Providence).

3:25 p.m.: The buzz in the building increases, but still no sign of House Speaker Gordon Fox (D-Providence) – we’ll be here awhile.

The lobbying activity continues out in the hall, with the car wash trade very well represented. Dean Perdikakis, owner of Freeway Car Wash, closed all four of his locations today to bring 15 employees, complete with blue uniform shirts and posters, out to the Statehouse Rotunda to lobby against the addition of a 7 percent sales tax to his business.

Freeway Car Wash employees outside the House chamber lobby for the removal of a new 7 percent sales tax from their trade from the proposed fiscal 2013 state budget.

“Three of our locations are right on the state border,” he said, adding that representatives from eight other car washes were represented outside the chamber.

2:05 p.m.: Looks like we’re running a bit late. Pages and various Assembly functionaries buzzing around the chamber doing their business in good spirits, a few legislators seated or on cell phones, and some idle chatter out in the hallway. (But really, you thought this would actually start on time? This is Rhode Island!)

Noon: Hello, regular RIF viewers, our Netroots Nation visitors, and anyone else interested in Rhode Island finances. Welcome to our live blog of today’s R.I. House of Representatives budget session, where the reps will debate nearly 150 amendments to the proposed $8.1 million budget for fiscal 2013. While not all will make it to the House floor, those expected to receive some lively debate include a proposal to roll back a tax cut given to the state’s wealthiest residents six years ago, an extension of the state’s 7 percent sales tax to include clothing items exceeding $250 and services including car washes, pet grooming, taxis and limousines, and increased aid to municipalities.

The session should start at approximately 2 p.m. and is expected to run late into the night, when the debate really gets lively and unpredictable. Stay tuned and/or check in with us throughout the afternoon and evening, whether you’re out at an NN function or home watching Game 6 of Celtics-Heat. Enjoy Rhode Island’s edition of the MDA telethon (alas, without Jerry Lewis, but with more entertainment value).

June 5, 2012June 5, 2012

Activist Abel Collins Challenges Langevin

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Abel Collins feels he hasn’t heard enough about financial reform from either U.S. Rep. James Langevin (D-R.I. 2^nd District) or his prospective Republican challengers in November’s election.

The program manager for the Sierra Club’s Rhode Island chapter is unhappy enough about the situation to jump into the race himself as an independent candidate. The 2000 Brown University graduate and lifelong South Kingstown resident will officially announce his candidacy Wednesday at 3 p.m. on the south steps of the Statehouse. (In case of rain, another location will be announced. The campaign’s website is electabel2012.com.)

“It’s not about challenging Langevin,” Collins says. “It’s about challenging the two-party structure.”

Collins hopes to bring the issues of Wall Street malfeasance and campaign finance reform to the fore, which hasn’t happened yet in either of Rhode Island’s congressional campaigns.

“Both parties’ hands-off approach caused it, and the legislation they’ve enacted has done nothing,” he says. “There have been no prosecutions, and the total lack of responsiveness made me want to get involved.”

While admitting “I never stayed overnight,” Collins assisted with last year’s Occupy Providence action.

“I was one of the moderate voices,” he says.

Collins seeks greater enforcement of existing financial legislation and RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) prosecutions for insider trading, in addition to the restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act limiting interstate banking and the promotion of community and state banks. His platform also includes promoting public financing of campaigns, green initiatives and fair trade policies.

A graduate of South Kingstown High School before majoring in political science at Brown, Collins lives in the Matunuck area with his family and credits growing up around a beach with farmland nearby for his lifelong interest in environmental issues. With the Sierra Club, he has lobbied for public transportation improvements and the encouragement of walking and bicycling in local communities.

“I tried a lot of different jobs after college,” says Collins, who worked as a letter carrier, in construction and as a poker dealer before turning to environmental activism six years ago. “With the position at the Sierra Club, I really found my home.”

He has also served as a field manager for Clean Water Action, and membership and outreach coordinator at Apeiron Institute.

Collins says his campaign’s biggest goal is to bring a voice from outside the two major parties into the political debate.

“I want to demonstrate that it’s possible to campaign as an independent using the community tools available now,” he says.

April 9, 2012April 9, 2012

Laid Off: A 21st Century Career in Print Journalism

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

I tried telling myself I was just being paranoid. There were any number of reasons I could’ve been called down to my publisher’s office at Southern R.I. Newspapers’ Wakefield headquarters at 9:30 a.m. on a March Friday morning.

It could’ve involved some major changes at the East Greenwich Pendulum, the weekly newspaper for which I had served as the main news reporter since June 2010. Maybe it was a promotion, or a reassignment within SRIN’s family of papers. Perhaps the Pendulum won a Rhode Island Newspaper Association award, and our publisher, Nanci Batson, wanted to let me know in person.

But having been laid off twice before during a 28-year career in the newspaper business, it wasn’t paranoia. It was experience and wisdom smacking me mercilessly upside the head. When I walked into Nanci’s office and saw a document on the table, I didn’t have to read the fine print. The big right uppercut to the liver felt familiar, though.

She said all the polite and apologetic things. I’m not into bridge burning (I still freelance for the Pendulum). But she could’ve at least offered me a blindfold and a cigarette.

During my sleepless night while waiting for that fateful Friday morning meeting, I recalled the recent carnage at our sister daily papers, the Woonsocket Call and Pawtucket Times. Just a week earlier, during my pre-show schmoozing at the Providence Newspaper Guild Follies, I learned from several of my former Call colleagues about another round of buyouts and layoffs (the second since I left in 2004) at the two papers, which are being smooshed together in all but name, to the point where longtime reporters of each paper were being shipped to the other at least once a week. Kind of like the Boston Red Sox putting Daniel Bard on the bus down I-95 when the PawSox need a second starting pitcher for a doubleheader.

And one month before, South County Newspapers, publisher of our main print competition, the North-East Independent, announced layoffs, with the casualties including its East Greenwich reporter. Competitively, good news for my team, right? In any other business, perhaps.

It nagged me that my company had a chance to solidify its hold on a market through our competition’s pullback. Instead, it became just another convenient opportunity to hack at bone (four other heads in SRIN rolled along with mine) thanks to South County’s decision. I am not an MBA (just the son of one), but is that sound business practice?

The irony really hit home at a recent Greenwich Odeum restoration planning meeting, while talking a little shop with Odeum board chairman Frank Prosnitz, a former Providence Journal copy editor and Providence Business News editor who has since entered the public relations field.

“When you came to town,” he said, “I figured the changes in the business meant we were at least getting some experienced reporters coming to community newspapers.”

If only such things mattered, Frank.

So much for the job I hoped would launch me back close to where I had been, as a copy editor at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, before I was laid off in February 2009. All I will say about my salary at the Pendulum was that, as a veteran journalist, my weekly paycheck was smaller than the weekly unemployment check I received from the state of Massachusetts (which, at 50 percent, is a lower portion of salary than R.I. unemployment compensation).

My first layoff, though, was in 1995. I returned to work from vacation only to be called into the office of then-managing editor Karen Bordeleau (now the Journal’s deputy executive editor) and informed that Bob Jelenic, the legendary CEO of The Call, had decreed a smaller newsroom. More precisely, a smaller copy desk, on which I was low man in seniority after seven years at the paper and four full-time on the desk.

Three months later, in November, I interviewed for an irregular extra job on the Journal copy desk (variable amount of work each week, no benefits), made the cut, surrendered some hair for the drug test and was slated to start in January. But in early December, The Call called me back (ironically, for an opening created after Karen was fired, a decision perhaps even more outrageous and ill-advised than my layoff. If you ever want to set a former JRC employee’s head afire and hear some of George Carlin’s favorite words, just say “Jelenic”).

I went back. As an unmarried guy at the time, I needed the health care.

Eventually, I found a copy desk opening at the Telegram & Gazette, where I spent 4½ years of feeling I had finally made it into a well-paying job in this business. Then its owner, The New York Times Co. (yes, the same organization you hear denounced on talk radio and by politicians as this flaming liberal monolith), decided it was time to do some hacking, through layoffs and buyouts. Falling just short of making the seniority cut, I had to take the buyout, and was able to at least walk away with some cash and free health care for a year. A few more colleagues laid off six months later didn’t have the buyout option. That $15 million golden handshake Times CEO Janet Robinson received at her retirement? She owes us more than one drink.

To the people who dismiss mainstream media as controlled by liberals (like those who complain that Charlie Bakst and Bob Kerr have dictated the Journal’s agenda): take a look at the people who are making the really important decisions. Who gets hired and who gets fired, what people get paid, how financial resources are committed. How many liberals are making those decisions?

And to those who whine about the Internet ruining the newspaper business: Please. While all types of other businesses, from Microsoft to McDonald’s, focus on improving the product if profits or market share slip, mine cuts people and resources, weakening the product further. Customers vote with their feet, turning away from it. And how does mine respond? More layoffs. And the self-fulfilling prophecy continues.

The most painful part of being an unemployed journalist is listening to people close to me question my choice of profession. My answer: for all the alleged security in accounting, my father had two significant stints of unemployment during my college days, when companies were bought and merged out from under him. That’s what he did, and this is what I do. The occasional pity party breaks out, and I look for the door.

Yes, my profession and its travails have cost me plenty in recent years, both financially and personally. Maybe I could’ve jumped the train safely earlier in life.

But it’s given me friends, memories, the satisfaction of knowing I’m skilled, versatile and respected in the field I’ve chosen, and some opportunities I look forward to pursuing – makes me a pretty lucky guy.

Being a journalist in 2012 means you get knocked down (or are likely to). But you also get up again. And so have, and will, I.

April 4, 2012April 4, 2012

No Red Carpet for Needy Families, Immigrants

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

For years, a staple of talk radio hosts and budget hardliners has been the argument that Rhode Island public policy on welfare and public assistance has made the state a magnet for families, particularly immigrants, seeking its juicy benefits.

But the recent release of the Rhode Island Kids Count 2011 annual report pokes some neat holes in that meme.

Along with a comprehensive statistical analysis of issues including poverty rates of Rhode Island’s families with children, education, school lunch and breakfast eligibility and state aid (with emphasis on the urban core communities of Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls and Woonsocket) comes an under-reported nugget from the 2010 Census: the number of R.I. children dropped 10 percent last year, from 247,822 to 223,956, the third-biggest decrease by state in the nation.

Couple that with the state’s 11 percent unemployment rate and high rental average, and the state’s not exactly a major draw for needy families who are seeking jobs, reasonable living costs and social services.

“That 10 percent drop is telling,” says Elizabeth Burke Bryant, executive director of RI Kids Count. “People tend to move because of extended family, or to be close to where the jobs are.”

“While there’s a significant decline in the caseload of children and families receiving assistance, it’s due to time limits and other indicators, and is not reflective of the number of poor children in the state,” she adds.

An Urban Institute state-by-state study of immigrant children from 1990 to 2009 also finds immigrant families, documented or undocumented, aren’t exactly flocking to Rhode Island.

From 1990 to 2009, the number of immigrant children in the state grew from 40,000 to 52,000, with the percentage of the state’s total number of children rising from 18 to 24 percent. That growth rate of 30 percent in raw numbers, however, ranked only 47^th in the nation.

The difficult housing market is another reason families requiring social services aren’t overwhelming the state, says Stephanie Geller, RI Kids Count policy analyst.

The average monthly cost of rental housing in the state has risen from $748 in 2000 to $1,150 by 2011, according to the Kids Count report, with about 25 percent of Rhode Island’s families spending 50 percent or more of their income on housing costs.

“There’s a feeling overall that the price of housing is going down, but there’s more demand for rentals because of people losing their houses. We’re one of the few states that doesn’t have a dedicated source of funding for affordable housing.” Geller says.

Some of the pending General Assembly legislation Kids Count is keeping an eye on, Geller says, includes increases in co-payments for child care assistance and cuts in dental care assistance for both young adults and adults 21 and over.