Providence City Councillor Seth Yurdin introduced a resolution Thursday evening that would strengthen the City Council’s opposition to National Grid’s proposed Fields Point liquefaction facility. Immediately after introducing his resolution Councillor Sam Zurier rose to co-sponsor, as did councilors David Salvatore, Carmen Castillo, Wilbur Jennings, Jo-Ann Ryan and Terrence Hassett.
Noting that it seemed as if a majority of the council was co-sponsoring the resolution, Yurdin moved that the resolution be voted on immediately. This caused councilors Jo-Ann Ryan and Terrence Hassett to suddenly flip their support. Yurdin’s move for passage failed, and the resolution was passed onto the Ordinances committee.
Reached for comment, Hassett wrote, “I voted no to have an immediate passage on the floor without a Council committee review. I co-sponsored it but a committee review is necessary for a proper vetting and discussion before it is transmitted to the full Council.”
Ryan wrote, “I requested to be a sponsor of the resolution last night. It was sent to ordinance committee by a majority vote. I voted to send it to committee to provide an opportunity for community input at an open public meeting of the council. You can and should attend and voice your concerns. And encourage others to attend and participate in the process.”
There are no ordinance committee hearings on the current schedule. Hassett is the chair of ordinance and Ryan is a member of the committee.
National Grid wants to expand its LNG footprint in the Port of Providence with the new liquefaction plant. Environmental groups such as the RI Sierra Club and the Environmental Justice League of RI oppose the plan. Curiously, Save the Bay, whose offices are not too far from the proposed site, have not come out against it.
Mayor Jorge Elorza and a large group of state level Providence legislators have recently publicly come out in opposition to the project.
The City Council unanimously approved Yurdin’s previous resolution opposing the site in March. That resolution called for public meetings to be scheduled to address environmental and health concerns of the project. “Unfortunately,” said Yurdin, here we are in the Summer and no such meetings have been held… This resolution is stronger than the previous resolution.”
The previous resolution called for studies and review. The new resolution is a call to strong action.
The new resolution says, in part, “That the City shall take all necessary actions to oppose the proposed Fields Point liquefaction facility, including ceasing to act as a cooperating agency with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and shall not grant any tax stabilizations, subsidies, or any other forms of support to the project.”
The Burrillville Planning Board 
In response to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision against National Grid’s plan to charge consumers to underwrite and guarantee profits for its proposed ANE pipeline, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) has moved to close the Docket on a similar proposal here in Rhode Island.
The Somali immigrant community in Minnesota came under fire from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump earlier in August. Immigration policy, said Trump, is, “creating an enclave of immigrants with high unemployment that is both stressing the state’s … safety net, and creating a rich pool of potential recruiting targets for Islamic terror groups.”
This is not an attack on terrorists, this is an attack on a culture, the threat of genocide is implied by such threats against its cultural institutions. The Somali Museum in Minneapolis is the only one of its kind in the world. Another museum, in Mogadishu, fell victim to the civil war, its artifacts and exhibits scattered to the wind.
After the press conference I headed across town to the Minnesota State Republican Offices where Cosecha Minnesota was holding a “
My last stop was at the Minneapolis Convention Center, where people representing virtually everyone Trump has ever publicly maligned, including immigrants, black Americans, members of the LGBTQ community, women, Muslims, indigenous Americans and more, gathered together to denounce Trump ahead of his visit to a large donor rally.
Trump did not make a public appearance in Minnesota, or even speak to the press. He spoke to donors only at the Convention Center. But his very presence in the city was enough to galvanize this group to come out to speak, sing, dance and chant their opposition to Trump being president.
The Executive Board of the Rhode Island Progressive Democrats wishes to express extreme displeasure that Hillary Clinton would name Governor Gina Raimondo as a co-chair of the Democratic convention. While this role is purely ceremonial, it indicates that some of Clinton’s advisors may consider Raimondo an acceptable figure within the national Democratic party, a sentiment that would be deeply chilling. Raimondo’s politics represent a brand of conservatism well to the right of basically anyone of prominence in the national Democratic party. Deeply unpopular in Rhode Island, Raimondo is known for her aggressive push to restrict women’s access to abortion coverage through plans sold on Rhode Island’s exchange. She is also one of the most aggressive proponents of pension cuts, which Democrats just voted to oppose in our party platform. She has been a feisty advocate of expanding fossil fuel infrastructure, and she even opposes repealing Rhode Island’s tax cuts for the rich. A former private equity executive, Raimondo epitomizes an extreme type of Wall Street politician. After the withdrawal of banker Antonio Weiss, the national party has had an informal rule against Wall Street appointees for top posts. Raimondo appears to violate that rule.
When Governor Gina Raimondo came to Burrillville Monday evening to hear the concerns of residents regarding Invenergy’s proposed $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant, the people greeted her with applause, cheers, and gifts. Over the course of the two hour meeting, the Governor assured the people that she had not just listened to them, but had truly heard them.
Spectra Energy is not planning to build a liquified natural gas (LNG) storage facility in Burrillville alongside the controversial compressor station and near the site of Invenergy‘s planned $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant. The Burrillville Town Council evealed at their Wednesday night meeting that when Spectra submits their official FERC pre-application for the project on July 22, it will be Acushnet, MA, not Burrillville, that will be forced to fight against yet another fracked gas infrastructure nightmare in New England.
Hundreds gathered in Providence last night to celebrate the lives of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, two men killed last week by police. The celebration was organized by a myriad of people representing many groups, and was modeled on a 
