I got to the event a good half hour early. As I crossed the small parking lot outside the Oak Lawn Grange I was intercepted and asked about my business.
“I’m just here to take notes and a few pictures,” I said, “for RI Future.”
Pause. “We’re not set up yet,” said the man, “you’ll have to wait.”
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll sit over at the picnic tables.”
“Sure,” said the man, “Why not? It’s a beautiful day out.”
It was. I sat for a few minutes, reading my phone, when another man holding a clipboard approached me. We introduced ourselves. He was Leo Skenyon, Nicholas Mattiello’s chief of staff.
“I don’t know if we can get you in,” said Skenyon, “We’ve got over 130 people coming, and priority will be given to Cranston residents.”
“Okay, “ I said, “I get that. I can stand. I just need to take some notes and a few pictures.”
“We might get you into the basement with a TV,” said Skenyon, “You’ll be able to hear the answers, but you might not hear the questions.”
“We’ll see what happens then,” I said.
I waited outside near the entrance, watching people arrive. I saw two people from the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence (RICAGV) handing flyers to passers by. One of them was Tom Wojick.
“Do you support common sense gun legislation?” asked Tom, holding out a flyer to a man and his wife.
“No,” said the man, “I’m a NRA member.”
I had taken a bus on a Saturday morning to the middle of Cranston to see Representative Nicholas Mattiello, the Speaker of the House and arguably the most powerful politician in Rhode Island, engage with his constituents.
This isn’t an every day occurrence. Some reps have regular events with their constituents, some have none, but as Mattiello told the crowd, his duties as Speaker take up a lot of time, and he doesn’t often get the chance to hold events like this. Today was a rare chance to see Mattiello engage with his constituents and hear what voters in Mattiello’s district care the most about. [Spoiler: It’s RhodeWorks]
Mattiello wasn’t alone either on stage or behind the scenes. Organizing the event were about a dozen men delivering coffee and donuts, escorting people to their seats and acting as what seemed like de facto security. There were two Cranston police officers stationed at the event. In addition to Leo Skenyon, who was organizing, I saw Larry Berman, communications director for the RI House of Reps, helping out.
On “stage” with Mattiello were RI State Senators Frank Lombardi and Hanna Gallo, Rep Robert Jacquard and RI Department of Transportation director Peter Alviti, there to answer technical questions about truck tolls and RhodeWorks.
When I entered the Grange Larry Berman saw me and said, “He can come in,” but behind me Leo Skenyon said, “He’s taking a couple of pictures and heading downstairs.”
That’s what I did. Here’s one:
Downstairs in front of the TV was a man who was interested in RhodeWorks but happened to live in Providence, so he was sent to the basement with me. A minute later we were joined by Lorraine Savard, wearing a small version of her “Save Burrillvile: No New Power Plant” sign pinned to her lapel.
At least I was in good company.
We ended up watching everything on closed circuit TV, downstairs from the main event. We laughed when the camera upstairs went to a wide shot, showing at least seven empty seats in the main room. We laughed again when we noticed that the two police officers were in the downstairs room with us, leaving no police presence in the room above, where over one hundred people were in attendance.
Most of Mattiello’s talk was a defense of RhodeWorks. One idea the Speaker was keen to dispel was that RhodeWorks was broadly unpopular. He said that he has in his district 14 thousand constituents and 10 thousand registered voters. When he counted the number of emails he received opposed to RhodeWorks, it was thirty.
“I don’t believe that,” said the man from Providence sitting next to me.
But I don’t think Mattiello lied. People in Mattiello’s district aren’t that upset about RhodeWorks, or at least not upset enough to threaten him politically. Mattiello maintains that the reason people don’t like RhodeWorks is because they are misinformed about it.
“We have a talk radio community,” said Mattiello, “misinformation gets out through that medium” either through callers saying things that aren’t true or talk show hosts repeating false information.
“Misinformation takes your vote away from you,” said the Speaker.
Lombardi and Jacquard also defended their RhodeWorks votes. Lombardi said, “We live in a post 38 Studios world. RhodeWorks opposition is based on a distrust of [any] legislation, not on the plan itself.”
Gallo went a different direction, touting the work she does on education, including full day kindergarten.
Eventually the question and answer phase of the discussion, nearly three hours into the event, got around to a subject other than RhodeWorks. A woman (it was very hard to hear the specifics of her question on the TV) asked about the three bills the RICAGV has brought forward, including the bill to prohibit people with concealed carry permits from bringing guns into schools.
“There are two sides to this issue,” said Mattiello (who incidently has an A+ rating from the NRA), “There are those who want no change [to our guns laws] and there are those who want to abolish guns.”
This opening surprised me. The RICAGV has worked hard to strike a nuanced position on guns, and here Mattiello was claiming that the group was simply seeking to abolish all guns.
As for guns in schools, said the Speaker, “Please tell me where this has been a problem. And if its never been a problem, you’re affecting the rights of law abiding citizens.”
Mattiello gave the hypothetical situation oaf a man with a concealed carry permit picking his kid up at school. Is he supposed “to leave his gun on the sidewalk? Leave it in his car where it might be stolen, or drive home and drop it off first?”
“In trying to solve a problem you’re creating a bigger problem,” said the Speaker.
Guns are not allowed in courthouses or airports, countered the woman (and I might add, not allowed in the State House where Mattiello works either.)
Senator Lombardi cut in at this point, saying that the problem isn’t gun owners, it’s the mentally ill accessing guns. Columbine and Sandy Hook were the results of mental illness, said Lombardi, not lack of gun control.
“If,” said Lombardi, “God forbid, a [gunman] goes into a Cranston school, I hope the first person he sees is a law abiding citizen with a concealed carry permit.”
“We have to address the mental health aspect of this equation,” added Mattiello, “People with concealed carry permits are not the problem. I don’t think they’ve ever been the problem.”
Mattiello’s last words on the issue of guns were, “You can affect the behavior of people who respect the law, but not the behavior of those who don’t respect the law.”
That kind of makes me wonder why we pass any laws.
The next question was about the ethics commission.
“Senator Sheehan’s bill is the worst bill I’ve ever seen,” said Mattiello, “I can’t imagine supporting that bill because it make’s no sense to me.”
“Conflict of interest rules are ‘gotcha’ politics,” said the Speaker, “lawyers in the General Assembly serve clients across the country. Technically they are always in conflict of interest. They would never vote!”
Mattiello feels that Sheehan’s bill will encourage “frivolous complaints”. “What’s going to happen is good people are not going to want to run [for office],” said the Speaker.
“Most people in government are extremely ethical,” continued Mattiello, “Everybody up there, I believe, is entirely ethical and good.”
Mattiello seems to believe that the job of identifying conflicts of interest falls to the fourth estate, saying, “Kathy Gregg is a great reporter. She points out every conflict of interest.”
Somewhat echoing his last word on gun control laws, Mattiello said about ethics, “Ethics commissions don’t make better people. That’s [the electorate]’s job.”
Other random things of interest Mattiello said during the meeting:
“I disagree that the Speaker is the most powerful person in the state. Sometimes it’s the governor.”
Ex-Speaker Gordon Fox, now in prison, “had his problems but he did good things policy wise.”
“I don’t believe in trickle-down economics. I just want to be competitive with our neighboring states.”
“Rhode Island right now is in excellent shape.”
Tensions were high in the auditorium. Michael Sabitoni, president of the Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council and over a hundred union members arrived early, and many Burrillville natives resented their presence. One speaker from Burrillville claimed that the union members were “intimidating.” A union speaker objected to this, calling the accusation of intimidation, “B.S.”
Planned Parenthood of Southern New England held a Reproductive Freedom Lobby Day at the State House yesterday, perhaps coincidentally coinciding with the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments in 
Providing licenses for undocumented immigrants in Rhode Island is an idea that is not going away. After Governor Gina Raimondo failed to deliver on her campaign promise to issue an executive order allowing the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to issue operator licenses to undocumented immigrants, the General Assembly took up the issue at the Governor’s request. Bills were introduced in the House and Senate. The House bill was heard by the Judiciary committee and held for further study.
Perhaps the most poignant sign at the protest outside Mount Saint Charles Academy (MSCA) early Saturday morning read, “41 percent of trans individuals attempt suicide in their lifetimes. Accommodation cannot wait.”
Waiting for Bernie Sanders in the press line outside Milton High School in Massachusetts ahead of Super Tuesday, I talked to Rita Colaco, a journalist from Portugal. She’s surprised that I know where Portugal is, because most Americans she talks to think her country is part of Spain, or Puerto Rico. She was at a rally for Hillary Clinton in Boston earlier in the day, and now she’s covering a rally for Sanders. She’s in the United States for four days to cover Super Tuesday.
May lost two friends to pancreatic cancer years ago. They were diagnosed within weeks of each other and they died within weeks of each other. Their treatment was the same. The only difference between the two is that one friend lived in Denmark, the other in the United States.
“We can’t vote,” said the oldest, “but my Dad’s voting for Trump.”
During the past ten years, from 2006 to 2015, 54 people lost their lives to domestic violence homicides in Rhode Island over the course of 48 incidents, says a new report from the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence (RICADV). 
The report offers five recommendations:
Sen. Frank Ciccone III and Rep. Anastasia Williams introduced legislation (
As for taxes, a report from the Economic Progress Institute (EPI) demonstrates that “Undocumented immigrants contribute more than $11.6 billion to state and local coffers each year, including $33.4 million in Rhode Island, according to a new study released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).”
Opponents of Governor Gina Raimondo‘s proposed 
Almost more pernicious than the tax, though, are the other provisions included in what amounts to a complete restructuring of the way medical marijuana is done in our state. Those who grow their own marijuana will be forced to comply with a 75 percent reduction, six plants only, drastically reducing the amount of medicine available to patients.
Then there is the financial devastation this plans wreaks upon caregivers. Purchase tags are now required for all plants. $150 per plant for patients who grow their own and $350 for each plant raised by caregivers for others. This makes the cost of farming marijuana prohibitive, and many will not be able to afford this. I earlier talked to a 
Janet Coit’s visit to the proposed site of Invenergy’s new gas and oil powered energy plant in Burrillville on Monday raises very real questions about what the DEM director calls a “fire wall” that prohibits communication between her and the parties involved in the case she is deciding. In response to my questions, Todd Anthony Bianco, coordinator of the RI Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB), said:
Janet Coit, director of the RI Department of Environmental Management, is one of the two people sitting on a three person board (alongside RI Public Utilities Commissioner Margaret Curran) who will ultimately be deciding on whether or not to grant Invenergy permission to build an 
A family of five Syrian refugees, a mother, father and three children ages 6, 7 and 8 arrived in Rhode Island early Thursday evening. About 30 people from the Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, the Refugee Dream Center and the RI State Council of Churches were waiting for them with welcoming signs, gift baskets, warm smiles and hugs.
Activists from DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality) and Tenant and Homeowner Association (THA) set up outside Mayor Jorge Elorza‘s office on the second floor of Providence City Hall to demand changes to the city’s Everyhome program. About fifty protestors, carrying heart-shaped signs, and a poster-sized infographic about the program dotted with broken hearts, gathered in the foyer on the second floor of City Hall.
