The most poignant and politically instructive story I covered in 2014 was the shameful treatment of the Providence hotel workers who, having successfully petitioned the Providence City Council for the right to place a $15 minimum wage measure on the ballot, were frustrated in their effort by the General Assembly, under the leadership of the newly elected Speaker of the House, Nicholas Mattiello.

The situation for many hotel workers in Rhode Island is bleak. Some hotels pay wages that are close to a living wage, but many do not, most notably the Hilton Providence and the Providence Renaissance, which are mired in a labor struggle with its staff. Both hotels are managed by The Procaccianti Group (TPG) a multi-billion dollar real estate and investment company headquartered in Cranston, Rhode Island. Properties managed by TPG are notorious for extracting profits from investments by keeping wages low and treating employees as disposable commodities.

Hotel employees organized by Unite Here Local 217, have been demanding fair wages, humane working conditions and a union. The hotels have responded punitively, firing high profile and vocal organizers such as Krystle Martin, Adrienne Jones and Marino Cruz.

The hotel workers worked hard last winter and spring to collect the 1,000 signatures needed to compel the City Council to consider putting a $15 minimum wage ordinance for hotel workers on the November ballot, presenting their petition on April 10. The City Council held public hearings on the measure on May 27. Though the ProJo tried to convince the public that there were dozens of speakers on both sides of this issue, in truth there were 22 speakers in support and only five hotel lobbyists speaking against the measure.

But the hotels lobbyists still have power. They have so much power that the Providence Ordinance Committee cancelled a meeting to decide on the measure under pressure from… who knows? To this date no one has explained exactly why City Councillor Seth Yurdin cancelled the meeting. Rumor has it that Mayor Angel Taveras, who was planning a run for governor, was anxious to present himself as a friend to corporate interests, but of course, the mayor has no power to compel the cancellation of city council meetings.

What is known is that nearly one hundred hotel workers, their families and supporters made huge efforts to be at the City Hall that night, arranging child care or dragging their kids with them, getting to the City Hall by bus, carpool or walking, losing out on valuable paid work or rare time off in the process. Because the meeting was cancelled at the last minute, the hotel workers ended up in an empty City Hall, with no one to hear their case.

It is thought that actions to stall the passage of the measure were used because, despite the pressure on the City Council by corporate interests, early handicapping revealed that the measure would pass if put to a vote. In addition, polling indicated that Providence voters were quite receptive to the idea of raising the minimum wage for struggling workers.

So despite the financial and political power of the forces opposed to the measure, things were going well for hotel workers in Providence.

Enter ALEC

It’s pretty well known that Mayor Taveras had mixed feelings about the hotel worker’s minimum wage bill. It seems he did not want to be known as the kind of mayor who vetoed such popular measures, but he also did not want to end a promising political career by angering monied interests.

Fortunately for his future plans, Taveras avoided having to address the issue thanks to State Representative Ray Gallison, a “Democrat” from District 69, covering Bristol/Portsmouth. Gallison introduced House Bill 8276, which would take away the power of cities and municipalities to set their own minimum wages, effectively blocking the hotel worker’s efforts. According to a House spokesperson, Gallison’s bill was a direct response to the hard work and determination of the hotel workers, who had followed the rules and used the democratic process in an attempt to enact a positive change.

Gallison’s bill was modeled on legislation pioneered by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, what Bob Plain called “the right wing bill mill that drafts corporate-friendly legislation for state legislators.” Why would a Democrat introduce a right-wing bill that caters to corporate interests by keeping hard working people in grinding poverty? I don’t know, because Gallison refused to respond to my requests for clarification.

Gallison’s mistake, however, was putting the proposal out in the form of a bill. A bill needs to be debated in committee, which invites public commentary and media scrutiny. A bill, introduced in the House, must also be passed in the Senate. That means more public commentary and media scrutiny. A bill requires each and every legislator to vote on it and essentially declare themselves for corporate interests or struggling workers. A bill would have to be ultimately signed by the Governor. All that democracy engenders uncertainty and becomes a huge problem when a multi-billion dollar corporation is demanding that something be done to protect its bottom line.

So Gallison, under the direction of the Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello, removed his bill from consideration and slipped the measure into the budget. As a budget item, the measure is just one little part of a huge pile of legislation that is passed all at once as an up or down vote. Legislators can say things like, “I don’t support every part of this budget, but as a whole it strikes a compromise I can live with.”

The budget passed the House and the Senate with barely a word spoken against the measure. One notable exception was Representative Maria Cimini, a Democrat. She introduced a measure to amend the budget and undercut Gallison’s ALEC inspired end run. The measure failed. In retaliation for this and other progressive sleights, Speaker Mattiello endorsed Cimini’s opponent, Dan McKiernan, in the Democratic Primary, successfully unseating her.

On June 13, the same night the House passed the budget, the Providence City Council, under the leadership of Michael Solomon, passed a measure putting the $15 minimum wage bill on the November Ballot in what amounted to a symbolic gesture. The efforts of the City Council didn’t matter. The deed was done. On June 16 the Senate passed the budget. All that was required now was Governor Chafee’s signature.

Still, the hotel workers did not give up. Amazingly, hotel workers Santa Brito, Mirjaam Parada and Yilenny Ferreras along with Central Falls City Councilor Shelby Maldonado (now a State Representative) organized a hunger strike, camping outside on the State House Steps for days as the Governor contemplated signing the budget into law.

I visited the hunger strikers every day. I can’t speak highly enough of their determination and grace. On June 19, day three of the hunger strike, Governor Lincoln Chafee signed the budget into law, effectively ending the effort that had started months ago as hundreds of people collected thousands of signatures in order to get a bill placed on the November ballot that would have improve the lives of countless Rhode Islanders.

Since that day, economic prospects in Rhode Island have steadily worsened. Rhode Island has the highest poverty rate in New England. Despite such dour news, the idea that the General Assembly, following Mattiello’s lead, might do anything this coming session but cut assistance programs to the poor is almost laughable. Only 27% of the jobs in Rhode Island pay enough for a family with two children to survive on. The rest of Rhode Islanders are the working poor, disposable commodities for the rich to use, abuse and toss aside when broken.

When Rep Ray Gallison first introduced his ALEC inspired bill to cut off the efforts of the hotel workers to improve their lives, Santa Brito, housekeeper at the Providence Renaissance and hunger striker said, “House leadership is moving to jail us in poverty.”

Who would have thought that Rhode Islanders would stand by and actually let that happen?

Keep the healthy balance of family and professional roles you showed throughout the campaign. And always listen to your mother! – Lt. Governor Elizabeth Roberts (to Raimondo, specifically)

Surround yourself with good people and encourage them to disagree with you and each other. Communicate your vision to your team and let them execute it. Have measurements for progress and evaluate honestly. – Providence Mayor Angel Taveras

Never forget how much people are relying on you and the difference your work will make in their lives. Remembering this every day is the best way to remain positive, energized, and focused through the difficult decisions you will be required to make.

Don’t forget the small things, they add up. From taking time to call on a family member’s birthday, to speaking directly with constituents constantly, to writing personal thank you notes, or acknowledging the excellent work of a staff member; these gestures help remind you of the important things and help keep you grounded.

Be sure to hire smart, talented and reliable people who are willing to disagree with you. Surrounding yourself with dedicated staffers who will ensure your work is on the right track is essential to success. – – Congressman David Cicilline

Keep your promises, surround yourself with smart, hardworking people and never forget why you wanted this job in the first place. It’s about the people of Rhode Island, and when you hit a roadblock, turn to them for support and guidance. – Congressman Jim Langevin

What advice would you offer our newly elected officials? Please comment below and let us know.

The commission issued a report and recommendations in early 2013. And, much to my surprise, the Taveras administration actually tried to implement it. You could fill the library at Alexandria with the commission and consultant reports that were written and immediately shelved. (Commerce RI’s 2010 Roadmap to a Green Economy comes to mind…)

The push toward implementation shows that Taveras and his administration took these issues seriously, as they rightly should. It is a pity that he won’t be able to pick up on the good work done on this front by Governor Chafee at the state level, but I digress.

Open data and information technology are the kinds of tedious, nerdy things that nobody cares or thinks much about—much like highway bridges—until they break. Then everybody freaks the hell out. The fact is that open access to government data or the lack thereof has a profound effect on regular people.

Would you like to log in to your account with the city government and see all your stuff there on a single page? When I say “your stuff” I mean your car tax, your property tax, your parking tickets, your application for a vendors license, your building permits, your communications with public works about that dead tree that’s about to take down the utility lines, etc. Yeah, that stuff.

I certainly would, but I can’t. And it’s not like I haven’t tried. On the commission, my main job was constantly to advocate that the city provide basic web services for residents and develop an internal capability to do so instead of paying ridiculous money to third parties that provide mediocre, rapidly obsolete systems. Sensible and cost-effective as this might be, it remains just a distant possibility. Many things need to change—especially the knowledge and attitudes of city councilors, department heads and…well, everybody in government that can’t make a web page with a text document.

The ugly reality of IT in Providence city government

Your Frymaster also enjoyed a courtesy interview for the role of Chief Information Officer for the city, but I was never really in the race. Jim Silveria, who landed that job and also served on the commission, has done his best to deliver on the commission’s recommendations. This is no slight to Jim. It’s an indictment of the inertia, entrenched interests, lack of resources and lack of capability of existing resources within city government.

I would not have made the same decisions that Jim has, and that’s probably why he got the job instead of me. But at least he made decisions and moved the situation forward in a significant way.

Providence now has an open data portal, an open meetings portal, live streaming and archived video of council meetings and highly-transparent, browsable repository of all the bids to all the city’s RFPs since they started using the system earlier this year. Not for nothin’, but that’s serious progress.

Here’s the thing: all of those new services—just like the previously existing services for paying parking tickets, taxes and your water bill—are from third parties. Expansion of the city’s internal capabilities has been virtually nil. (NB: the RFP repository was developed in-house by the city of Newport, so it can be done—even in RI. Also, using Ustream and Vimeo for the video is kind of a no-brainer.)

While it’s true that outdated job descriptions and overall municipal employees union intransigence hold the city back, the primary cause is a catch-22 in which a lack of resources leads to inefficient use of the resources that are available. This problem stems from an overall lack of understanding at the highest levels (in this case, the city council, department heads and possibly even the executive administration) of the importance of investing in technology and tech-savvy people.

By no means is Providence alone in this regard. Most governments and most corporations have the same problem. This 2008 article by the internationally renowned IT pioneer JP Rangaswami sums it up pretty well. JP starts by repeating one of his favorite quotes, itself from years before:

When you turn down a request for funding an R&D [read: IT] project, you are right 90% of the time. That’s a far higher rate of decision accuracy than you get anywhere else, so you do it.

And that’s fine. Except for the 10% of the time you’re wrong. When you’re wrong, you lose the company.

~ Howard Schneiderman [editorial comment is mine]

If you go read that article, scroll down to the comments. Somebody you know might have weighed in…

“There’s two ways to do things: the right way and
the Army way”

My father used that well-trod quip anytime I tried to cut corners or get away with a half-assed effort. At its core is the recognition that institutions have a hard time changing their thinking and making the tough decision to do what’s best in the long run. Corporations have quarterly reports to shareholders; governments have elections. Doing today the same thing you did yesterday and kicking the can down the road remain the default options for almost every leader everywhere.

And more’s the pity.

In the case of the city of Providence, the combination of an inflexible union, a poorly informed city council, resistant department heads and the absence of a breakthrough leader that could change those three previous items has created the situation where you cannot do things the right way; you can only do things the Army way. Specifically, the city can’t hire a qualified IT person for $100,000 per year, but the city can pay an outsider vendor $100,000 a year to do what the qualified IT person could do in a couple of months.

Thus our tax dollars—that could be paying local people and small IT firms to do great work, as I have repeatedly advocated—go to massive, far off corporations that give us mediocre systems. Just imagine what the city pays in licensing fees just for Microsoft Office. Right?

Code Island, civic hackers and open data

In 2014, Code for America sent a cohort of fellows to work with the state of Rhode Island and created the first state-level “brigade,” Code Island. (All previous brigades worked at the municipal level.) Yours truly serves as the official brigade Storyteller, a CfA-required position for all brigades that roughly translates as communications resource. Open Providence commission chair John Marion and commissioner Nelson Rocha also play active roles. Shawn Selleck, the civic innovation consultant to the city of Providence who has helped Jim Silveria fight the good fight at City Hall, is the brigade’s official Community Organizer.

CfA and its brigades are known as “civic hackers,” computer systems developers and designers that volunteer their time and talent to produce web- and mobile-enabled software applications that let regular people see and use government data. Code Island is greatly enabled by Jim Silveria and Thom Guertin, a Woonsocket native and RI’s Chief Digital Officer.

Code Island has several development projects in process, the most ambitious being a visualization tool that will let users slice and dice the five years of state budget data recently released on the state’s transparency portal. Our tool will provide far greater detail and flexibility that the state’s visualization. Again, this is no slight to RI.gov or Thom and his team. They can only do so much, and by making the data accessible to us, they enable us to take it to the next level.

This is how civic hacking works: open data + free apps = teh awesome.

Code Island wants the candidates on the record

Last week, the brigade sent the three major candidates for mayor of Providence a questionnaire, asking them to go on the record about how they would approach the issue of open data. We focused only on the city of Providence because, despite the significant progress that the Taveras administration has made, we still rate just a D+ for spending transparency, according to RIPIRG.

It’s not like RIPIRG has an ax to grind on this. The rating is in line with the open data census that the Open Knowledge Foundation runs. We rank #41 with a score of 230 compared with New York City, the national leader, with a score over 1600.

The sad fact is that Providence is woefully behind the curve. For a place that fancies itself a geeky little IT haven, that’s fairly pathetic. Yes, IT is nerdy and hard to understand. Yes, hiring people is more complicated than paying a vendor. Yes, EVERYBODY in IT needs to be on a lifelong learning path of continuous improvement.

Yes, yes, yes to everything that is difficult and complicated and…the right thing to do. So, candidates, is any of you willing to push through the inertia so that Providence can finally stop doing IT the Army way?

So far, nobody has given us a response. Jorge Elorza, unsurprisingly, has listed continuing and accelerating implementation of the Open Providence report as part of his ethics agenda. He even specifies creation of a dashboard, which is that thing where you log in to your account and see all your stuff.

I’ve only been pushing for a dashboard for, I dunno, a decade. Can we please?

Whichever way you view this debacle, one thing was always clear: Clay Pell could never win. But winning was never the point with Pell. Pell’s political raison d’être was to ensure a Taveras loss. (And please, Pellies, just don’t even…)

So let me put this on the record. Your Frymaster will tolerate absolutely ZERO whining about the wretchedness that will characterize the Raimondo administration. My response will be uniform and unyielding:

“Blame yourself!”

This game is called “politics”

I get it, Lefty. Progressives championed Taveras, but Taveras never really championed progressives. And ultimately, he turned on us to go with political insiders. Yeah, it stung. Yeah, it stunk.

But guess what…it’s politics. And in politics, your friends are the people who stab you in the front.

Taveras’s early appointments showed that he had little stomach for controversy or radical new ideas. I mean, have you met Mike D’Amico? Given the city’s fiscal situation in January 2011, a “steady-on” approach may not have been the worst decision.

So there’s nothing new in the notion that Taveras is not the most progressive politician in RI. What’s news is the idea that Gina Raimondo is a progressive. Her primary messaging made liberal use of the word, so to say, almost certainly because it’s completely untrue. Now that she’s won the nod, we can expect her to lurch sharply to the right, where she’s more comfortable. And in office, she’ll be free to go full venture capitalist all over what’s left of our economy.

It didn’t have to be this way. Taveras plus Pell would have CRUSHED Raimondo and eliminated her from state government as a bonus.

Except, reality. To have prevented a Raimondo administration, Lefty would have had to take the whack Taveras dealt and still accept the idea that he would be a better governor than Raimondo.

But that’s not how Lefty plays it. Lefty needs purity. Lefty holds grudges. And Lefty definitely can’t take a punch.

So, Lefty…do you have your ticket to the inauguration yet?

After a summer of spending millions to attack and fact check each other in TV commercials, the three leading Democrats running for governor took the opportunity to do so once more at their last debate before the primary.

“My campaign alone has created more jobs in Rhode Island than Narragansett Beer,” Clay Pell quipped of Gina Raimondo’s pseudo-claim in a TV ad that her venture capital investment in Narragansett Brewery helped create more than 1,000 jobs in Rhode Island.

This was the line of the night. But a close second was when moderator Tim White pushed back about Pell’s talking point about not taking any money from lobbyists or PACs. White pointed out that Pell is independently wealthy and that several high level NEARI employees are volunteering their time for him. Rarely does a debate moderator win applause, but this was a question begging to be asked that was unlikely to be addressed by any candidate.

The big lie of the evening came courtesy of Raimondo when she was accused of standing with Wall Street. She replied, “I’m from Smithfield, I’ve never worked on Wall Street.” Wall Street, of course, in this context, is not a physical address.

Angel Taveras’ watershed moment may have been when he asked the TV camera “would you hire someone who has had nine jobs in eight years?” He spent much of the debate on the attack against both Pell and Raimondo, but did not  – notably – dispute Pell’s claim to be the “progressive Democrat” in the race.

The surprise of the evening, for me, was that all three pledged to support the primary winner. It may be a good exercise for all Democrats to spend a few minutes each day until the primary envisioning their preferred candidate campaigning for the others, and vice versa.

In this picture, from just north of the Narragansett Town Beach on 1A, there seems to be an adamant Angel Taveras supporter living right across the street from an adamant Gina Raimondo supporter:

What’s interesting to me is combinations of yard signs, like this Gina Raimondo supporter who also supports Republican Catherine Taylor for lt. governor. I wonder if the owner of these signs is planning on voting in the Democratic or Republican primary?

On Route 1 in Charlestown I saw this driveway with a Clay Pell and Seth Magaziner sign.

I suspect this person won’t be the only one to vote for both Clay Pell and Seth Magaziner in the Democratic primary. Both are young, new to elected politics and are banking on the belief that Rhode Islanders are ready for new leaders.

Have you seen any interesting multi-sign yards? If so email them to progress@rifuture.org and tell us what trend you think they indicate.

Political endorsements ain’t what they used to be. If Donald Trump can issue endorsements and have people take them seriously, I figured…what the heck?

Herewith, my endorsements (i.e., people for whom I will vote) for select state-wide and GA races. I also add some one-liners at the end for GA candidates in districts other than my own. Unsurprisingly, virtually all endorsements are for the Democratic primary on September 9, 2014, which everybody knows is far more important than the general election in November.

Note: These endorsements solely represent my own opinion. They in no way represent the opinion of RI Future or its owners, editors and other contributors.

Angel Taveras for Governor

Typically, that right there is empty political blather, but if you’ve been around Providence over the past four years, you know it’s 100% real.Unlike the Providence mayoral primary, there is a real upside to getting the right Democratic candidate here, and a real downside to getting the wrong one. As mayor, Angel Taveras has proven himself a strong leader who can make the hard decisions.

Taveras inherited an absolute financial disaster, far worse than anybody in the campaign expected. The $110mm structural deficit stunned everybody. But Taveras made several crucial moves that let him and the city council craft a path back to stability. Specifically, he negotiated tough pension and union contract reforms by putting himself in the position of being the first to sacrifice.

That is, HE AND HIS OFFICE were first in line for the haircuts. There was not a lot that the other departments could do except take their hats off and sit down in the barber’s chair. As a result, the deal stuck, and the city could move on to other important issues.

Gina Raimondo, by contrast, has proven a disaster as treasurer. Her pension reform, so wildly applauded by the Wall Street Journal and other business allies, has spun out of control. It was so badly constructed that multiple rounds of mediation could not stop aggrieved pensioners from litigating.

It is the height of hypocrisy to claim that Raimondo created a pension deal. THERE IS NO DEAL.

This is what happens when a person accustomed to giving orders needs to work with others as co-equals (as Taveras did). Business people—that is, BOSSES—make for poor public servants. A good executive in the private sector makes a bad executive in the public sector.

In the nightmare scenario of a Raimondo administration, we should brace ourselves for ongoing class warfare. And because the state will remain mired in this conflict, we will not be able to address the actual issues facing us, like healing the economy and the ecology.

That connection between economy and ecology was front-and-center at Greg Gerritt‘s 60th birthday party / one-day conference last October. Somewhere around 100 practitioners, educators and activists that work in the “econo-logical industries,” if you will, convened at the Pawtucket Armory to learn and share.

Both Raimondo and Taveras dropped by, even though neither was a declared candidate. Later, I asked around about Raimondo…”Why is a venture capitalist speaking to a bunch of socialists? Does she have roots in this community?”

The answer I got was basically unanimous:

She’s laying down Astro-turf. She’s a 1-percenter. I don’t trust her.

Now she’s claiming herself to be a progressive. I ain’t buying’ it.

On Clay Pell…who is this guy? I personally find it insulting that some scion of the power class who married a minor celebrity feels he can waltz in from the federal structure and instantly be an effective governor. How about you put in a term in the GA and let people get to know you a little?

Jorge Elorza for Mayor of Providence

Where the governor’s race could have catastrophic consequences should the forces of light and goodness not prevail, the race for mayor of Providence fills me with hope for the future. Each of the three major candidates brings strong credentials and will likely make a good mayor.

I endorse Jorge Elorza for two reasons. First, I believe that more newcomers in office is exactly what Providence needs. (Although, it may prove unfortunate to lose Michael Solomon’s experience and leadership on the city council.) And while he’s new to elected office, he is not a newcomer to the city or the state. He has built a strong campaign team, attracting the kind of young leaders that can continue the work that Taveras has started.

More importantly, I endorse Elorza because his life experience better prepares him to deal with a troubling increase in violence, particularly on the South Side. Elorza grew up in a tough place going through tough times, and he prevailed where many of his peers did not. His performance at the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence candidate’s forum drove this home.

As a native of this city’s West End neighborhood who speaks fluent, near-native Spanish but also holds a law degree and has worked within the justice apparatus, Elorza is best-positioned to work with law enforcement and community groups to bring down the level of tension and violence.

Aaron Regunberg for RI House of Reps, District 4

This is my district, and it has seen some very difficult days, at least politically. The growing distrust in Gordon Fox exploded after his stunning failures in the 2010 and 2011 sessions, enabling Mark Binder to nearly beat him in 2012.

The FBI were nice enough to prove out our distrust by raiding then-Speaker Fox’s home and offices. Well, you know the story.

This race for the open seat illustrates the important choice Rhode Islanders face. Do we want true progressive reform or do we want yet more half-hearted and easily co-opted alleged liberals? Readers know my answer to that and should rightly expected this endorsement. Aaron Regunberg, it the tradition of David Segal and Chris Blazejewski, is bright, young, eager and committed.

Unlike the other two candidates, he has built strong connections with young people and communities of color. As a founder of the Providence Student Union, he has helped students at Hope High fend off the worst of the corporatist educational “reforms” touted by the other two candidates.

Miriam Ross seems a female version of Gordon Fox: a business-oriented lawyer ready to cater to the already powerful at the expense of the less-fortunate.

Heather Tow-Yick isa product of Teach for America, the epitome of wrong-headed educational reform. TfA works from the assumption that poor performance in inner-city schools comes from poorly-trained teachers and not from the OBVIOUS, GLARING INEQUITIES opportunity and support that burden the students that struggle the most.

If you’re a progressive, this one is a no-brainer.

Gayle Goldin for RI Senate, District 3

Again, my district, and again, a no-brainer. Goldin is a US immigrant, who learned English as a second language. She has worked her entire career in social service non-profits, primarily in the areas of health and wellness for children, women and the disadvantaged.

Her opponent, Chris Wall, is among the power elites. A former TV news talker, he’s worked as press secretary for a state cabinet officer and sells real estate in a major way. He’s all about the business and comes off like a jock.

I’m sure that TPV would prefer dude-bro in her chamber rather than Ms. Goldin. For that reason alone, it must be Gayle in Senate 3.

One-Line Endorsements

Each person listed below is a first-time candidate at the state level. I can’t cast a ballot for any of these folks, but if I could, I’d elect:

David Fasteson, Senate 22—Good guy and hardest-working first time candidate EVAH vs. ex-cop and political repeat offender. (Sierra Club got this one wrong!)

Jennifer Siciliano, House 22—Woonsocket city planner with genuine progressive cred vs. scion of the power elite who’s only ever worked for the GA.

Doris De los Santos, Senate 7—Latina policy wonk vs. old, white lawyer who’s run unopposed more than he’s faced challengers in his six terms.

Margaux Morisseau, Senate 21—Woonsocket non-profit leader with genuine progressive cred vs. A REPUBLICAN!

Shelby Maldonado, House 56—New CF vs old CF…’nuff said.

Carlos Tobon, House 58—Not the most progressive Democrat vs. incumbent that often fails to vote and voted against marriage equality

Note: The second and third paragraphs in the section on Jorge Elorza were inverted in the original version. The author corrected the error approximately 6pm on the day of publication.

“For the past three and a half years our committee has been witness to the Mayor’s tireless efforts on behalf of our city,” said state Senator said Maryellen Goodwin, the committee chairwoman. Goodwin works in City Hall for the planning department and served as Taveras’ acting chief of staff after Matt Jerzyk and Arianne Lynch left his administration.

“He has been honest, straightforward and has worked to bring people together and build consensus in order to put Providence on the right path. Providence’s Road Improvement Project which began last year and invests $40 million to pave over 60 miles of road in our Capital City is a tangible example of this,” she said. “We know these are values he will bring with him to the State House and could not be happier to offer him our endorsement in the race for Governor.”

Providence is the sixth town/city Democratic committee to endorse Taveras. Previously, he was backed by the Democratic town committees from Pawtucket, Smithfield, North Kingstown, Coventry and Hopkinton. He has also won the endorsement of 9 state senators and 24 House members, listed below.

• Senator Elizabeth Crowley,
• Senator Daniel Da Ponte,
• Senator James E. Doyle II,
• Senator Gayle Goldin,
• Senator Maryellen Goodwin,
• Senator Roger Picard,
• Senator Juan Pichardo,
• Senator Leonidas Raptakis,
• Senator Adam Satchell,
• Representative Marvin Abney,
• Representative Joseph Almeida,
• Representative Gregg Amore,
• Representative David Bennett,
• Representative Stephen Casey,
• Representative Robert Craven Sr.,
• Representative John DeSimone,
• Representative John Edwards,
• Representative Deborah Fellela,
• Representative Frank Ferri,
• Representative Scott Guthrie,
• Representative Ray Johnston,
• Representative Katherine Kazarian,
• Representative James McLaughlin,
• Representative Helio Melo,
• Representative Mary Messier,
• Representative Michael Morin,
• Representative Tom Palangio,
• Representative Patricia Serpa,
• Representative Agostinho Silva,
• Representative Scott Slater,
• Representative Lisa Tomasso,
• Representative Larry Valencia,
• Representative Donna Walsh,

“This represents a watershed moment in Rhode Island politics,” Marion said in a press release, “and we are proud to have facilitated this historic agreement and want to thank the campaigns of the three major Democratic candidates for working together to get this agreement done.”

The agreement signed by Clay Pell, Gina Raimondo and Angel Taveras applies only to the Democratic primary and says a candidate will pay the cost of a third-party negative advertising about an opponent, or third-party positive advertising about themselves. It does not cover direct mail or canvassing, as Raimondo’s team had suggested.

You can rad the full agreement here: Rhode Island People’s Pledge. And learn more on Common Cause RI’s website. Also, check out our full coverage of this issue, going back to September 2013, when contributor Sam Howard suggested it in a post titled “Blood primary or People’s Pledge.”

Marion said he initially invited Republican candidates for governor to sign the pledge too, but he did not hear back from them. He hopes a similar agreement can be made for the general election between both parties.

The four Democrats running for governor – but neither of the two Republicans –  took advantage of an opportunity to express their views on climate change last week at a forum hosted by EcoRI and the Environmental Council of RI.

Clay Pell said he would start a green infrastructure program, Angel Taveras a state composting program and Gina Raimondo wants a revolving loan fund. Todd Giroux called himself the “homegrown, organic candidate.” Taveras cited his record as mayor of Providence. Raimondo said protecting the environment is part of being a Rhode Islander. And Pell was the only one to call attention to Republican intransigence on the issue.

“Absolutely the governor plays an essential role,” said Pell. “And I intend to make this state a real model for our efforts to address climate change.”

Here’s how he said he would do that:

You can watch his full comments here:

Taveras touted his record as mayor, saying he appointed good people to implement several programs with long term objectives.

You can watch his full comments here:

Raimondo also touted previous experience, saying pension reform was about sustainability and that the she would lead the effort to address climate change like she lead the effort to address pensions.

Watch her full remarks here:

Outsider and long shot Todd Giroux said the base of his campaign platform is a revolving fund for green jobs:

His full remarks:

The forum started with addresses by John King, a URI oceanography professor, and Timmons Roberts, an environmental studies professor at Brown. You can watch their portions here:

Or you can watch the entire forum here: