Providence’s progressive community has a gift – a seemingly honest, if very untested, administration.

Thank you to everyone who voted and worked for a different Providence.

Jorge’s donor list includes dear, dear friends in community work, art, and education, but another swath of Elorza’s supporters are the out of touch developers who help spark the resentment that feeds Cianci.

Providence, like many cities, needs competence- an easy to navigate city hall, transparency, and many day to day infrastructure improvements in schools and parks across the city. There are well placed individuals who will lobby Elorza hard for fantasy plans about street cars for magical wealthy consumers, state subsidized condos, and a million other ways to spend cash downtown, not in the neighborhoods. The challenge for progressives – no, the challenge of all people who care about the city – is how to do good in the next four years.

My late aunt would be impressed.

Maureen Lawlor was a child of Providence – in her 1970s era high school science fair project she was studying the effects pollution on neighborhoods in Providence. After working in adult education in the ACI, she served at the Massachusetts Department of Education before becoming a professor  at a community college outside Seattle. When she returned to visit in the early 2000s, around the time of Plunderdome, I remember her ruefully remarking, “It’s like I never left.”

She would be impressed and proud to see that Providence voted for a new chapter, with Jorge Elorza defeating Vincent A Cianci, Jr.

She was also wise. Excited by change, she would likely caution not to get too carried away or hopeful- plan a next step. Her late husband, my Uncle Sherman, definitely would encourage planning ahead.

Like many old mill cities, there is a great agenda awaiting of rebuilding and re-imagining neighborhoods and civic institutions. There are people with goofy plans to spend millions on one side of the highway only -don’t let them.

The campaign for One Providence continues.

When my father first heard Cianci was running for office again, he was silent. Shaking his head, he sighed. “Well, everything is going back to normal.”

Normal. Normal in Providence doesn’t have to be synonymous with a nod and a wink. It doesn’t have to be synonymous with job trading, cash payments, hurting children and neglecting neighborhoods. It doesn’t have to be connected individuals – some with a history of violence- calling the shots. It doesn’t have to be razzle-dazzle downtown, and “Buckles” Melise on the side streets.

Cicilline worked hard, and then worked easy, cowardly vaulting to Congress to avoid difficult budgets and real choices. Taveras worked hard to clean up the fiscal mess left by Cianci and Cicilline, before he launched a failed run for Governor. Yet even with all the goofy insider behavior of the last 12 years, there were fewer homicides, and an improving graduation rate.

During Cianci’s last four years as Mayor:

• there were more homicides in the city than in the past four years.
• high school graduation rates fluctuated from the low 60s to low 70s.
• a police chief was forced out of office for running a corrupt department
• there was more child poverty than in 1989

During his 1990 race, Cianci manipulated people’s religiosity as a tool to gain votes. As he put it in his book, “I was in a close race, and I knew there were a considerable number of pro-life zealots looking for a candidate. I ended up getting a list of pro-life voters from the diocese.” Throughout the 1990s, Cianci repeatedly said he was against adult entertainment, but from 1991-2000, the number of adult clubs in the city grew by 300 percent – from 4 to over 12. This time around, Cianci is vowing opposition to charter schools. Why trust him? Cianci lies for power.

Charismatic and abusive, Cianci has left his mark on the city. He has attracted his share of idealists, but also plenty of the abusive, violent and manipulative.

It is long past time for a new chapter.

Vote Elorza, tell your friends to vote Elorza – and then work like hell to make Elorza deliver for the people and families across Providence.

• Cianci needs Fecteau, Williams Metts more than they may know – Dan Lawlor
• Coalition of the Terrifying: Cianci’s power players – Dan Lawlor
• Buddy Cianci’s Providence: Better for whom? – Dan Lawlor
• Should Buddy Cianci pick the next police chief – Dan Lawlor
• More murders when Buddy Cianci was mayor – Dan Lawlor
• Why one rape victim won’t support Cianci – Emma Sloan

Cianci has left a confusing, tattered, disjointed legacy – cheerleading the city, heralding public works projects, while at the same time undermining Providence’s long-term success through failures in policing and schools. Cianci’s administrations have long balanced the idealists, the power-hungry, and the marginalized. He can’t return to power if one of those groups backs out.

Among the anecdotes I came across in Mike Stanton’s book, one activist from the 1970s was particularly astute, noting Cianci’s outreach to community leaders was based on a simple calculation: “At this point, he needs us.”

And just as in the early 2000s Cianci needed a decent officer like Richard Sullivan to be police chief after the chaos of Prignano, in this decade Cianci needs community populists like Leah Williams Metts and Matt Fecteau to give legitimacy to his return campaign. Cianci needs Alan Shawn Feinstein and Yvonne Schilling to support him.

• Coalition of the Terrifying: Cianci’s power players – Dan Lawlor
• Buddy Cianci’s Providence: Better for whom? – Dan Lawlor
• Should Buddy Cianci pick the next police chief – Dan Lawlor
• More murders when Buddy Cianci was mayor – Dan Lawlor
• Why one rape victim won’t support Cianci – Emma Sloan

Cianci worked with many housing activists in the 1970s – and betrayed them once in power. As Michael Stanton wrote, “the director of the office’s Homestead Board…was arrested for defrauding homesteaders seeking to move into abandoned houses that had been acquired by the city. When the police did a routine background check, they discovered that the director had been on parole for kidnapping and rape, and had been when he was hired in 1975. Besides shaking down homesteaders, he had another sideline- running a string of prostitutes who worked the streets of downtown Providence, in sight of City Hall.” (p76)

Same song in the 1980s. By 84, “the Providence Chief of Police, Anthony Mancuso, had held an extraordinary meeting in his office…Council members came away shocked. Mancuso displayed two lists – one of Public Works employees with criminal records, another of Public Works employees with ties to organized crime.” (p187) Though truth be told, it’s hard to imagine how many councilors were really “shocked” by these revelations.

In the 1990s, Cianci promised he never stopped caring. In 1991, Cianci signed agreements with a supporter leasing an old, side street autobody garage shop as a registration building for schoolchildren, for at least $750,000. The lease was up for renewal in 1994. Stanton noted, “When Julia Steiny, a maverick School Board member and East Side playwright, fought the lease, hoping to steer more dollars to impoverished educational programs, she was warned by a school official not to buck City Hall. After the lease was renewed, Cianci dumped her from the school board.” (p258)

These anecdotes are a few of many. There are real splits and divisions in Providence- splits Cianci has used for his own success. Good people have had their hearts broken so many times. Cianci’s charisma hides the truth – he loves power, needs it. And his administration’s record  – inconsistent graduation rates, rising crime, uneven job opportunities, inconsistent policing, blatant corruption -shows he doesn’t deserve another go in office.

More on Cianci:

The headlines proclaimed Buddy Cianci had pulled together a coalition of current and past elected officials, including Democrats. But just who are the people who have chosen to publicly align themselves with Providence’s most infamous ex-mayor?

This picture, from the campaign announcement referenced in the link, shows 12 men and one woman. Below is some additional information on some of the more public people supporting Cianci.

Elected officials

• John Carnevale – The sitting State Representative is a Providence police officer with a history of domestic assault complaints. Just two years ago he was on trial for sexual assault- the charges were only dropped because the woman involved died. Carnevale faces no opponent in the general election, and was uncontested in his primary.
• Frank Ciccone – Ciccone is famous for taunting a Barrington police officer following a DUI pullover: “You think you got pension problems now, wait until this (expletive) is all done. This guy voted against you last time. It ain’t going to get any better now.” This resulted in his losing his position in State Senate leadership. He defeated DorisDe LosSantos in the most recent State Senate primaries.
• Kevin Jackson and Davian Sanchez – For some reason these two Providence City Councilors don’t file campaign finance reports. They each owe more than $10,000 in fines to the Board of Elections. Councilor Louis Aponte, who is undecided in the Mayor’s race, owes a similar amount.
• Balbina Young – The longtime former South Side city councilor was often a critic of Cianci during her tenure. In 2002, she famously arranged for her son to receive a $100,000 city rehabbed Victorian, and told reporter Jack White, “Well, what I think is there are a lot of good deals in America for a lot of people. Why shouldn’t my son be the beneficiary of one of them?”

The Connected

• Nick Hemond – Cianci received a $500 donation from Hemond, one of the power lobbyists at the RI state house, representing big clients like High Rock Development (who plan are lobbying for state money to renovate the Superman building), the Fraternal Order of Police, the Neighborhood Community Centers, and Cornish Associates, the downtown developers.
• Philip Almagno – Unique is his ability to be involved in shady business under both Mayors Cianci and Cicilline. Under Cianci, Almagno was involved in a plot (which Buddy wrote about in his book!) related to Almagno dropping his city council campaign in exchange for a Bureau of Weights and Measures job. And then under Cicilline, Almagno was President of the Rosario Club, which received one of the mismanaged Cicilline PEDP loans.
• Robert Kells –  Kells has been a long time political player. A retired 30 year Providence officer, five time state senator, and former deputy State Senate Majority leader under disgraced former Senate President Williams Irons. After serving in Providence, Kells became the police chief of Lincoln. While in Lincoln, Kells had repeated struggles with the town council, and suffered a unanimous no confidence from the police union vote before retiring from that position in 2007.

The real estate interests

• Edward Zucker – Zucker is a player in the downtown housing market as owner of CEO of Chestnut Hill Realty. Zucker’s company manages the Regency Plaza apartment towers.
• Gretchen and Kenneth R. Dulgarian of Dulgarian Properties – This East Side development team donated $2000 to Cianci’s re-election campaign. One of their recent properties is the Premier.

And then these three…??

• Dennis Langley – The former Executive Director of the Urban League retired this past February. In recent years, Langley faced criticism from a range of activists for poor and neglectful management of homeless shelters, poor financial practices, delayed checks, and lay-offs of nearly two dozen employees.
• Stephen Iannazzi – The “special assistant” to Senate Majority Leader Dominick J. Ruggerio donated to Cianci’s campaign. Iannazzi is the son of former Local 1033 Business Manager Donald Iannazzi, and has been making over $88,000 as a special assistant since 2011, when he was 25.
• Barry Hinckley – Why is the wealthy former US Senate candidate from the GOP, who campaigned against corruption, discussed running for office as a good way to get your name out, spoke against NSA surveillance, and supported essentially a libertarian platform, donating to Cianci?

More on Cianci:

• Buddy Cianci’s Providence: Better for whom? – Dan Lawlor
• Should Buddy Cianci pick the next police chief – Dan Lawlor
• More murders when Buddy Cianci was mayor – Dan Lawlor
• Why one rape victim won’t support Cianci – Emma Sloan

Richard Sullivan, who served as interim chief from 2001-2002, was introduced to the public by Cianci as “Mr. Accountable.” Urbano Prignano, full chief from 1995-2001, was introduced as “a cop’s cop.” Should there be any difference?

Despite a larger police force, the capital city had more murders during Buddy Cianci’s last four years in office than the most recent four under Taveras.

From 1999 to 2002, the statistics are stark: 26 murders in 1999, 30 in 2000, 23 in 2001, 23 in 2002. During his 1995-1998 term the numbers of annual murders ranged from 25 to 12. There were 22 murders in 1993 and 21 in 1994.

• Buddy Cianci’s Providence: Better for whom? – Dan Lawlor
• Should Buddy Cianci pick the next police chief – Dan Lawlor
• Why one rape victim won’t support Cianci – Emma Sloan

From 2011 to now, under Mayor Taveras, the homicide rate has varied from 12 in 2011, 17 in 2012, to 14 in 2013. There have been 13 murders this year.

Think about this -even though jobless rates are worse in the city now, even with a smaller force, more transparent, honest police leadership and partnerships have kept murders down. 

According to the San Diego Reporter, just prior to his last term, upon arriving on the scene after a 1998 double-homicide, potentially tied to drug trafficking, Cianci remarked, “Seen one you’ve seen them all.”

Can you imagine Angel Taveras saying that upon arriving at a homicide scene?

• Buddy Cianci’s Providence: Better for whom? – Dan Lawlor
• Should Buddy Cianci pick the next police chief – Dan Lawlor
• Why one rape victim won’t support Cianci – Emma Sloan

While the local police, fire and teachers’ unions each endorsed Cianci, most of the members don’t live in Providence, a City Hall source confirmed.

Of the 3,516 Providence Public School Department employees, 37 percent live in the city (1,310). Only 22 percent of 469 fire department employees live locally and 21 percent of the 531-member police force lives in Providence. Of the 5,432 employees total city employees (including the school district) 36 percent live in the city, or 1,937.

And when it comes to the union executive boards that decide on political endorsements, the number of locals are equally stark. Of the 13 educators on the Providence Teachers Union Executive Board, only two live in the city, or 15 percent. Of the 11 executive officers of the fire fighters bargaining unit, only two live in the city, or 18 percent. And only one of the five members of the police union lives in Providence, 20 percent.

Jeremy Sencer, an elementary school and a member of the union’s executive board who lives in Cranston, cautioned me not to discount the significance of their endorsement simply because many members don’t live locally.

“While most of us don’t live there, we do spend a significant amount of time there, and we spend a lot of our time with the kids and families there,” he said. “We’re committed to the children and families of Providence, that puts us in a position to recommend, on education, what is good for Providence.”

Cianci stuttered at times, he misspoke – or perhaps lied? – often and raised the ire, at one point or another, of nearly everyone on the stage. He’s never been one to care much for rules, and moderator Tim White had his work cut out for him in keeping him in line.

When talking about crime, Cianci suggested there were 15 shootings in 19 hours over the weekend. In fact there was 1 stabbing and 5 shootings. He claimed community policing thrived when he was mayor, but Ian Donnis of RIPR quickly tweeted a link to a 1999 Phoenix article of his that indicates it was “marginalized.” When panelist Ted Nesi asked, “Do you agree your failure to fund the pension system” is part of Providence’s fiscal problem, Cianci stammered his way through an answer.

He seemed like an old man, quite frankly, past his prime. But like Derek Jeter, Buddy Cianci has the potential to hit a walk off in his last home at bat.

Jorge Elorza, on the other hand, was more like a young Jeter: crisp and on message. He harped often on moving the city beyond Buddy. “Let’s leave behind the corruption,” he said. Mentioning incentives to help police officers live in the city and transforming school buildings into neighborhood community centers, he said, “I want Providence to be a city of opportunity.”

Elorza certainly had fewer gaffs than Cianci, but he had fewer winners, too. When Elorza mentioned increasing exports from the waterfront, Cianci retorted, “What are you going to export, used cars?”

But if one-liners determined victory, then Republican Dan Harrop was the hands down winner. When asked if he would drop out, he spun one of the biggest unknowns of the election into a Republican talking point. “I could fall, break my hip and [the Republican chair] could appoint Bob Healey to run in my place”

Harrop also may have made the most progressive statement of the night when he said, “I think it is immoral that we are asking our children to enter these” school buildings.

Elorza said he wants “be remembered as the person who turned around these schools.” But in order to do that, he’s first going to have to be remembered as the one who beat Buddy Cianci.

Maribeth Reynolds-Calabro, the president of the Providence Teachers Union, says her group is [sic]”progressive and solutions-driven and steadfastly committed to teacher’s rights.” You could have fooled me.

Based on its recent endorsement of Vincent A Cianci, Jr for mayor of Providence, the labor union’s executive board seems blind to the past, and ignores the present. Some connected teachers may well get better perks from Buddy (while many others grow jaded, leave the profession or fight like hell for their kids) but Providence has every reason to assume that Cianci will be bad for children, families, and dedicated teachers, as he was before.

Between 1989 and 1999, child poverty in Providence increased from 35% to 40%. During the same time, if you look at South Providence and the West End in particular, child poverty increased from 42% to 49%, and the city’s median household income declined by 7%.

Not enough numbers? Records from the RI Department of Education are hardly uplifting. In the 1997-1998 school year, the Providence high school graduation rate was 68.46%. In the 1998-1999 school year, the graduation rate was 71.4%.  In 1999- 2000, the graduation rate was 63.04%. In 2000-2001, the rate was  63.74%. In 2001-2002, the rate was 72%. At best, Cianci’s record is dramatically inconsistent, as graduation rates were marked by rapid fluctuations between the low 60s and low 70s.

According to RI Kids Count, “the high school graduation rate among Hispanic youth in the class of 2010 was 66%, lower than the overall Rhode Island high school graduation rate of 76%.” Children and families need this to move forward. What in Cianci’s record shows he has the skills to do so consistently?

For a dedicated teacher’s point of view of the Cianci era, check out Carole Marshall’s memoir- Stubborn Hope, about her time teaching English at Hope High School.

What about facilities? Can we trust Cianci to champion and oversee a true overhaul of city facilities? As Mike Stanton once wrote in the Providence Journal, “Since 1991, the Providence School Department had leased ..[a] former body shop at 400 West Fountain St. as a registration center for new students. The lease had generated controversy. The city’s impoverished school system paid more than $1 million for a building that was drafty and dreary, with concrete floors and inaccessible bathrooms. Critics pointed out that the city could have bought a better building for a fraction of the inflated rent it was paying. A reform-minded School Committee member tried to get out of the lease when it came up for renewal in 1994. But she was told not to buck City Hall.”

Do I need to mention the police testing scandal and repeated complaints of abuse?

For any group of professionals, with a straight face, to claim that Cianci “clearly understands the needs of our district” willfully ignores the real damage and hurts caused by his actions and inactions in neighborhoods where thousands of public school children live.

Remember, this “teacher” endorsement doesn’t come from a vote of union members, but a vote of the 13 person executive board. Not a single member of the executive board has a Latino or Asian American surname despite the fact that 68% of the current student body and families are Latino and Asian American. This PTU executive board is not reflective of, or reflecting on, the reality of Providence today.

Providence teachers deserve a union responsive to their needs and the needs of students and families. Providence residents need a responsive teachers’ union interested in actual solutions. Hitching on to the Cianci train is a ticket to nowhere good, and fast.

But what if this isn’t a joke? A new WPRI/Providence Journal poll indicates some 38 percent of likely Providence voters don’t think that it is.

That’s the percent of poll respondents who said they will vote for Cianci to again be mayor of Providence. Democrat Jorge Elorza won 32 percent and 6 percent supported Republican Dan Harrop. “Cianci takes the lead,” screams two-thirds of the top of ProJo’s page A1 this morning (we’re also at war again in Syria and Iraq, fyi = other 1/3). But it’s not as bad as this morning’s headlines may suggest (few things ever are).

Here’s the good news if you think Buddy Cianci is best left as the punchline to an old bad joke: 21 percent of likely voters have yet to make up their minds.

“With more than a fifth of voters undecided, Buddy Cianci holds a six-point lead over Democrat Jorge Elorza,” RIPR’s Ian Donnis ledes in his account of the poll results. The first thing a reporter mentions tends to matter a lot, and this is no exception. Given the ensconced support both Elorza and Cianci can both brag about (“We found overwhelming commitment to both Buddy Cianci and Jorge Elorza,” pollster Joe Fleming told WPRI) this 21 percent probably gets to pick Jorge Elorza or Buddy Cianci is the next mayor of Providence.

And there’s little reason to suspect this all-important 21 percent will break towards Buddy.

The ProJo’s John Hill ledes his story thusly: “Vincent A. Cianci Jr.’s criminal record could be a problem for him among undecided voters as he tries for a second comeback to City Hall…” Among the undecided voters, more than 60 percent seem likely to factor in Cianci’s criminal history if and when they ultimately decide on a candidate, Hill reports.

And WPRI cohorts Tim White and Ted Nesi sneak this line into their post: “But there is also a red flag for the former mayor in the numbers: among undecided voters, slightly more view him unfavorably (40%) than favorably (38%).”

Also buried in WPRI’s report: “None of the three candidates for mayor are as well-liked as Angel Taveras, who has said he will do “everything I can” to help Elorza.”

So even though it seems like more likely voters like Cianci than Elorza, it still seems unlikely that more voters will vote for Cianci than Elorza.

Elorza is already has 32 percent support and nobody knew him a year ago. The poll indicates 37 percent of Providence voters still don’t know him and he will get a ton of help introducing himself to them – see this, this and this.

Meanwhile, Cianci may well be the most famous Rhode Islander ever, both here and abroad, and he’s only got 38 percent support. The poll says 9.9 percent of voters didn’t know enough about him to offer an opinion, and this is actually one of the more surprising results to me. I thought everyone knew that old joke.