Then-Commissioner Gist had agreed with the school district’s argument that it could charge the fees because summer school did not constitute a core element of education as defined by the state’s Basic Education Plan. However, in a 25-page ruling issued yesterday, Superior Court Judge William Carnes, Jr. rejected that argument. The judge stated that “not only is there no statutory authority for the collection of fees for summer school, but also the charging of such a fee is contrary to the spirit of the school system itself—which is to provide a free public education to all students.”

The judge pointed out:

In the instant matter, [the student] was given a choice: recover his required credits through additional instruction during the summer, or recover them by repeating the ninth grade. Assuming that instead of attending summer school, he had opted to repeat the ninth grade, it is beyond dispute that the school could not have charged him tuition for that additional year of schooling. Instead, however, [the student] opted to recover his required credits by attending summer school and, in doing so, he was charged a fee for his attendance. The fact that one option would have been free and the other option incurred a fee necessarily leads to an absurd result.”

The ACLU, RI Legal Services and other groups were deeply concerned about the precedent the Gist decision would have set had it been upheld. Prior to her decision, the Department of Education, citing the importance of a free public education, had for decades routinely invalidated attempts to levy any fees on student programming as varied as night classes, after-school activities, interscholastic sports and Advanced Placement classes.

Susan Giannini, the mother who brought the lawsuit on behalf of her son, said today: “It was a real financial hardship for me to send my son to summer school, but we had no real choice because he probably would have dropped out otherwise. I feel for other families in a similar situation whose children are at risk of dropping out. This decision will help families that can’t afford to pay fees have equal access to an education.”

R.I. Legal Services attorney Veronika Kot, who represented Ms. Giannini in the lawsuit resulting in yesterday’s decision, said today: “This ruling is in keeping with Rhode Island’s longstanding commitment to equity in education. For over a century our state has prohibited fees for student programming and services due to their discriminatory impact on educational opportunities for lower income families. The Court’s decision reaffirms this commitment to a free and equal system of public education for all students.”

Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island, added: “If former Commissioner Gist’s decision had been upheld, it would have institutionalized a two-tiered educational system, offering enhanced educational opportunities for those who could pay for them and inferior ones for those who could not. Nothing could have been more damaging to the fundamental notion that our children deserve a free public education.”

The court ruling can be found on the ACLU of RI’s website here.

This is not paid for by the entire state, but largely by the 118,000 households in the NBC district – Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, North Providence, Johnston, Cumberland, Lincoln and the northern part of East Providence – almost $7,000 per household.

The NBC wants to proceed with this despite concerns about “affordability” – recognized by the EPA as legitimate, despite the potential of alternative “green infrastructure,” despite concerns about the fairness of who pays, and despite not having the time to assess the results of phase 2, just recently completed. Also, though there is some flexibility in meeting federal clean water standards, it seems the NBC goal is to go beyond the minimum, even as Phase 1 and 2 has already cost about $547 million and has approximately quadrupled sewer bills for residents, whether they rent or own.

The problem the NBC is addressing is the combination of our sewage with stormwater runoff overwhelms the treatment plant after a storm and untreated sewage get into Narragansett Bay. Phase 1 constructed the tunnels, pipes and pump stations to temporarily store the stormwater, phase 2 involved interceptors, drains and catch basin improvements. Phase 3 is apparently more tunnels.

Roughly 80 percent of the flow after storms is due to runoff from roads, parking lots and other impervious surfaces, but the cost is almost all born by those contributing the 20 percent of sewage. This is another subsidy to drivers from all over who use the roads and parking lots at stores, offices, state government, hospitals, colleges etc. A big beneficiary of the spending are shoreline property owners who pay nothing, shellfishermen and other Bay users. There is a possible social justice issue here.

There are few checks and balances. There was a “stakeholder” review process that few know about. The PUC rubber stamps what the NBC wants, even allowing monthly billing which tripled postage and processing costs compared to the previous quarterly billing, perhaps hiding the scope of the increases. Local politicians don’t much care, they are not blamed as the sewer bills are not collected through their tax system. The state’s environmental community understandably just wants the Bay cleaned up and is little concerned with who pays, even if the metro area becomes increasingly unaffordable. And though Transport Providence and others have tried to call attention to the role of parking lots and the auto culture that underlies a lot of this problem, and others on the problem of runoff from fertilized lawns, the issue, unlike the ballpark or trolley, is too complex to get easy attention.

While no expert on this, I do recommend attention to this issue and I wonder what the progressive community thinks about this project. Visit www.narrabay.com for the NBC viewpoint and plenty of information.

OpportunitySpace RI includes maps, info about taxes and zoning, key contacts and photos of more than 2,000 local-, state-, federal- and quasi-governmental-agency -owned properties in Central Falls, Cumberland, Pawtucket and Providence. The listings include residential and commercial properties, municipal buildings and vacant lots. In addition, the cities of Central Falls and Providence have also listed hundreds of tax-delinquent properties.

The website also translated the Blackstone River Valley Corridor Plan into a digital interface so that interested developers can see how planned infrastructure investments relate to available parcels.

Municipal leaders believe the website will have many benefits, including generating conversations about publicly owned property.

“Information hubs like Opportunity Space will continue increasing transparency in municipal government and establish competitive processes for developing or selling our city-owned properties,” said Central Falls Mayor James Diossa. “By highlighting these properties, Opportunity Space is also empowering our residents to speak up and take ownership of what they want to see in our community.”

“Having an open and transparent online clearinghouse of publicly owned parcels will allow for town officials to have quicker and more efficient interactions with developers about possible investments and economic development opportunities that may have been overlooked in the past,” said Cumberland Mayor Dan McKee.

“By cooperating with other communities, we can leverage our resources to attract maximum marketing exposure and economic development interest,” said Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien.

“Marketing available real estate is a key goal of my economic development plan, Putting Providence Back to Work,” said Providence Mayor Angel Taveras. “We are pleased to join this effort to create a regional inventory of properties that are available for development. We are working to ensure that when businesses look to invest, opportunities in Providence are at their fingertips.”

The website was developed by OpportunitySpace, a technology company based in Boston at the Harvard Innovation Lab. It hopes to add every city and town to the database.

The project was funded by the four municipalities, the Pawtucket Foundation, the Sunlight Foundation and the Rhode Island Foundation.

His campaign says the Valley Breeze has not only displayed an editorial bias against him, but has also not run advertisements in the paper and online that he paid for.

“I would like to think it’s not deliberate,” said Robin Dionne, who is managing Uht’s campaign for him. “If it were an isolated incident I would think it was an oversight.”

She said Uht paid a premium price for his ad to appear on page 2 of the paper three times but it only appeared there once. Uht’s campaign paid 25 percent more for the ad so that it would be on page 2 of the Valley Breeze but instead was on page 18. Instead, his opponent’s ad was on page 2. There were also instances of his ad not appearing online, which was part of what they paid for.

“It was an oversight by the person involved,” said Valley Breeze publisher Tom Ward. He said Uht’s campaign was refunded money for the oversight.

Dionne said the campaign would have preferred the ad to the refund.

She also said the paper has shown an editorial bias towards MacBeth.

“I would say they definitely aren’t acting as an impartial news source,” Dionne said. As evidence, she offered this article from August 15, and this one published today.

Today’s article describes Uht’s campaign as “offering what may be the most unusual of candidate qualifications” while MacBeth is described as “touting a strong record on pro-business votes.”

Valley Breeze editor Marcia Green said she did “everything I could” to be fair to both candidates. Publisher Tom Ward said it is the paper’s policy to be neutral.

“There are no politics involved,” he said. “We do all we can to be as fair as possible. We knock ourselves out to be right down the middle. I’m a conservative guy, but if you think I play it that way with my business, I just don’t.”

Dionne also said the Valley Breeze has run more press releases from MacBeth than it has from Uht. Earlier today, she said there was no press release online this week from Uht but there was one from MacBeth. Green, the editor, said there was a press release online. Dionne said it was uploaded after the Valley Breeze was contacted by me for this story.

Both Uht and MacBeth are squaring off in the Democrat primary but are vastly different as candidates. Uht is campaigning on a progressive platform of income tax fairness and jobs. MacBeth calls herself a fiscal conservative but she is best known for being one of the most conservative members of the General Assembly when it comes to a woman’s right to an abortion. She sponsors the annual bill that would require women to have an ultrasound performed prior to an abortion.

I have decided to run for State Representative in District 52 (Cumberland) because our community deserves real representation at the State House. I will be an effective member of the General Assembly, and will spend time talking to my constituents in order to ensure that their concerns and ideas are heard.

My wife Laurette and I fell in love with Cumberland and Rhode Island when we first moved here 20 years ago. Being a computer engineering professor at URI, I am committed to seeing higher education thrive throughout the state, as well as the growth of the high-tech community in Providence and elsewhere.

It has been less than thrilling to see the state go through its seemingly never-ending fiscal crises.  There are many difficulties in the state related to jobs, education and taxes –  I call it a JET-focus. While taxes are cut for the wealthy, state aid to higher education has dropped, forcing the state colleges to raise tuition and eliminate qualified faculty positions. Even in-state students have difficulty making ends meet. The $75 million cost of the 38 Studios dilemma is now a burden for taxpayers, and small businesses and other high-tech start-ups wonder where the capital went and why some of it didn’t come to them. Marriage equality is still up in the air,  women’s rights are under constant threat, and the DEM struggles to keep the environment safe from over-development.

While we all want to encourage entrepreneurship, start-ups could take years to generate a significant number of new jobs in a fiscally-sound way. I will work to encourage and expand existing targeted skills training in order to fill jobs now. We must also protect those who are currently employed.  State/worker contracts have been unilaterally broken without need, without negotiations in good faith, and without justice.

Rhode Island’s tax structure desperately needs revisiting, and many of the taxes are unfairly distributed. The lost tax revenue due to specialized tax breaks is astonishing. Our seniors are caught between rising real estate taxes and their fixed incomes. I will work toward a more equitable tax code for our citizens.

Every year ill-informed legislation threatens women’s rights and their health. Government and politicians must not be involved in the private medical decisions of any citizen.  Instead of putting people into one category or another, we need to respect the real-life decisions all of us face everyday. Civil liberties are fundamental, and should not be compromised.

While we need more jobs in this state and thus want new businesses to grow, it must not be at the expense of the environment. For example, the water quality in the Pawtucket Reservoir system is constantly threatened with nearby unsuitable land development. I will work for statewide zoning ordinances to protect our drinking water and other precious resources.

With problem-solving abilities I have honed over several decades, I will bring a different approach to the General Assembly. I will base decisions on solid data and analysis, while making sure people are helped, not hurt.

I love Rhode Island, and I want to see it and its people thrive.  I respectfully ask for your vote on September 11th in the Democratic primary. The District 52 House race will be decided in the Primary; only Democrats are in the race.

To learn more about my thoughts on the issues or  to volunteer on the campaign, please visit www.votegusuht.org. You can also take a look at my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter.  Feel free to contact me at info@votegusuht.org or call (401) 787-1313.