harrop – RI Future

More than a dozen community-based organizations, along with advocates, activists, organizers, students and community leaders are collaborating to ask the mayoral candidates tough questions about the solutions these groups have proposed to fix the most serious problems that plague our city. Too often, politicians continue to express support for the same tired policies that are responsible for expanding the equity divide in our city in the first place. We believe that the people who are facing the problems are the experts on those problems and have common sense solutions. Our politicians should embrace these solutions and you (the public) need to know whether they support these solutions or not.

Each candidate has received a week in advance a detailed questionnaire covering three proposals: the Community Agenda to Address Violence, Public Money for the Public Good, and the Community Safety Act. The candidates have been requested to provide clear “Yes” or “No” responses to each section of the proposal. If they do not provide answers before the forum, their speaking time will be dedicated to getting clear responses.

Community Agenda to Address Violence

Following a five-person shooting in the Chad Brown section of Providence, and in response to a call to action by the Providence branch of the NAACP, a number of concerned community members have been meeting to develop a strategy to effectively address these issues within the Providence and Rhode Island community. The ultimate fruit of these efforts has been the development of a Community Agenda to Address Violence to serve as a roadmap for success.

Candidates will be asked about their support of each section of the Community Agenda to Address Violence.

Public Money for the Public Good / Public Resources, Our Vision (PROV)

Rhode Island Jobs With Justice has convened a coalition of community organizations, building trades unions, environmental groups, and service sector unions, to develop and call for a uniform set of standards companies receiving public subsidies and operating in the city of Providence have to abide by. We believe that public money should be used to further the public good. During campaign season, we hear a lot of promises of jobs, and development projects that will be good for the city. We want to know where the candidates stand on a list of benefits we see as essential in order to ensure these development projects actually do provide tangible benefits for our communities.

Candidates will be asked about their support of each community benefit proposed of all companies receiving tax subsidies in the city of Providence.

Community Safety Act

The Community Safety Act takes its name from the urgent need to make our communities safer – for our children, our extended families, and our neighbors. The clear reasonable guidelines for police community interactions that this ordinance includes are basic first steps to reducing anger at police misconduct, increasing trust and communication, and most importantly – shifting the focus from criminalizing people of color, to addressing the root causes that perpetuate violence in our communities. The Community Safety Act addresses critical areas, including several in which the Providence Police have no existing policies to guide them. The Act was introduced in the City Council on June 19, 2014 after nearly two years of community-based planning including house meetings, workshops, and a youth forum.

Candidates will be asked about their support of each section of the Community Safety Act.

JOIN US!

Sponsored by: Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM), Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), RI Jobs with Justice (JwJ), the Mount Hope Neighborhood Association (MHNA), Olneyville Neighborhood Association (ONA), American Friends Service Committee SENE, Unite Here Local 217, Comité de Inmigrantes en Acción, Black PAC, National Lawyers Guild RI Chapter, Urban League of RI, Rhode Island Young Professionals, Cambodian Society of RI, Southside Cultural Center, Sheila Wilhelm, Eugene Monteiro, Carolyn Thomas-Davis, Keith Catone, Julius Williams. & others.

Buddy Cianci was the biggest presence on the stage, but that doesn’t mean he won the WPRI/Providence Journal mayoral debate Tuesday night. Or picked up many undecided voters, which is probably the only definition of ‘winning’ that really matters.

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.

Tag: harrop

The People’s Forum: a mayoral debate for the people of PVD

Cianci didn’t win debate, neither did Elorza; Harrop had best lines