Here’s a list of the 19 cities and towns that are considering raising taxes in next year’s budget, according to a great article by Dan McGowan, of GoLocal: Bristol, Charlestown, Cumberland, East Greenwich, Hopkinton, Jamestown, Little Compton, Middletown, Narragansett, New Shoreham, Newport, North Kingstown, North Smithfield, Portsmouth, Richmond, Smithfield, Tiverton, Westerly and Woonsocket.
He quotes conservative mayor Dan McKee of Cumberland as putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of former Gov. Don Carcieri: “The former Governor claimed he needed to cut funding to teach cities and towns a lesson,” McKee told McGowan. “His assumptions were not grounded in fact.”
At least if URI professors would have gotten their raises, tuition hikes would pay for something. With salaries now effectively frozen, tuition increases will pay only for the state to not fund state schools. It’s all part of a growing trend to make the University of Rhode Island into the University in Rhode Island.
Almost three months to the day, the Catholic church is closing a day shelter that Occupy Providence won in negotiations with the city in exchange for ending its encampment in Burnside Park. Occupy Providence agreed to leave the park if the city ran a day shelter for the homeless for at least three months.
The question now is whether Gov. Chafee will appeal the Jason Pleau decision to the US Supreme Court. He has 90 days to decide. In the meantime, “it is wrong for the federal government to impose on our state a policy that Rhode Island eliminated more than a century and a half ago,” said Steve Brown of the RI ACLU. “The ACLU and other groups opposed to the death penalty will continue to urge that the federal government drop any plans to proceed with a death penalty case against Pleau, who has already agreed to serve a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.”
Ted Nesi reports that Anthony Gemma will soon be holding a press conference to introduce new staffers … still no word on whether or not Gemma knows what a press conference is or how one is supposed to work.
Don’t tell the local media this, or our shared cultural understanding of this state, but the mafia in Rhode Island is no longer all that influential.
Meanwhile corporate America made a record $824 billion last year as pretty much the rest of the country floundered further into debt.
Congrats to Susan Lusi, the interim superintendent who was just named the permanent head of the Providence school system.