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

The three parts of the questionnaire were:

1. Providence Community Safety Act, an ordinance submitted to the City Council on June 19 that makes our communities safer by protecting civil and human rights and addressing the tension between police and community.

2. Public Money for the Public Good, a policy proposal from community groups and labor unions to make sure that when corporations get tax breaks, workers and the community get concrete benefits like living wage jobs and apprenticeships, money for affordable housing, and accountability.

3. Community Agenda to Address Violence, a comprehensive set of principles and action steps by Concerned Citizens of Providence to address the root causes of violence in our communities by strengthening youth recreation, targeting workforce development initiatives, and improving police-community relations.

The candidates, Democrat Jorge Elorza, Republican Dan Harrop and Independent Buddy Cianci, gave remarkably similar answers to all the questions and largely supported all the suggestions the community groups proposed. Even when the candidates disagreed with the ideas presented by the community, they mostly agreed with each other.

When talking about a living wage, for instance, all three candidates initially opposed the idea, with Elorza saying that raising the minimum wage citywide is impossible under state law, but he would be willing to partner with community leaders to pressure the state to change the statute.

Cianci said that he agrees with Elorza, and thinks a $15 minimum wage is fine, at least for companies that employ more than 3 or 4 people. Harrop rejected the idea of a living wage outright, focusing instead on job creation and tax breaks. This represented the only real policy difference among the three candidates.

Despite being the most controversial figure running for any office in New England, Buddy Cianci got the biggest applause and cheers of the night, just for walking up to the microphone. From my vantage point in the balcony of the theater, it seemed that Cianci supporters were scattered throughout the crowd and ready to rise in applause at a moment’s notice. Whether they were planted there or sincere followers was impossible to tell.

Dan Harrop made the biggest impressions of the night, making the crowd furious by attacking Cianci. “If you want to decrease violence in this city, you cannot have a mayor at City Hall who has a continuous history of violence…” was all Harrop could get out before he was booed and drowned out by the crowd.

Harrop, who is a distant third in the race, has nothing to lose by speaking the truth, and he lately seems to be not so much running for mayor himself as he is working against Cianci. Harrop went so far as to practically endorse Elorza outright, offering to give up 30 seconds of his speaking time so that Elorza might discuss details of his housing plan. When told he could not give up his time, Harrop said that Elorza has a great plan for reclaiming abandoned houses in Providence, one Harrop will steal if elected mayor.

In a race in which the Republican candidate stumps for his Democratic opponent during a campaign event, we’re no longer talking about about issues and ideas. Instead, we’re talking about personalities and public perception, and that gives an advantage to Cianci.

*Groups such as: DARE- Direct Action for Rights and Equality, Providence Youth Student Movement Prysm Fam, RI JobswithJustice, Mt. Hope Neighborhood Association (MHNA), Ona Vecinos de Olneyville/Olneyville Neighborhood Association, AFSC Sene American Friends Service Committee, Unite Here Local 217, Comité de Inmigrantes en Acción, Black PAC, and the National Lawyers Guild RI Chapter

“Every few years,” Ian Donnis wrote in the Providence Phoenix at the time, “an incident involving Providence police has provoked outrage and prompted calls for a greater degree of public accountability. In 1992, it was the police beating of a student at Mount Pleasant High School. In 1995, a controversy erupted after an officer was videotaped kicking a man [Corey West] on the ground outside the former Strand club on Washington Street.”

Cianci criticized the violence in both instances. However, the follow-up raises eyebrows.

In the 1995 case, the rookie officer involved kept his position following protests from the union. The chief involved, who faced heavy criticism from the union for moving too quickly to suspend the officer, resigned shortly after. Despite positive words, little was done to change the culture or procedures of the force.

A 1998 Human Rights Watch report reviewed complaints of police abuse in Providence, noting, “During a ride-along with a Providence police sergeant, he … repeatedly mentioned that officers only fear a federal inquiry, not investigations by IAB [Internal Affairs].”

• 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

In 2000, community protests and organizing followed the shooting death of Sgt Cornel Young,Jr, a black Providence police officer who was shot dead by two white colleagues who thought he was a suspect and a threat, not a fellow officer off duty trying to help at the scene of a crime.

Ten years ago, Marion Davis wrote a piece in the Phoenix, “Did Cornel Young die in vain?” examining the Providence police early in Cicilline’s first term. Many neighborhood leaders saw halting changes, some saw no difference (as was sadly echoed in this police- run drug ring found during Cicilline’s last term), but some experienced a culture shift.  As Jose Brito, a Southside business owner, saw it:

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?

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.

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

In what one attendee called an “unprecedented” press conference, three former US Attorneys and one expert in governmental ethics held a press conference today to educate the public about the rampant criminality of Buddy Cianci’s two previous turns as Mayor of Providence, with an eye towards preventing a third. Republicans Robert Corrente and Lincoln Almond (who also served as governor of Rhode Island) alongside Democrat and current United States Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, were united in their opinion that a third Cianci administration is, in the words of Corrente, an “alarming prospect.”

Corrente started the press conference by noting that the information being presented was for the undecided voters who will determine the mayoral race in Providence, not for those who have already decided. Cianci, says Corrente, has “minimized and even joked about the crimes he committed in office,” and these crimes include a “violent beating involving a fireplace log and an ashtray.” The head of the Providence City Council during Cianci’s first term told Corrente that, “Cianci is killing the city” through threats, bribery and extortion.

During his second administration, said Corrente, Cianci ran the Providence City Hall as an organized criminal enterprise for nearly a decade before being convicted on RICO charges, yet the former mayor characterized his conviction as “some guy down the hall who took a g-note.” Corrente called Cianci’s statement an “outrageous mischaracterization.”

Lincoln Almond, who joined the press conference by telephone, added, “You don’t get five years for a technical violation.”

Certainly Cianci has served his time for his crimes, but rehabilitation means taking responsibility for and owning up to your misdeeds. Cianci has shown no remorse, said Corrente, and there is every reason to believe that a third term will be exactly like the first two.

Senator Whitehouse concurred, adding that, “one should not believe that this type of criminal activity is harmless to taxpayers.” When the cost of doing business in Providence includes bribery and extortion, business stays away, says Whitehouse, noting that there was a “surge of [business] activity” after Cianci’s tenure as mayor, when business at City Hall could be conducted honestly.

Almond added, “The fiscal problems facing Providence [today] were created during the Cianci administration.”

Phil West, who formerly headed up Common Cause, says that, “the only way [Cianci] can run a city is pay-to-play.” Voters have to ask themselves, “Has Buddy Cianci’s character changed?”

“I find that hard to believe,” said West.

When asked why, despite his criminal record, Cianci is leading in the polls, the three US Attorneys seemed at a loss. Corrente suggested that there may be many who don’t remember the extent of Cianci’s crimes or who moved into the city after the fact. Whitehouse suggested that the public is confusing Cianci’s “entertainment value” for responsible leadership. It was also suggested that many have publicly supported Cianci do so because they are afraid of political retribution should he win.

I think Corrente got closer to the truth when he admitted that many, like the firefighter, police, teacher and taxicab unions, are simply voting in their own economic interest by supporting Cianci. I would add that in my talks with likely voters, many feel that the major party candidates, the Republican Harrop and the Democrat Elorza, do not have the interests of working people and the working poor at heart. The concerns of working people are not being addressed by the major party candidates, forcing voters to consider casting their ballots for a criminal who might help them over “honest” politicians who have flatly declared themselves opposed to their interests.

More and more Rhode Islanders are falling into poverty, and our major candidates for office offer little, save for the promise of making Rhode Island more business friendly in the hope of attracting more low paying jobs at poverty wages. In this light a voter’s ballot is not cast for Cianci, but against a system that doesn’t work for them.

As sympathetic as I am to this logic, voting for Cianci is a mistake. Cianci’s life of criminality and abuse of power is a stain on Providence, and I dare anyone to read Emma Sloan’s piece, “Why one rape victim won’t support Cianci” and still publicly support the man. At a certain point, it’s not about the character of the candidate, but the character of the voter.