In Newport, Raimondo spoke at the annual conference of the Southern New England Defense Industry Alliance, a sort of chamber of commerce for the military industrial complex in southern New England. “We need to focus on what we are good at and we are good at defense,” Raimondo told the group at the Newport Hyatt Regency Hotel on Goat Island.

The defense sector is an important economic engine for Rhode Island, to be sure. According to a 2014 report from SENEDIA, there are more than 32,000 defense-related jobs in Rhode Island – about 6 percent of all jobs in the state. But there are obvious downsides to profiting from warfare. Providence-based Textron is the last North American company to still make cluster bombs and these controversial weapons of war are sold to Saudi Arabia and have been used on civilians in Yemen, for example.

“Of course we wish we lived in a world where this isn’t necessary,” Raimondo told me after her speech. “I wish there was no need for any of this. It’s an issue that I think we all grapple with. But the reality is we live in a very unsafe world, so it’s our job to protect our people.”

Later in the day, Raimondo went to Westerly to welcome Ivory Ella, a clothing company, to Rhode Island. The online retailer that employs about 40 people was convinced to relocate from Groton, Connecticut to Westerly with the help of $362,000 in tax credits from Raimondo’s Commerce Corporation.

“My good day today is not a good day for the governor of Connecticut,” Raimondo said to me.

“But,” she added a little later on in our conversation, “I hear your point.”

The point is that when one state pays a company to relocate there, it is also paying that business to damage another state’s economy. There’s been much written and said about states poaching jobs from one another – the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Providence Journal have each documented the downside of the practice.

Raimondo said it isn’t her job as governor of Rhode Island to worry about other state’s economic hardships.

“I’m elected by the people of Rhode Island to take care of Rhode Islanders,” she told me. “I’ve got a mission and my mission is to expand opportunity here.”

In some ways it’s great that Rhode Island has a thriving military industrial complex. And in some ways it’s great that we can poach jobs from Connecticut. But in the grand scheme of things these both seem like bad long term investments for our society, if not our economy. Unless, of course, you assume the United States and Rhode Island will always be at war with other parts of the world, including Connecticut.

Rep. Lauren Carson today announced she will seek re-election to the House of Representatives. Ms. Carson represents District 75, Newport. Representative Carson was first elected in 2014 and is completing her first term.

“District 75 wants a state representative that puts Newport first,” said Representative Carson. “Newport wants a responsive and accessible state government and I will continue to champion sensible policies to make sure that our voices are heard in state government and that there is fairness and transparency in Rhode Island.”

“I have promised transparency and availability to the voters. During my 18 months in office, I have held 10 constituent meetings designed to engage voters in the process of state government and to keep my ear to the ground on the issues that Newport cares about most,” said Carson. Carson supported reform legislation that fixed Rhode Island’s broken lobbying, campaign finance, and ethics laws which passed in the Assembly, recess for grammar school children and income tax exemptions for veterans, military and private pensions.

Representative Carson is a member of the House Oversight Committee, which has been investigating 38 Studios and the House Small Business Committee. Representative Carson currently chairs a special House Study Commission on Tourism.

“Building and investing in a smart and sustainable Rhode Island tourism campaign is good for Newport. Following the failed “Cooler and Warmer’ campaign, my special Commission redirected our efforts to understand how other states manage their marketing programs and how Rhode Island can make sound marketing investments in the future,” said Representative Carson. “We have successfully redirected tourism and hotel tax dollars back to the local regions in the 2017 budget and will continue to examine and propose strategies on how our state tourism dollars are best spent in the future.” Carson plans to hold her next Study Commission meeting in Newport. It is now scheduled for Friday July 15 at the old Colony House. Representative Carson also chaired a Special House Study on the Economic Impact of Flooding and Sea Rise.

“Newport is at ground zero for flooding and sea rise. Both the Point and Fifth ward neighborhoods must be preparing now for the economic impact that will accompany flooding. Businesses along the waterfront are at great risk and I have committed my first term to getting a better understanding of the scope of this risk.” Carson succeeded in achieving $100,000 in the 2017 state budget for the University of Rhode Island to develop a mandatory training program for municipal planning and zoning boards to increase their knowledge of flooding and encourage better decision making for flood prone and waterfront properties.

Representative Carson graduated the University of Rhode Island and holds a graduate degree in History and a Masters Degree in Business. She works part time for Clean Water Action and has one adult son, Andrew, 27, who lives in New York.

[From a press release]

“There is great potential within the emerging green industries,” she told me in an extended interview one day after introducing a report that lays out her policy recommendations. “If we as a state position ourselves to maximize all available opportunities it will in fact move us forward and secure for us national recognition.”

The initiative already enjoys broad support in the private sector – from the chamber of commerce to organized labor, she pointed out. And she expects legislators from both chambers will champion the bills as protecting the environment is a bi-partisan cause in the Ocean State. “House, Senate, Democrat, Republican and I guess each of us have an independent,” she said. “It’s really a shared value.”

Carbon pricing bill

Paiva Weed is reserving judgment on the carbon pricing bill introduced yesterday in the House by Rep. Aaron Regunberg. “There is obviously not the same kind of agreement among business and environmentalists on that issue as many are concerned about Rhode Island being an outlier,” she told me. “I absolutely support the goal of the legislation without question. The question is from a business point of view how do we as a region, as a country, internationally, remain competitive and address our concerns regarding carbon.”

Tolls

Representing Newport and Jamestown, Paiva Weed serves the only two communities in Rhode Island that already have toll gantries. She said local bridges managed by the Turnpike and Bridge Authority, funded by tolls, are in demonstrably better condition than those maintained by the DOT, funded through the state budget.

“We have safe, well maintained bridges in Newport, in Jamestown and in the Mt. Hope bridge for one reason: because the individuals who use those bridges pay tolls,” she said. “Every other overpass in the state that I can think of if you drive under is a danger. They are falling down, they are decrepit, they are a danger both to the people over and under them.”

Education

A staunch advocate of progressive education funding, Paiva Weed said Rhode Island needs to continue its recent tradition of increasing state education funding. She added that it’s important to fix the funding formula so that it stops punishing traditional school districts for sending a high number of students to charter schools.

“As charter schools have developed the structure of the funding formula failed to recognize that there would be a tipping point at which the diversion of funds from the traditional public education system would negatively impact the traditional public school system,” she said. “If we as a state supported school choice, which we said we did when we passed the legislation years ago creating charter schools, then we would need to recognize that tipping point and provide additional funds for communities that have more of a draw on their base from charters.”

Listen to the full 23 minute interview here:

She describes her vision of transforming Rhode Island into a national leader in sustainability and resilient-related industries in a new document called the Grow Green Jobs Report, which lays out a vision for Rhode Island’s economy that would closely mirror ideas being implemented in her hometown. Last week, Newport officials testified at the House Commission on Economic Impacts of Flooding and Sea Rise about how the City-by-the-Sea is poised to both suffer and benefit from rising oceans.

“The Rhode Island Senate has identified the green sector of the economy as one that offers great opportunity for both job growth and environmental benefits,” the Grow Green Jobs Report says. “As the Ocean State, our economy and people have experienced the impacts of severe storms, rising sea levels and warming temperatures. We have the workforce and educational assets to build upon – to turn these challenging events into opportunities for a stronger economy and a more resilient state.”

Paiva Weed is leading a round table discussion today at 2pm in the Senate Lounge. “Participants will include the Chambers of Commerce, DEM, Office of Energy Resources, DLT, Resource Recovery, Department of Education, Higher Ed, Build RI, and others from the environmental community and green industries,” said Senate spokesman Greg Pare in an email.

The legislation that accompanies the report is expected to be filed today, Pare said. The policy recommendations in the report give an idea of what the legislation will include:

1. Expand Real Jobs RI’s planning and implementation grants to include green industries.
2. The Governor’s Workforce Board should create workforce training programs to support well-paying clean energy jobs, including establishing career pathways and internships to ensure accessibility at all income levels.
3. Incentivize the creation and expansion of STEM/STEAM into all Rhode Island elementary and secondary schools, including certificate and pathways to higher education degree programs to prepare students in green technologies.
4. Encourage our public higher education institutions to partner with green sector businesses to identify areas of job demand and to develop certificate and degree programs in a public report.
5. Encourage our public higher education institutions to further develop degree programs leading to employment in the areas of climate change risk evaluation, sustainability, resiliency and adaptation.
6. Extend the Renewable Energy Standard (RES) that provides for annual increases in the percentage of electricity from renewable sources that National Grid supplies to its customers.
7. Incentivize in-state generation of renewable energy by expanding the Renewable Energy Growth (REG) Program, ensuring that more jobs and the economic benefits of renewable energy stay in Rhode Island.
8. Implement an efficiency program for delivered fuels customers, adding construction jobs and assisting households with oil and propane fuel costs.
9. Expand the RES to include renewable thermal technologies, such as geothermal heating and biofuels, which produce energy for heating, cooling or humidity control.
10. Institute policies that will reduce the price of solar installation and support the anticipated five-fold increase in solar power over the next decade.
11. Implement a streamlined statewide permitting program that removes unnecessary regulatory barriers, resulting in a predictable and less costly process for solar developers.
12. Establish statewide property tax standards for small residential and commercial solar projects.
13. Reinstate a state incentive for the installation of residential renewable energy systems.
14. Rhode Island Commerce Corporation should provide specific job development incentives to companies that process and add value to Rhode Island’s agricultural and seafood products. The increased demand for local farm grown products will create additional production and logistics jobs.
15. The Office of Regulatory Reform should work with state agencies and business representatives to review existing regulations that apply to Rhode Island plant-based industries and agriculture, identifying opportunities to coordinate across agencies and simplifying rules that apply to these businesses.
16. Task Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC) with submitting an economic impact study of Rhode Island’s solid waste industries (recycling, reuse, trash hauling, recycling food waste, composting) to identify the most effective ways to develop jobs related to increased recycling in Rhode Island.
17. Establish a goal to increase recycling to at least 50% of the state’s solid waste stream by 2025 and direct RIRRC to develop strategies to achieve that goal.

“When I moved here from Utah, everyone said “Oh, Newport, Providence!” People already know about Newport and Providence and I would say “No, Narragansett,” and nobody would know what Narragansett was. I have a really difficult time turning a portion of our money over from South County to help promote more Providence and more Newport.” she said, citing that the South County tourism board works very hard to market their area of the state.”

In response House Speaker Nick Mattiello said, “Despite that wonderful job, everyone still talks about Providence and Newport. It’s the integrity of the entire system that we’re looking at, and you need a Rhode Island brand. It’s not about localities. The current system doesn’t work, and we cannot go back to a system that doesn’t work.”

Their disagreement stems from Governor Gina Raimondo’s idea to centralize state tourism spending. Currently, Rhode Island has no unified state marketing efforts and instead dives proceeds from hotel tax receipts between 8 regional tourism agencies. The money will now go more towards the state Commerce Corporation, rather than the tourism bureaus themselves. In the House version of the budget, $4.7 million goes straight to the Commerce Corporation, while less than a million goes to the actual tourism district. In Gov. Raimondo’s version, $6.4 million would go to the corporation, leaving the districts with $1.7 million.

After the hearing, Tanzi continued to express her concerns about the funding cuts, and how they will harm her district as a whole.

“I think that the way that the South County tourism board is run is actually very effective. We have been compliant, we turn in our reports when we’re supposed to, our production cost of our marketing materials, everything is done in house. We’re very conscientious about how the money is spent,” she said, especially in comparison to other tourism boards across the state. Tanzi believes that this will only disserve the southern portion of Rhode Island, especially because Newport and Providence, in her opinion, do not need more marketing.

“The beaches are their own unique part of it,” she said. “We need to have our own budget to market that appropriately. We’re competing with the Cape, we’re not competing with Massachusetts.”

As the budget is currently written, Tanzi stated that to “cannibalize” the smaller parts of the state in order to market Rhode Island as a whole is not the best use of money, and it will only show poorly within the coming years.

“My guess is that my businesses in South County, who have five months out of the year at most, to make their living to make it through the entire summer, are going to suffer as a result of this,” she said. Tanzi has spoken to many of the businesses in her district since the budget first came out in March, adding that such funds are always a concern for business owners in the area.

But, the prospect of Tanzi submitting a successful amendment to support her district is slim to none, in her view, calling South County the “small fish,” in comparison to Newport and Providence.

“Just the basic numbers of looking at it, you’re talking about a couple of South County people, versus the city folk and the Newport people, who outnumber us on the floor. So, my chances of an amendment passing are ridiculously infantile. They’re infinitesimal, they’re so small, so, no, I won’t,” she said.

Even without the hope of amending the budget, this year, though, Tanzi still holds out hope for next year, planning to bring forth data showing the exact effects of these cuts on South County tourism, and maybe even get to create a separate brand for her district in the process.

All the teams in the Volvo Ocean Race use identical boats, they sail over the same waters, and they bounce over the same waves.

However, there is something very different with one team in this year’s 38,739 nautical mile race. Team SCA is the only all-women team in the otherwise male-dominated around-the-world sailboat race currently stopped over in Newport.

If there is a team for progressives to root for, it has to be SCA.

They aren’t the first all-female team in ocean racing: Maiden (89-90) in the Whitbread Round the World Race, Heineken (93-94), E F Education (97-98), and American Sports Too (01-02). But women remain under represented in the sport.

Many of the SCA crew started ocean racing solo for lack of opportunity in the primarily male sport. “There’s no way they would take a female on the boats,” said Sophie Ciszek, one of the crew for Team SCA.

So, often women took to solo racing, many in the Mini Transatlantic, sailing alone 4000 miles in 21 ft. long boats to break into the ranks of professional sailing. Team SCA finished the 5,000 mile sixth leg of the Volvo Ocean Race in Newport this last week along with five competitors. Thousands of fans were at Ft. Adams in Newport to welcome Team SCA. The six Volvo boats are on display this week at Ft. Adams, and start the next leg (to Lisbon, Portugal) Sunday, May 17th, at 2:00 PM.

SCA Corporation, an international paper products and forestry company based in Sweden, sponsored the female team. Its intent was to create a fully supported team, on the same level as the men’s teams. Team SCA began in 2012, when 250 women from all over the world applied for 11 positions. One by one they were eliminated and the chosen few went into training.

Last year, they sailed into Newport as part of their offshore training. Skipper Samantha Davies and her crew-mates are soaked in extensive solo offshore racing experience and have the skills to sail alongside the boys. They proved that in the first week of Leg 6, sailing right up in the front pack, exchanging for the lead. That was sailing at its highest competitive level. Days before arrival in Newport, an unfortunate high pressure system cut them off from the leaders and set them back 100 miles.

On the positive side, they finished in daylight, and were treated to the beauty of Brenton Point, Castle Hill, Hammersmith Farm, and the Volvo Race Village at Ft. Adams.  Twelve hours earlier, Dongfeng, the winner, battled Abu Dhabi to finish in the dark. In a tense close fight, they finished three and a half minutes apart after seventeen days. That is nothing short of amazing and one-design sailboat racing at its finest! 7,000 plus fans on land and an estimated 200 boats cheered in the night time winners.

As the father of a daughter who sailed competitively in high school, I have witnessed women competing in sailing on an even footing. Both my children, sailing for Newport’s Rogers High School Sailing Team in the 1990s, competed on a coed basis. And the fastest Rogers High School Sailing Team skipper was a woman for several years. For sure, the Farr Ocean 65 racing sailboat is a handful, twelve-and-a-half metric tons (27,000 lbs.) of throbbing carbon fiber race horse. Lugging the sails below and dragging them up on deck, and constantly trimming and changing sails is no easy chore. Flying along at 20 knots, the 65 ft. hull must bang on the waves like a surfboard.

Okay, men are stronger on the whole. But with teamwork and pacing – critical for ocean racing – skilled and properly trained women are up to the job, as are some men. Furling the asymmetrical spinnaker when gybing into the East Passage off Jamestown, Team SCA executed the maneuver flawlessly in front of my eyes, with the rhythm of a Swiss watch- a fine finish to 5,000 miles of sailing under challenging conditions.

This Saturday, May 17th, at 2PM, the Volvo boats will race over a short course at the mouth of Narragansett  Bay. The fleet will start near the Ft. Adams shoreline and sail to a buoy off Castle Hill Lighthouse and back. The race will consist of two laps over this short course. Ft. Wetherill in Jamestown and Ft. Adams in Newport will be the prime viewing areas for those watching from land.

Team SCA has won two of the five in port races in the 2014/15 Volvo Ocean Race so far, third place overall for the in port races to date. Team Alvimedica, skippered by Rhode Islander, Charlie Enright, has also won one of the in port races so far, so the racing should be keen. The layout of the course will make for a lot of maneuvering at close quarters, something fun to watch.

Photos and story by Roberto Bessin 2015

SCA, the only all-women boat competing in bi-annual race, brought up the rear, finishing at about 10am. Dongfeng, a team made up of Chinese and French sailors, finished almost exactly 12 hours earlier. They beat Team Abu Dabi by only 3 minutes, in an exciting night of sailing that saw hundreds of boaters welcome them to Rhode Island. Team Almevidica, captained and partially crewed by Rhode Islanders, finished 5th of 6 at 3am.

The first solo sailor to circumnavigate the earth in 1898 had to hug the Castle Hill coastline as he finished his 47,000 mile voyage in Newport, Rhode Island. Joshua Slocum was dodging the lethal shipping mines planted at the entrance of Narragansett Bay during the Spanish American War. After surviving two years and 47,000 miles at sea, he was at risk of being blown up just miles from the finish line.

The six teams racing in the Volvo Ocean Race face no such perils. Only the Atlantic Ocean stands between them and Newport Harbor, where they will complete the sixth leg of the around-the-globe race on approximately May 5. With some 4,000 nautical miles between them and Newport, their arrival time is still a guess. This Volvo Race, sailing’s biggest biannual event, has previously stopped at Alicante, Spain, Capetown, South Africa, Abu Dhabi, Sanya, China, Auckland, New Zealand, and Itajai, Brazil . They’ll be in Newport from May 5 through the 17th, when they set sail for Lisbon, Portugal, the next leg of the what used to be known as the Whitbread Round the World Race.

When Slocum sailed around the world, he sailed a wooden 37-ft. oyster boat. The Volvo Ocean Race chose the Farr Ocean 65 for 2014-15, and basically established a new one-design fleet of carbon fiber rocket ships. Instead of the weird and disparate multi-hull competitors in what the America’s Cup race has evolved into, the Volvo boats are very similar. Because of that, right now, the boats have been sailing at close quarters for the first three days of the current leg. Often the difference in speed is a mere 0.2 knots.

Team Alvimedica has three Rhode Islanders aboard: Charlie Enright, the skipper, Mark Towhill, the general manager and Amory Ross, the reporter. Charlie and Mark, both with formidable offshore sailing experience around the world, know each other from the Brown Sailing team years ago. With advice from PUMA Ocean racing veterans, they put a world class team together. They are highly motivated to win this leg, and have a great number of fans here in Rhode island.

Team SCA, one of six current competitors, is writing history with an all women’s crew. Corinna Halloran, from Newport, is aboard SCA as a reporter. The 15 women comprising Team SCA come from six countries including Switzerland, Sweden, Great Britain, Australia, US, and the Netherlands. SCA is the largest private forester in Europe and manufacturers paper products marketed internationally. The 15 women were chosen from 250 applicants. Skipper, Sam Davies, took fourth in the recent Vende Solo Race, and she leads a talented crew. What has been mainly a playing field for men over the years has opened up, with due respect to Isabelle Autissier, and Ellen MacArthur.

A seventh competitor, Team Vestas Wind from New Zealand sailed up onto a reef in the Indian Ocean on an earlier leg of this year’s Volvo Ocean Race. The last harrowing moments were caught on video:

It is exciting to see Newport once again hosting a world class sailing event, and how great it is with such equal boats pitting sailor versus sailor, for unpredictable, close competition. The inshore race May 15th and 16th will be in the West Passage outside of Newport Harbor, visible from many vantage points in Newport and Jamestown. It should be thrilling to watch the Volvo boats sail under the Newport Bridge. And then the VOR departs for Portugal, France, and Sweden, to finish off 38,739 nautical miles of blue water sailing. For the sailors it means more freeze dried food and only one change of clothes at sea.

I’ve been a sailor for 45 years. I grew up sailing on San Francisco Bay, I’ve sailed across the Atlantic twice and I’ve sailed the Mediterranean and the Caribbean seas. This Volvo race reminds me why I moved to Newport more than 20 years ago.

“I do remain concerned about the potential health affects,” she said before the start of the Senate session on Thursday. “We just recently decriminalized marijuana.”

She said the potential revenue should not be a compelling reason to end marijuana prohibition.

“Revenue is something that always gets people’s attention, she said. “However I believe that the decision to legalize marijuana should be made in conjunction with law enforcement and our health officials and not be revenue driven.”

Jared Moffat, of Regulate Rhode Island, the advocacy group pushing for legalization, said skepticism allows drug dealers to maintain control of the marijuana market.

“We don’t need to ‘wait and see’ any longer to know that prohibition is the worst possible policy for marijuana,” Moffat said. “Prohibition simply ensures that marijuana will be sold in an unregulated, dangerous illicit market. It’s time to take control away from illegal dealers and put marijuana behind the counter of legitimate businesses where it can be taxed, controlled, and regulated.”

Paiva Weed represents Newport (and Jamestown), a city driven by a tourism economy that would certainly see benefits from legal marijuana. But Newport voters recently rejected a local referendum that would have allowed Newport Grand to have table games, thus making it more of a traditional casino. It’s unclear if Newporters are similarly opposed to ending marijuana prohibition as they have been to expanding gambling.

Nearly 160 teachers in five urban school districts are getting more resources for classroom innovation thanks to $148,000 in grants from the Rhode Island Foundation.

Full-time third-grade teachers in any public or charter school in Central Falls, Newport, Pawtucket, Providence and Woonsocket were eligible to for Spark Grants of up to $1,000 to fund programs that will engage students through unique experiences and creative learning methods in order to stimulate their interest in academics.

At Francis Varieur School in Pawtucket , third-grade teachers Mary Bergeron and Donna Sawyer will pool their $1,000 grants to purchase 25 cameras to support learning activities related to a social studies unit on urban, suburban and rural communities. The cameras will enable teachers to weave art into their lesson plans and foster the development of 21st-century skills through the use of digital technology.

In Providence, the proposals range from recruiting an artist to help Pleasant View Elementary students write a narrative version of Cinderella to a year-long character education program at William D’Abate Elementary, including field trips to the Providence Police and Fire Departments.

Conceived by philanthropists Letitia and John Carter, the Spark Grants program was launched last year with $75,000 in awards to Providence third-grade teachers. Based on the results, the initiative was expanded this year to include the four new communities.

“We were impressed by the creativity and impact of last year’s proposals. Third grade is a crucial period in the academic development of children. Widening the reach of the program will put more youngsters on the road to a lifetime of academic achievement,” says Letitia Carter.