Providence City Council

October 23, 2016

Jackson’s lawsuit against people organizing recall is wrong, says ACLU

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2016-09-28 East Side CSA 004 — Kevin Jackson

Steve Brown, the executive director of the Rhode Island ACLU has issued a statement regarding Providence City Councillor Kevin Jackson’s lawsuit against the two people, Patricia Kammerer and Karina Holyoak Wood, who have organized a recall effort and petition against him.

Jackson’s lawsuit also names the City of Providence and the Providence Board of Canvassers.

“The ACLU is not familiar enough with the mechanics of the City’s recall mechanism to comment on the specifics of the allegations contained in Councilor Jackson’s complaint,” said Brown in the RI ACLU statement, “We do agree that certain due process standards are essential before subjecting elected officials to the burdens imposed in having to defend themselves against removal from an elected position they obtained through a democratic process.

“At the same time, we are deeply troubled that, in addition to suing City officials and the Board of Canvassers, which is responsible for overseeing the recall petition process, the lawsuit names as defendants the two private individuals who have been involved in mounting this recall campaign. Their involvement in the suit is completely unnecessary in order for a court to address any legitimate due process concerns raised by the petition process. Thus, the inclusion of these two individuals as defendants strikes us a classic SLAPP suit – an attempt to silence private citizens for seeking to exercise their First Amendment right to petition government.

“As Rhode Island’s SLAPP suit statute notes, ‘full participation by persons and organizations and robust discussion of issues of public concern before the legislative, judicial, and administrative bodies and in other public fora are essential to the democratic process.’ These two Providence residents should not be forced to defend themselves in a court of law for exercising petition rights granted them by the City Charter. The ACLU urges Councilor Jackson to amend his complaint and remove these two private citizens as defendants.”

In a statement the Kammerer and Holyoak Wood called Jackson’s lawsuit “an obvious delaying tactic.” Holyoak Wood was the campaign manager of Marcus Mitchell, who ran an unsuccessful write-in campaign against Jackson two years ago.

September 12, 2016

Terrence Hassett cancels meeting on LNG facility resolution

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The Providence City Council Ordinance Committee meeting scheduled for 5pm on Monday was cancelled at 4:30pm, what one City Hall worker called, “at the last minute,” by Committee Chair Terrence Hassett. The cancellation effectively stalls the discussion of Councillor Seth Yurdin’s resolution opposing the construction of National Grid’s proposed liquefaction facility for Fields Point in the Port of Providence.

More than a dozen people showed up for the event, only to learn from the hastily printed signs that the meeting was cancelled. People told me that they had made great efforts to be at this meeting. One man brought his six year old daughter with him, others arranged to leave work early. A nurse handed off a patient to her co-worker, and lost out a couple of hours of pay.

Several people, expecting a long meeting, paid for two hours of parking, as the on street parking, which used to be free at 6pm, is now free after 9pm. In all I talked to six people who paid for parking, including Sister Mary Pendergast, who said she’s “on a very limited budget.”

Representative Aaron Regunberg showed up. But even he, when asking various City Hall workers, including the Council President Chief of Staff Cyd McKenna, couldn’t get an adequate answer as to why the meeting suffered a last minute cancellation.

Councillor Seth Yurdin arrived ten minutes before the meeting was due to start. He had received a text ten minutes before arriving telling him the meeting was cancelled. He said he didn’t know why the meeting was cancelled. He had no more insight, it seems, than anyone else.

The people who arrived for the meeting were all prepared to give testimony on the resolution concerning the project at Fields Point, a center of toxic industry located in one of the poorest neighborhoods of color in New England. This was Councillor Seth Yurdin’s second resolution in opposition to the facility, and it was a much stronger statement.

Though Yurdin’s resolution was co-sponsored by half the City Council, passage of the resolution was prevented when Councilors Jo-Ann Ryan and Terrence Hassett flipped their votes.

The resolution was sent to the Ordinance Committee which Hassett chairs. Hassett said at the time that, “I co-sponsored it but a committee review is necessary for a proper vetting and discussion before it is transmitted to the full Council.”

When I asked about why he cancelled the Monday evening meeting that would have allowed for “proper vetting and discussion,” Hassett said, in a written statement:

“The LNG ban, as proposed by Councilman Yurdin, has merit. I co-sponsored it on the floor of the City Council Session.

“However, we have not heard sufficient testimony from the energy developers on the plan itself – the productive results, the environmental impact – what is good versus bad. I’m an environmentally sensitive citizen and public servant, as most of us are. A new and productive proposal, as promised, is certainly worthy of discussion.”

Note that the “energy developers” Hassett is referring to is National Grid, a company that had just as much time and notice to make it to this meeting as the environmental advocates who made the effort to show up for the meeting did. In fact, National Grid has more time, if you take into account the fact that the company employs a full time legal staff.

“My difficulty,” continued Hassett, “is simply approving a resolution banning it until proper testimony is presented. Its akin to a court case. We cannot indict until and unless proper and verified evidence is presented and the jury agrees. Legislative language presents an argument.

“In this case I co-sponsored it on the floor of the City Council. My concern or our general concern is this….we need discussions in an open forum from those proposing the LNG and receive any counter testimony on the plan or proposal.

“Many have advocated transparency in government. I believe in it. It’s how the best decisions are made. So we will carefully review this proposal, a $40 million effort should it meet our needs, our environmental protections and city economy.

“That’s my assessment based on your inquiry. It will be heard. Just better prepared for our decision makers and the public.”

Many who arrived at the City Hall to find the meeting cancelled are convinced that there were some backroom shenanigans involved. But no proof of these speculations will ever materialize. Instead, the blame for cancelling this meeting rests solely on Hassett and his decision, as he explains above.

I asked Hassett a follow up.

“The meeting was cancelled at 4:30. When meetings are scheduled on Friday afternoon and cancelled moments before they are to start on Monday, many people feel that there are shenanigans going on behind the scenes. At the very least, it shows a lack of concern for those who make the effort to attend. Do you have a comment on this?”

I received no answer.

I’ve experienced something like this before. Back in May 2014 a Providence City Council Ordinance Committee meeting that was to discuss the proposed $15 minimum wage for hotel workers was cancelled at the last minute, leaving dozens of working women in the lurch. At the time I wrote, “Working women secured childcare or brought their kids with them. They skipped meals, skipped overtime and traveled to the City Hall on foot, on buses or in carpools, only to find out that the Ordinance Committee meeting had been abruptly cancelled.”

The cancellation of this meeting allowed the General Assembly the time it needed to include an amendment in the State Budget to prevent municipalities like Providence from setting their own minimum wages, frustrating months of activism on the part of the hotel workers. The chair of the Ordinance Committee then was Seth Yurdin.

September 12, 2016September 13, 2016

Ordinance committee to hear testimony on Fields Point LNG today

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Tonight at 5pm the Providence City Council Ordinance Committee will be considering Councilor Seth Yurdin‘s second, stronger resolution opposing National Grid‘s fracked gas LNG liquefaction facility for Fields Point in the Port of Providence.

The resolution was referred to the Ordinance Committee last week, despite a near majority of City Councilors signing on as co-sponsors. At the time Councilor Jo-Ann Ryan said “I voted to send it to committee to provide an opportunity for community input at an open public meeting of the council. You can and should attend and voice your concerns. And encourage others to attend and participate in the process.”

Unfortunately, the meeting was filed on Friday, at 2:48pm, so it did not come to the attention of activists until Sunday afternoon. The timing might dampen “community input” especially given the last minute scrambling ahead of Tuesday’s primary elections.

There will be an opportunity for public comment at this meeting, so feel free to come out and speak your mind about fossil fuels and the future of the world.

Here’s the info:

Providence City Council: Ordinance Committee Hearing
Monday September 12th at 5pm
3rd floor, Providence City Hall (25 Dorrance St.)

And here’s the Facebook event page from NoLNGinPVD

September 2, 2016September 2, 2016

PVD City Council fails to pass 2nd resolution opposing LNG

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Providence City Councillor Seth Yurdin introduced a resolution Thursday evening that would strengthen the City Council’s opposition to National Grid’s proposed Fields Point liquefaction facility. Immediately after introducing his resolution Councillor Sam Zurier rose to co-sponsor, as did councilors David Salvatore, Carmen Castillo, Wilbur Jennings, Jo-Ann Ryan and Terrence Hassett.

Noting that it seemed as if a majority of the council was co-sponsoring the resolution, Yurdin moved that the resolution be voted on immediately. This caused councilors Jo-Ann Ryan and Terrence Hassett to suddenly flip their support. Yurdin’s move for passage failed, and the resolution was passed onto the Ordinances committee.

Reached for comment, Hassett wrote, “I voted no to have an immediate passage on the floor without a Council committee review. I co-sponsored it but a committee review is necessary for a proper vetting and discussion before it is transmitted to the full Council.”

Ryan wrote, “I requested to be a sponsor of the resolution last night. It was sent to ordinance committee by a majority vote. I voted to send it to committee to provide an opportunity for community input at an open public meeting of the council. You can and should attend and voice your concerns. And encourage others to attend and participate in the process.”

There are no ordinance committee hearings on the current schedule. Hassett is the chair of ordinance and Ryan is a member of the committee.

National Grid wants to expand its LNG footprint in the Port of Providence with the new liquefaction plant. Environmental groups such as the RI Sierra Club and the Environmental Justice League of RI oppose the plan. Curiously, Save the Bay, whose offices are not too far from the proposed site, have not come out against it.

Mayor Jorge Elorza and a large group of state level Providence legislators have recently publicly come out in opposition to the project.

The City Council unanimously approved Yurdin’s previous resolution opposing the site in March. That resolution called for public meetings to be scheduled to address environmental and health concerns of the project. “Unfortunately,” said Yurdin, here we are in the Summer and no such meetings have been held… This resolution is stronger than the previous resolution.”

The previous resolution called for studies and review. The new resolution is a call to strong action.

The new resolution says, in part, “That the City shall take all necessary actions to oppose the proposed Fields Point liquefaction facility, including ceasing to act as a cooperating agency with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and shall not grant any tax stabilizations, subsidies, or any other forms of support to the project.”

September 2, 2016

Community groups pressure PVD City Council on Community Safety Act

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Members of the Coalition to Pass the Community Safety Act (CSA) spoke out before Thursday night’s Providence City Council meeting about the importance of empowering local communities on policing.

“Providence needs the Community Safety Act because without it we feel unsafe,” said campaign coordinator Vanessa Flores-Maldonado in a statement. “The Coalition hopes that a public hearing will speak loudly to the need of an ordinance that seeks to hold police accountable when they harass and brutalize our community.

The Coalition, which is comprised of local community organizations and members, had previously submitted a petition on July 1 to have the city council hold a public hearing before going on their August break. However, the 90+ signatures submitted took 3 weeks to verify and no public hearing was scheduled within the 14 days required by the City Charter.

Malcus Mills of DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality) introduced three speakers, Dan, representing PrYSM (Providence Youth Student Movement), Wayne Woods of DARE, and Justice, speaking for RI Jobs with Justice.

Dan spoke about the gang database used by the Providence Police Department. If a youth is placed on the gang database list, they have no ability to remove their name or even check to see if their name is on the list. This may result in loss of job and educational opportunities in the future.

Right now, said Dan, the police, “judge people by their appearance, their race, gender etc, and they will say you are guilty… because they think you are part of a gang.”

Wayne Woods spoke of being profiled and pulled over on the East Side of Providence. After being removed from his car, searched, and then waiting for 20 minutes as his car was searched by police, he and his friend, both black men, were sent on their way. The police told the men, “To go home and take it easy.”

If the CSA were passed, said Woods, the car could only have been pulled over for probable cause and the police would have to issue a receipt to people they detain, outlining the conditions of the probable cause.

“A big part of why the CSA needs to be passed is so that we can hold people accountable to what they’re doing,” said Justice, representing Jobs with Justice. “Civil servants and law enforcement should be accountable just like other working people, and we need to be able to protect the people of Providence, we need to be able to protect the youth of color in Providence.”

The Providence Community Safety Act is a city-wide proposed ordinance that aims to hold police accountable and make communities safer. Developed by community members and organizations who are frustrated with police harassment and lack of accountability, the CSA has 12 key points that outline how police officers should interact with community members. These points range from video recording to traffic stops to the gang database.

August 3, 2016August 26, 2016

Providence legislators oppose ‘dangerous’ new LNG development

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A group of Providence elected officials announced their strong opposition to a proposal by National Grid to develop a new fracked gas liquefaction facility at Fields Point in South Providence. Citing concerns ranging from costs to ratepayers, safety risks and climate impact, the legislators — including Representatives Joseph S. Almeida (D-Dist. 12, Providence), Grace Diaz (D-Dist. 11, Providence), Aaron Regunberg (D-Dist. 4, Providence), Chris Blazejewski (D-Dist. 2, Providence), Edith H. Ajello (D-Dist. 1, Providence) and John J. Lombardi (D-Dist. 8, Providence) and Senators Juan Pichardo (D-Dist. 2, Providence), Gayle Goldin (D-Dist. 3, Providence) and Sen. Harold M. Metts (D-Dist. 6, Providence) — called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reject National Grid’s application, and warned the City of Providence against signing a tax stabilization agreement with the utility to facilitate the project.

Last summer, National Grid submitted a proposal to FERC to develop a $180 million facility to produce Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) directly from a Spectra Energy pipeline that delivers fracked gas from Marcellus Shale to Providence. LNG is produced by cooling natural gas to -260°F, which reduces its volume by 600 times and puts it into liquid form. As described in its application, National Grid would then utilize tanker trucks to export the LNG produced in Providence, primarily to locations in Massachusetts.

“No matter how you look at it, this project is a money-maker for the utility at the expense of our community and our state,” said Representative Almeida. “National Grid is asking us, the ratepayers, to foot the $180 million bill for this project, for what? So they can increase their own profits by exporting LNG out of the state! This does nothing to benefit our constituents, and it does nothing to benefit my neighbors on the South Side. All this proposal will do is transfer money from ratepayers’ pockets to National Grid’s coffers, and we’re not going to accept it.”

Legislators also expressed concerns about the safety risks of the proposed project.

“LNG is a dangerous substance,” said Representative Diaz. “Just two years ago, an LNG facility in Washington state exploded, causing an evacuation of everyone within a two-mile area. If that were to happen at this site, all of my constituents would be in danger. Why is it always our community that must shoulder the collateral damage and safety risks from these toxic projects?”

LNG is stable in liquid form, and without air it is not flammable. However, at any temperature over -260°F it converts to methane gas and expands by 600 times, rapidly pressurizing any sealed container. If LNG spills and mixes with airs, it becomes highly flammable and potentially explosive.

“I remember when Keyspan, which has since been bought by National Grid, applied to FERC with a similar proposal to build an LNG import facility at Fields Point in 2005,” said Senator Pichardo. “That application was denied due to the very real safety concerns of this kind of development. In fact, FERC Commissioner Nora Brownell cited the risks of accidents and explosions when turning down the proposal, stating that the project would not meet current federal safety standards. If doubling down on this dangerous fuel was unsafe ten years ago, it is unsafe for our neighborhood today, and I urge FERC to once again listen to the community’s opposition to this harmful development.”

Finally, the elected officials demanded that the climate consequences of the expanded fossil fuel infrastructure be taken into account.

“The science on climate change is clear. If my generation is to have any chance of inheriting an Ocean State with any state left in it, we need to transition to a clean energy economy as quickly as possible. This proposal would sink millions of ratepayer dollars into unnecessary new fossil fuel infrastructure that would be used for decades past our climate’s point of no return, and that is a betrayal of our children,” said Representative Regunberg. “Mayor Jorge Elorza and the Providence City Council have taken credit for being leaders on climate and environmental issues. But if the city awards a tax stabilization agreement to National Grid to support this project, then it is our belief that the mayor and council can no longer claim this kind of climate leadership. We hope they will do the right thing and tell National Grid that Providence will not facilitate this wasteful, ratepayer-funded, environmentally catastrophic scheme.”

The Providence legislators reported that they are submitting letters detailing their concerns to FERC, joining a growing list of community members and neighborhood organizations opposing National Grid’s application.

[From a press release]

August 2, 2016August 3, 2016

PVD City Council extends tax break for Valley St. development

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The Providence City Council extended a tax break for the developers of a mixed use project on Valley Street because an anchor tenant relocated to Johnston.

“Do we really need another vacant or foreclosed property in our city,” said Council President Luis Aponte, who voted for the so-called tax stabilization agreement, after the meeting. He said the developers could have attained an administrative TSA for a smaller redevelopment had the council not awarded the tax break and that the city negotiated a good deal for residents by working with the developers.

Councilor Carmen Castillo was the only member of the elected board to vote against the TSA.

“We’re not a bank,” she said. “The neighborhood I represent never gets a tax break. We pay a lot in property taxes too.”

Councilor Sabina Matos said she supported the TSA because the council approved TSAs for downtown businesses so it was only fair that it do so for businesses in her district too. “We set a precedent,” she said. “We can’t give them to some developers and not others.”

Abacus Technology paid $1.8 million annually to rent 100,000 square feet of space in the Rising Sun Mills development on Valley Street but the company has decided to move to Johnston, said the developers.

“There’s no benefit to having Rising Sun Mills go dark,” said BJ Dupre, one of the developers, after the favorable decision from the Council. When asked if that would have happened if they didn’t get the tax break, another of the developers, Mark Van Noppen said it was a “distinct possibility.”

Aponte said the developers plan to reconfigure the commercial space into smaller offices. He said the TSA is void if they don’t pull all the requisite permits in 180 days.

“It’s hard to tell,” Aponte said when asked how much money the city budget would lose by extending the TSA to the Rising Sun Mills project. But, he added, “They are paying more than if they would have got a 5 year extension” as a result of the negotiations with city officials.

August 2, 2016August 2, 2016

With little notice, PVD City Council voting on controversial TSA Tuesday

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The Providence City Council has called a special meeting for Tuesday night and among the agenda items is tax stabilization agreements (TSAs) for 60 Valley Street, LLC and 166 Valley Street, LLC on behalf of the Rising Sun Mills Project. The ordinance is sponsored by Council President Luis Aponte. The details of the TSA can be found here.

The City Council unanimously rejected a similar TSA, for 100 Fountain St, in February, under intense public pressure. Aponte then said, given the city’s precarious economic situation, “It’s the right signal that the [Finance] Committee is sending to the public and to the [City] Council.”

The TSA being considered by the council notes that the “projects been suffered serious financial setbacks and hardships as a result of the collapse of the real estate and financial markets over the past several years” and hence a five year extension of TSAs granted in 2003 and 2006 is needed. In return, “the Project Owners of 166 Valley Street will make an additional investment of approximately $5 million which shall be used to convert approximately 85,000 square feet of the building from a single tenant space to multiple commercial spaces. This will assist in the Project Owners in attracting new tenants to the Project and will create new construction and potential permanent jobs at the Project Site.”

The amount of revenue Providence will lose in this deal is unclear.

Stop Tax Evasion in Providence (STEP) released a press release Monday claiming that that the Providence City Council leadership is failing taxpayers.

“You would think that the Council would be in no rush to go handing out more of these questionable extensions to projects that have already been paying very little taxes for 15 years, but you would be wrong,” says the STEP press release. “While the… promise of new spending and jobs from Rising Sun Mill owners would seem welcome, there are absolutely no safeguards to ensure they will invest what they say. Thus the city can be certain of neither jobs nor permitting revenue.”

The special city council meeting was announced on Friday, July 29, as big news stories broke, such as Representative John Carnevale deciding not to appeal the Providence Board of Canvassers decision that ended his re-election campaign and Attorney General Peter Kilmartin announcing the non-results of his 38 Studios investigation. Technically, the City Council went on break for August and was not due to reconvene until September 1.

As a result, this important meeting was almost missed.

The city council will also be awarding hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts at this meeting, according to the agenda.

July 22, 2016July 22, 2016

PVD Black Lives Matter Day of Action calls for passage of Community Safety Act

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The Providence City Hall Council Chamber was packed over capacity. The crowd was so raucous and loud it was hard to hear the speakers on their microphones.

“I Sabina Matos, would like to pass the Community Safety Act.”

“Seconded.”

Voice after voice pledged their support for the Community Safety Act.

“I, Seth Yurdin, would like to pass the Community Safety Act.”

“I, Sam Zurier, would like to pass the Community Safety Act.”

The Community Safety Act (CSA) passed unanimously. Not a single voice spoke against it. The City Council Chamber erupted in cheers and applause.

It was a brilliant moment.

But the Providence City Council never actually voted. Minutes before the City Council was to begin their meeting, their last meeting before taking a break for vacation, hundreds of protesters in support of Black Lives Matter had crossed the street from Kennedy Plaza and entered the chamber en masse. They took the seats of city councillors and acted out what passing the CSA might look like.

The CSA never passed. It has only recently been scheduled for consideration, when the City Council comes back in September.

As the crowd filed out of the chamber, Nick Katkevich of the FANG Collective asked a just arriving City Councillor Seth Yurdin if he would really support the CSA when the time came.

“I don’t support the CSA,” said Yurdin.

Neither does Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza or Public Safety Commissioner Steven Paré.

Fifteen minutes earlier crowds gathered at Kennedy Plaza, across the street from City Hall. The Movement for Black Lives had called a nationwide, July 21 Collective Action for Freedom, in response to the recent slew of high profile police killings. In Providence, the action was organized by the Step Up Coalition to Pass the Community Safety Act and the White Noise Collective RI around the idea of supporting the CSA.

2016-07-21 Pass the CSA 034 — Vanessa Flores-Maldonado

The proposed Providence ordinance has 12 key points pertaining to police interactions with community members, including providing interpretation, documenting traffic stops in a standardized manner, and limiting police collaboration with other law enforcement agencies such as ICE. The CSA would also reestablish the Providence External Review Authority (PERA) with the power to recommend that Public Safety and Police Department budgets be reapportioned to youth recreation and job training programs.

“We don’t want to compromise on the safety of our community. When you have women dying in jail because they didn’t use a turn signal or youth being shot in cold blood for having toy guns in an open carry state, we can’t compromise,” said Community Safety Act Campaign Coordinator, Vanessa Flores-Maldonado. “We need police accountability now because no one feels safe in our community.”

The campaign recently scored a win when organizers secured a public hearing for the CSA at the beginning of September. The “mock hearing” was organized to put additional pressure on the City Council to pass the CSA.

At the mock hearing, Flores -Maldonado spoke directly to the city council members present, including Council President Luis Aponte, saying that the city council should listen to what the people had to say.

The protest left city hall and marched up Washington St towards the Providence Public Safety Complex, where people gave a series of speeches in support of the CSA, hiring more teachers of color, community defense, and abolishing the police. Here the speeches were in turn thoughtful and emotional. I would recommend them to those seeking a better understanding of these issues.

After leaving the public safety complex the march continued on to Cathedral Square, where there was some last words before the march disbanded.

May 13, 2016

Replacing Councilman Kevin Jackson

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Councilman Kevin Jackson is my city councilor. I’d like to see someone better. Here are the things I’d like to see taken on by whoever replaces him (as a challenger, or after he resigns):

Someone to fight for lower taxes on renters

Kevin Jackson gave some tepid support to changing the tax structure so that it stops taxing non “owner occupant” apartments at a higher rate. The next councilor needs to fight hard to make this a reality.

Someone to fight for higher taxes on parking

The parking tax is on the horizon as a serious proposal for the future, and a Ward 3 councilperson must be a supporter. The only way the city is going to reform its land-use while making more housing and business opportunities is if it wakes up and smells the asphalt that surrounds much of downtown. It’s time to do something about it.

Having a higher tax on parking would be one of the best taxes on the rich that Providence is capable of, but that money could then be put directly to lowering taxes on other properties, ensuring that it builds growth rather than resentment in the Capital City.

Someone who will fight to get rid of exclusionary zoning

Jackson was among a depressingly large majority of councilors who voted to increase exclusionary zoning in Providence– the city is currently being sued for the action. City Council needs to stop legislating multifamily housing and house-sharing away through zoning measures. Top concerns should be getting rid of the R-1 and R-1A designations, to allow single-family-detached-only neighborhoods to get rid of minimum lot sizes, allow granny flats, rowhouses, apartment buildings, and subdivisions of houses into apartments. The R-1A designation is so draconian that it even makes certain kinds of single-family detached housing illegal because it mandates exurban-sized plots of land around them.

Someone who will speak truth on the car tax

A year of RIPTA costs the same as the tax on a $15,000 car, but to hear many city councilors talk about it, you’d think the most important equity thing we could do in the city is raise the exemption on the car tax (which gives every car owner, not just the clunker-owners, a $60 per vehicle tax cut). The next councilor needs to say that cutting the car tax is off the table, especially at a time when doing so means raising the effective property tax*. Lowering the car tax is not about equity, it’s about politicking. 25% of the city is excluded from this tax reduction, which isn’t paid for and puts the city’s budget in danger.

Someone who will fight water privatization

Privatizing the water supply is a crazy idea, and should be stopped at all costs.

Someone who understands smart-growth and the value of downtowns, but isn’t going to give the budget away for free

Urban-style buildings– the kind that have mixed-use, and take up smaller patches of land– cost the city much less money in services, but generate a lot more money in taxes per acre. So, smart-growth naturally entails recognizing that reality and building it into the tax code. That said, there are good ways to do this, and bad ways. I’d be in favor, for instance, of seeing the city and state partner to fix the Superman Building, but I’d like to see taxpayers get shares in the property. I’m not at all fooled into thinking the point of fixing 111 Westminster is the direct, immediate profitability of the property– it’s a historic, iconic building, and fixing it is about the enormous benefit to the neighborhood around it. But if the city and state are going to pour money into something, they should own it. We may break even on the deal, but at least it’s us that breaks even. Just giving money away means we break even while someone else profits for free.

The next city councilor needs to recognize that there are many downtowns in Providence, and see how the value of urban properties is not just in Downcity or the East Side. That means recognizing the way the tax code disables businesses in other corridors, like Broad Street or Cranston Street. It also means fighting loudly against state agencies like RIDOT that create problems for the city’s prosperity. Urban neighborhoods are systematically harmed by bad policies from above, and the city council needs to be a sounding board against those policies, not just a quiet body for practical lawmaking.

Someone who isn’t too parochial

The city should operate as a whole, but often it acts as separate council fiefdoms. It would be nice to see a councilperson come in to Ward 3 that is concerned about the whole city, and thinks about communities outside of the East Side. An example, off-hand, would be the proposal to put a $1.5 million boardwalk bike path along the Seekonk River on the East Side (outside of Jackson’s ward). In itself, it’s a fairly worthy project, but compared to what could be done for biking throughout the whole city on the same budget, it’s not. The city of Minneapolis just budgeted for 30 miles of protected bike lanes– including changes to signal timing, paving, landscaping and so on that could accompany that– for $6 million. In a city of our size, $1.5 million is the kind of money we could spend to connect the South Side and West Side to Downtown and the East Side, but instead it’ll be used for a much smaller project. It’s not the worst kind of problem that could be named, for sure, but it’s the kind of thing that could be improved for future proposals. We should be thinking city-wide.

~~~~

*The “rate” on property taxes went down, while the amount paid has gone up in the most recent budget. This is because properties were assessed at a higher value.

March 17, 2016March 17, 2016

PVD City Council passes Yurdin’s Fields Point expansion review resolution unanimously

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The Providence City Council voted unanimously to approve Councillor Seth Yurdin’s resolution to “require a thorough review of” the “proposed Fields Point Liquefaction Facility… and a Comprehensive Public Participation Plan.”

“This is a very important neighborhood issue,” said Yurdin to the City Council ahead of the resolution’s passage, “it’s a social justice issue, its about treating all our residents fairly. There are significant health issues that have been raised [and] safety concerns, related to locating this facility in proximity to a residential neighborhood.”

The process of approving National Grid’s proposed liquefaction facility at Fields Point is in the hands of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), but as Yurdin noted in his comments before the City Council last night, there has not been much room made for public input into the plan. Part of Yurdin’s resolution calls for “public forums in multiple neighborhood locations” and “shall require representatives of the project site owner [National Grid, presumably] to attend to answer questions and address concerns, as well as require that representatives from Rhode Island Department of Health, Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, and the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Corporation participate in the public forums.”

The resolution also calls for:

An “environmental impact analysis include potential disaster scenarios, evacuation plans, and casualties within a two-mile radius of the project site, as well as evaluates the concentration of other facilities in the area that may impact public health and safety in the case of a disaster.”
That the review “include studies of diesel truck traffic between I-95 and the port area on a daily, monthly, and annual basis, and the estimated particulate matter released into the air as a result of such traffic.”
That the “City Council support the Rhode Island Department of Health request that a Risk Management Plan be required.”
That the “City of Providence will ensure compliance with the highest standards of environmental and health protocols, and will address, to the extent allowed by law, environmental, safety, and health concerns associated with this project.”

Watching the resolution pass were several members of the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island, who were quite pleased with the City Council’s resolution.

Though this resolution by itself will not resolve the issues surrounding the LNG expansion at Fields Point, it will bring much needed attention and public input to the project, allowing a robust discussion of the future of fossil fuels in Rhode Island at a time when the fate of our species is being decided by what we do next.

Read the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island white paper on National Grid’s plan here:

● Flawed Proposal: Background info on National Grid’s unnecessary project

● Potential Disasters: dangerous facility in a high risk area

● Environmental Racism: ongoing and underlying environmental justice issues

● Climate Change: it causes climate change and is at risk from climate impacts

● Public Health: health disparities and impacts on health care institutions

● Economic Inequality: high cost project that will cause economic damage

● Alternatives and Solutions: Strategies for Climate Justice & a Just Transition

January 6, 2016

Details on Elorza’s tax breaks for existing properties

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Here are the details of the multi-million dollar tax breaks Mayor Jorge Elorza and the Providence City Council are in the process of granting to corporate owners of existing properties even as the City Council weighs plans to increase taxes on Providence homeowners.

On December 1 of last year the City Council Committee on Finance considered four ordinances that would extend the existing tax stabilization agreements for Monohassett Mill LLC, Pearl Street Properties LLC and Pearl Street LLC, 60 Valley Street LLC and 166 Valley Street LLC on behalf of the Rising Sun Mills Project, and 100 Fountain Street.

STEP (Stop Tax Evasion in Providence) estimates the total cost of these deals to be in excess of $3 million. Mayor Elorza has expressed his support through Brett Smiley, his Chief Operating Officer, who spoke before the committee in support of these extended tax breaks here, here, here and here.

As STEP points out in their petition to garner public opposition to these tax breaks, “The construction jobs are long gone and these buildings have been occupied for quite some time.”

STEP will be delivering their petition to the Providence City Hall at 6:30 on Thursday evening.

Yesterday the Rhode Island Progressive Democrats (RIPDA) released footage of then candidate Elorza promising that the days of tax agreements with connected developers would be over in his administration. RIPDA maintains that the “deals pending before the city right now are even more egregious than usual. That’s because the development has already happened. There’s no question of encouraging development–the developers want their special tax deals to continue. This is just giving the city’s limited tax dollars to big developers. Pure and simple.”

Clearly, Mayor Elorza has a lot of explaining to do to Providence taxpayers in order to justify their housing tax increases in light of his generosity to connected insiders.

September 18, 2015September 18, 2015

The Procaccianti Group still grinding employees for profit

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Hotel workers at the Providence Hilton and Renaissance hotels in downtown Providence are still working without a contract, and are still experiencing work-related injury and illness at rates 69% higher at the Hilton and 85% higher at the Renaissance Hotel than the national average.

Last night workers rallied at the Providence City Hall entrance used by Providence City Council members to let them know that The Procaccianti Group (TPG), the company that runs both hotels, is literally grinding profits out of the long term health of their employees.

People work so that they can maintain their health and lives, not so that those lives can be used up by greedy corporations that value profit over people. What TPG is doing is deeply immoral, which is why the boycott of all TPG hotels is so important. The utter disregard displayed by the Rhode Island General Assembly towards the plight of these workers and their rights has been sickening, and a stain upon our state.

Mike Araujo, on his way to receive his Progressive Hero award from the RI Progressive Democrats of America for his work with the Restaurant Opportunities Center and the One Fair Wage Coalition, stopped by the hotel workers’ protest to lend his support.

September 4, 2015September 12, 2015

10 PVD city councilors voted for exclusionary zoning last night

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The Providence City Council voted 10-3 to modify the zoning code to add exclusionary zoning restrictions on student housing on Thursday night. Under the provision, persons defined as “college students” would not be able to live more than three to a house in zones 1 and 1A (map), despite reports in The Projo that many of the homes in question have as many as five bedrooms.

Zoning laws in Providence must be passed by City Council twice, and either have a veto-proof majority or be signed into law by the mayor. The measure, if passed a second time, would be a challenge to housing affordability and transit-oriented design. The upshot is that the 10-3 vote is very fragile. Just one turnaround would allow Mayor Jorge Elorza to veto the zoning change. I am contacting Mayor Elorza’s chief-of-staff Brett Smiley for comment, but by publication time it is unlikely that I will have word on the mayor’s position. Keep your eyes peeled for updates!

The tempest-in-a-teapot in Ward 5 started around student noise. Councilwoman Jo-Ann Ryan has tried proposing other methods of shunning students, including additional fees on student housing, but decided to settle on this zoning measure, according to reporting done in The Projo.

Changes in density affect transit. Transit viability is affected along an exponential curve, rather than a linear progression, based on density. So small changes in density through exclusionary zoning can have large reverberating effects on transit frequencies, and those changes disproportionately hurt low income people, especially time-poor low income people, like those with multiple jobs or children.

Changes in zoning like this also negatively affect housing affordability, not only for students, but for everyone. You might find yourself saying, “Who cares what happens to college students?” It’s not like someone is being discriminated against on the basis of race, or gender, or sexuality. Being a college student is just a stage in life, and it’s not even a stage in life that everyone goes through.” But the students who are most affected by this type of rule will be disproportionately those students who are riding the razor’s edge of affording school. Upper class students will shrug this off, and perhaps not even notice it, or be annoyed by it for lifestyle reasons.

Students who can find housing will. When students overflow from housing they may have previously been able to occupy, they may outbid others with less money looking for apartments. While sometimes this outbidding process can lead to greater housing development, resolving the imbalance, the zoning ordinance itself stops an increase in zoning density, and actually reduces densities below their existing levels. The price increases here are also not due to people’s increased desire for a neighborhood–which is at least a mixed blessing–but by artificial regulations that will just keep certain people out. The process of using zoning to limit housing is one of the things that has most affected displacement of working class families from homes. It tries to shape our cities into an imagined ideal of single-family homes that never existed except in the imagination of someone like Frank Lloyd Wright. This means that housing will become expensive, but with none of the attendant positives of that process–a kind of “stagflation” of housing policies.

Who are the people who voted for exclusionary zoning?

Councilman Kevin Jackson, Ward 3, Mt. Hope (my councilman)

Mr. Jackson narrowly won his last election against a write-in candidate, Marcus Mitchell, who started a write-in campaign for his seat just before Election Day. The election went to a recount. I have contacted Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Jackson on this issue, but as yet have not heard back, but multiple previous conversations I’ve had with Marcus Mitchell have centered on his involvement with RhodeMap, which opposes exclusionary zoning.

Councilwoman Jo-Ann Ryan, Ward 5, Elmhurst

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Councilwoman Ryan voted for her own bill. She is a new councilor.

Councilman Michael Correia, Ward 6, Manton

Councilman John Iggliozzi, Ward 7, Silver Lake

Councilwoman Carmen Castillo, Ward 9, Elmwood

Council President Luis Aponte, Ward 10, Lower South Providence and Washington Park

The Councilman’s vote for exclusionary zoning shocks me, because he has frequently been a voice for tenant’s rights and an acceptable if not perfect voice for transit-oriented development. This is a misstep for the Council President, and we hope he’ll change his vote.

Councilwoman Mary Kay Harris, Ward 11, Upper South Side

Councilman Bryan Principe, Ward 13, Federal Hill and the West End

I have to report disappointment on this vote by Councilman Principe, as I’ve found him to be a very urbanist-oriented councilman much of the time. I hope that residents in my old neighborhood of the West End will speak out to Councilman Principe, and that he’ll change his vote next week.

Councilman David A. Salvatore, Ward 15, Elmhurst and Wanskuck

Councilwoman Sabina Matos, Ward 16, Olneyville

Many of these councilpersons represent districts that ought to be unified in their opposition to exclusionary zoning for one reason or another.

Councilmen Yurdin, Zurier and Jennings voted against the measure. Councilmen Narducci and Hassett were not present at Thursday night’s meeting. Councilman Zurier’s hands haven’t exactly been clean. In his own district he has worked to make apartments and other types of multifamily housing less easy to develop.

Please contact your city councilor–and indeed, please contact the entire Providence City Council–and let them know that Providence is not supportive of exclusionary zoning policies. And ask Mayor Elorza to veto any vote next Thursday that isn’t over the veto-proof margin of 10.

Update: According to a by Patrick Anderson, Mayor Elorza’s office will support the zoning change, as proposed.

~~~~

July 9, 2015

PVD City Council fails to deliver on minimum wage promise in new TSAs

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Last year, after the General Assembly stole away the power of cities and towns in Rhode Island to set their own minimum wages, Providence City Councillor John Igliozzi told a packed room of disappointed hotel workers that the city was not prohibited from imposing higher minimum wage standards via tax stabilization agreements (TSAs), which are contracts between cities and private industry, and cannot be interfered with by the General Assembly.

Igliozzi said then that all future TSAs should include strong minimum wage requirements and many other worker protections and rights.

Igliozzi is the chair of the Providence City Council Finance Committee, so one would expect that he would follow up on this proposal, but so far, nothing like this has been incorporated into the new TSAs being cooked up in City Hall and expected to be voted on this week.

When Jesse Strecker, executive director of RI Jobs with Justice, testified before the Finance Committee of the Providence City Council, he presented a short list of proposals to ensure that whatever TSAs were adopted would truly benefit not just the investors and owners of billion dollar corporations but also the working people and families of Providence.

Strecker’s list included the following:

1. Provide good, career track jobs for Providence residents most in need by utilizing apprenticeship programs and community workforce agreements, hiring at least 50% of their workforce from the most economically distressed communities of Providence, with a substantial portion of that workforce made up of people facing barriers to employment such as being a single parent or homeless, or having a criminal record, offering job training programs so local residents are equipped with the skills necessary to perform the available jobs and hiring responsible contractors who do not break employment and civil rights law;

2. Pay workers a living wage of at least $15 per hour, provide health benefits and 12 paid sick days per year, and practice fair scheduling: offering full time work to existing employees before hiring new part time employees, letting workers know their schedule two weeks in advance, and providing one hour’s pay for every day that workers are forced to be ‘on call’;

3. For commercial projects, create a certain number of permanent, full-time jobs, or for housing developments, ensure that 20% of all units are sold or rented at the HUD defined affordable level. Or, contribute at an equivalent level to a “Community Benefits Fund,” overseen and directed by community members providing funding to create affordable housing, rehabilitate abandoned properties, or finance other community projects such as brown field remediation; and

4. Present projected job creation numbers before approval of the project, and provide monthly reporting on hiring, wages and benefits paid, and other critical pieces of information, to an enforcement officer, overseen by a Tax Incentive Review Board comprised of members of the public and appointees of the city council and mayor, to make sure companies are complying with their agreements, and be subject to subsidy recapture if they do not follow through.

Mayor Jorge Elorza submitted an amendment mandating that under the new TSAs, “projects over $10 million will be eligible for a 15-year tax stabilization agreement that will see no taxes in the first year, base land tax only in years 2-4, a 5% property tax in year 5 and then a gradual annual increase for the remainder of the term.”

In return, the “agreements include women and minority business enterprise incentives as well as apprenticeship requirements for construction and use of the City’s First Source requirements to encourage employment for Providence residents.”

But that short paragraph above contains few of the proposals suggested by Strecker.

Supporting the Jobs with Justice proposals are just about every community group and workers’ rights organization in Providence, including RI Building and Construction Trades Council, Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), UNITE HERE Local 217, IUPAT Local 195 DC 11, District 1199 SEIU New England, RI Progressive Democrats of America, Teamsters Local 251, Fuerza Laboral / Power of Workers, Environmental Justice League of RI, RI Carpenters Local 94, Restaurant Opportunities Center RI (ROC United), Mount Hope Neighborhood Association, American Friends Service Committee, Occupy Providence, Olneyville Neighborhood Association (ONA), Fossil Free RI, Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM), Prosperity for RI, and the Brown University Warren Alpert Medical School Prison Health Interest Group.

April 17, 2015

PVD City Council calls on governor, legislature to save Bannister House

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Photo courtesy of SEIU. Click on the image to see more pictures from yesterday's march. — Photo courtesy of SEIU RI Council. Click on the image to see more pictures from yesterday’s march.

Following a march on Thursday to the State House from Bannister House, a 125 year old progressive nursing home facility that because of financial difficulties is in receivership, the Providence City Council passed a resolution urging Governor Gina Raimondo and the General Assembly to do everything their power “to keep Bannister House in operation.”

Here’s the resolution the City Council passed last night.

Bannister House has been providing progressive nursing care in Providence since 1890, when it was founded as a facility for elderly Black servants who often had no other family with whom to live out the end of their lives. To this day, Bannister House still provides progressive elder-care. But financial difficulties have forced it to file for receivership, leaving the future for the 80 residents and 130 employees uncertain.

“Residents and staff consider each other like family,” said Shirley Lomba, a CNA who has worked at Bannister House for 13 years, “and family isn’t supposed to be broken up.”

The group marched to the State House, where there is a bust of Christiana Bannister, the namesake and initial benefactor of Bannister House.

November 9, 2014November 10, 2014

What next in ward 3?

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When RI Future first broke the story of Marcus Mitchell’s write-in campaign, the mainstream media wouldn’t give it so much as a mention. But on the Wednesday after the election, it was big, big news. Ahead by a mere 22 votes in the “machine count,” Mitchell would ultimately lose to the incumbent Kevin Jackson on the mail-in ballots.

Regardless of anybody’s opinions of either candidate or their campaigns, we all should recognize that we have witnessed a near-historic exercise in the power of electoral participation. As I have written repeatedly, candidates running unopposed in the primary and/or general election are the hallmarks of a political machine, and political machines destroy communities.

Whether you like it or not, a large portion of Ward 3 made a powerful statement that they were dissatisfied with Jackson’s leadership and wanted a new voice. That portion of the ward proved just smaller than those who supported Jackson. And that’s how it goes in an electoral government.

The question now is: how will Jackson respond to the uprising against him?

Respond or retaliate?

There was a sense in the final week leading up to the election that the real winner in Ward 3 would be Ward 3. Suddenly faced with a serious challenge, Jackson remembered that there was a ward to be taken care of. Seemingly overnight, all the dangerous trip hazards that had lingered for many years on the commercial section of Hope Street were fixed.

But now that we’ve all recovered from the euphoria and/or depression and/or hangover, it has occurred to some in the Mitchell camp that rather than responding to their long-ignored issues, Jackson may chose to retaliate against those who opposed him. He was Cianci’s co-chair, the thinking goes, and we all know how Mr. Cianci dealt with such issues.

So far, I have heard nothing either way, nor was I out looking for it. This man does not live by politics alone. Were I one of Jackson’s advisers, my counsel would be to win over his detractors by acting on their behalf…you know, like an elected representative. Four years is time enough to heal the wounds and rebuild the coalition.

Conversely, those opposed to Jackson may well be wondering why they didn’t challenge him earlier. The conventional wisdom was that his stronghold would prove unbreakable. But if a last-minute, write-in candidate can take him to a hand count of the mail-in ballots, imagine what a proper campaign for the Democratic primary could achieve.

Jackson likely knows this as well. At a certain level, it doesn’t matter what he does over the next three-and-a-half years. If I were a gambling man, I would bet folding money that there will be a Jackson-Mitchell rematch in 2018 and this time for the Democratic primary.

Just like with the Mitchell write-in campaign, remember, readers: you heard it here first!

November 5, 2014November 6, 2014

Ward 3 on the verge of history; write-in Marcus Mitchell ahead

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It is possible that Marcus Mitchell will win the race for Providence City Council Ward 3 with a write-in campaign.

If he does, it will be an historic achievement. Has Providence ever seen such an occurrence?

The preliminary count shows “write-in” with a 22-vote lead over incumbent Kevin Jackson, 1,829 to 1,807. Emergency ballots and mail-in ballots have not yet been counted, and the write-in ballots must be certified. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck typically receive a few votes in nearly every political contest, and misspellings could also erode Mitchell’s count.

Many in Ward 3 feel that even if Jackson holds on to his seat, he will be a very different councilor. His support for Cianci put him on the wrong side of the electorate, and he must surely know that he will face a vigorous primary challenge in 2018. This race showed him a weak incumbent.

A tale of two turnouts

The single most striking take-away for me was the low turnout in precinct 2818 that includes most of the Camp Street neighborhood. Jackson won this precinct roughly 2:1, but with fewer than 600 votes cast. Compare this to the 2012 election when over 1,600 votes were cast in 2818.

Of course, 2012 was a presidential election and this was a midterm, and redistricting makes a comparison to 2010 impossible. But consider this: precinct 2816 at the north end of the ward cast nearly 1,300 votes compared to about 1,800 votes in 2012.

In other words, turnout in 2816 fell about 1/3 while turnout in 2818 fell by 2/3. The common wisdom said that Camp Street was Jackson’s base of power, but when challenged, he could not turn out the vote. Results from precinct 2880, which includes the northern end of Camp Street, showed tepid activity with fewer than 450 votes cast total.

If Jackson had turned out the vote in these precincts, he would have won handily.

What’s next?

Your Frymaster is in uncharted territory here. I need to find out how and where the ballots will be counted. As always, I’ll let you know what I find.

November 3, 2014November 3, 2014

Jackson doubles down; Mitchell fires back

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Providence Ward 3 City Councilor Kevin Jackson distributed flyers under his own name, repeating the false claim originally voiced by the Providence Apartment Association on his behalf, namely that his write-in challenger Marcus Mitchell lamented Rick Santorum’s withdrawal from the 2012 presidential race.

Meanwhile, the Mitchell campaign has sent Jackson a letter that provides clear, compelling exculpatory evidence and demands an immediate retraction. If Jackson and his campaign continue to distribute this flyer now knowing for certain that their claim is false, it becomes bona fide libel.

According to information from the Mitchell campaign, Jennifer Seitz, who teaches political science at Georgia Perimeter College created and managed the blog Twenty Year Revolution from which the quote was taken. This fits with similar results from my own searching for “jenecseitz,” the WordPress user that authored all the post on the blog. The Mitchell campaign has also located a person named Marcus Mitchell who attended Georgia Perimeter College.

Any slightly savvy Internet user would look at Twenty Year Revolution and realize that this was a teaching tool created specifically to engage students in using social media in a political context. If you scan a number of posts, you’ll see many of the same names over and over again. Also, 100% of the comments use the same format of posting a single link as an addendum.

Your Frymaster has reached out to Ms. Seitz about this situation and will update this post with any new information.

UPDATE: 11/3, 8:30 AM—Jennifer Seitz replied with the following:

[Twenty Year Revolution] was a teaching tool used in my American Government course at Georgia Perimeter College. Marcus was a student of mine, I do remember him, and I can assure you he is not running for office in Providence.

More on Marcus Mitchell:

Jackson allies smear Marcus Mitchell – Frymaster
Uprising in Ward 3: Marcus Mitchell wages write-in campaign – Frymaster

November 1, 2014November 1, 2014

Jackson allies smear Marcus Mitchell

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In 2010, Frank Caprio inexplicably destroyed his campaign by telling Barack Obama to “take his endorsement and, really, shove it.” Ward 3 city councillor Kevin Jackson may be having a similar moment. Jackson-backers the Providence Apartment Association sent out an email today potentially libeling Marcus Mitchell, attributing to the write-in candidate a quote that Jackson and the PAA can’t possibly believe was actually made by their opponent.

The quote by a person using the name Marcus Mitchell laments Rick Santorum dropping out of the 2012 presidential race. The email does not provide a source or context for the quote and asserts that it was Jackson’s opponent who made the statement. The PAA has to know that this is not true, and that would make it libel, a civil but not criminal offense.

But we can’t prove it. At least not yet.

Department of dirty tricks

The PAA is among the unsavory supporters swirling around the Jackson/Cianci camp. These are the investment property owners who, unsurprisingly, don’t like having to pay taxes. Jackson has promised to work to repeal the tax increase on non-owner-occupied rentals. In common parlance, this is an association of slumlords.

In their three+ years on Facebook, the PAA has garnered a whopping 132 “likes”. Not exactly a groundswell of support. And, honestly, do most people in Providence really care what these people think or want? Obviously, Mr. Jackson does.

Let’s not forget that Mr. Jackson already made the bad decision to co-chair Buddy Cianci’s 2014 mayor campaign. Nor should any of us be surprised that old-school influence peddlers like Jackson and Cianci would resort to such tactics. Jackson is savvy enough not to have done this himself, letting the already-disliked PAA take the fall for this foolish, borderline-criminal blunder.

The exact portion of the email in question reads:

As a registered republican in Philadelphia, Mr Mitchell also was a top level aide to Rick Santorum [true] and wanted him to be President. [not true]

Here’s what he said when Santorum dropped out:

“Its heartbreaking to hear Mr. Santorum suspending his presidential campaign. He left a mark for other candidates in the running.” [somebody, using the name Marcus Mitchell, said this]

Politicians resort to dirty tricks for one reason and one reason only: they’re scared. If Kevin Jackson were confident in his chances after last night’s candidates forum, this email would never have gone out. The incumbent can feel the momentum that Mitchell is generating. He certainly felt it last night when the Mitchell supporters seemed the more numerous and proved themselves the more enthusiastic by their applause. Cheers for Jackson’s closing remarks, in which he stumbled and repeated himself, were distinctly tepid.

Note to Kevin Jackson: there’s this thing called the Internet

20 years ago, it probably have taken Mr. Mitchell weeks to debunk this smear, if he could debunk it at all. But today, it will be over in a single news cycle. Because the Internet.

This whole Internet thing must be fairly new to people like Kevin Jackson. I mean…I can’t find a Facebook page for his campaign or a Twitter account or even a website. Hell, his page on the city council website doesn’t even have a photo!

Mr. Jackson and the PAA will probably be surprised at how fast this blows up in their faces.

Here’s the source of the quote. It’s from a comment from an otherwise anonymous blog commenter using the name Marcus Mitchell, and it comes at the bottom of a small post on an obscure, now defunct blog called Twenty Year Revolution. The second sentence in the comment reads:

I’m not into politics or elections.

That’s the give-away. At the time this comment was made (April 2012), Marcus Mitchell was up to his neck in the highly-politicized fight to create the Providence Community Library.

While there’s no smoking gun that would prove Jackson and PAA the knew that the quote was not from their opponent, they knew. If there were a smoking gun (or if one turns up), that would make it libel, and libel is punishable in civil court.

But here’s how you know that Jackson and the PAA knew these are different people: their email had already brought up their opponent’s highly political past. They knew this wasn’t him.

Mitchell’s Republican past

From Day One, the Jackson camp has tried to make hay out of the fact that their opponent—our Marcus Mitchell—was once a registered Republican and served as a staffer for then-US Senator Rick Santorum. Mitchell ran Santorum’s community relations circa 2005. This story from the alt-weekly Philadelphia City Paper about protesters wanting to contact both PA senators shows exactly how Mitchell handled the office—brilliantly.

Regarding this period of work, the Mitchell campaign has said:

As a longtime progressive, Marcus does not share Sen. Santorum’s views on social issues and the senator was aware of that when he offered Marcus the position as Director of Community & Economic Development. He was offered the job because of his record of community service in the Philadelphia area, and he took the job in order to assure that issues of diversity and reconciliation would be considered in the office of one of the country’s most conservative legislators. It was a courageous step to take and he is proud of the work he did there.

The choice in ward 3

Some may find Mr. Mitchell’s GOP past unsettling, even a deal-breaker. But 100% of the people I know who have worked with him in Providence have nothing but the best to say about him. And it is clear from the organizations he has chosen to lead that this is a man who puts community interests first.

Voters in ward 3 need to chose between this challenger—an open book with a proven history of building successful movements and coalitions—and a barely-visible incumbent allied with the worst actors on the political scene.

Not really a choice, is it?

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