Panhandling and human dignity

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Who among us has never asked for help? Who among us is so self-sufficient that they have never relied on the kindness of strangers? And when we ask for help, or lean on our friends, family or even strangers for support, have we given up our dignity, or are we simply demonstrating our humanity? What, after all, is more human than relying on our greatest strength, each other?

“There is nothing dignified about standing on street corners, or venturing into the middle of the street, dressed in dirty, shabby clothes, in all sorts of weather, with a crude cardboard sign, begging passersby for help,” wrote Bishop Thomas Tobin in a letter to the Providence Journal last week, but he was wrong. Dignity, the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect, is, by Catholic principle, “inherent and inviolable.” Human dignity has been called the “cornerstone of all Catholic social teaching.”

Humanists affirm the dignity of every human being. A cornerstone Humanist document is the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 1 states, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” No distinction is made in the declaration based on class or property.

I’ll avoid the sexist term “brotherhood” (the Declaration was written in 1948 after all) and call it our “spirit of kinship.” This idea, that we are one large human family, reminds us to rely on each other when things go wrong in our lives. Our kinship is a fundamental part of what makes us human, and without it, our society and our lives fracture.

Through this fracturing, people end up on the street, homeless, hungry and alone with their demons. The truth of human dignity means that it should not be the responsibility of the downtrodden to ask for our help. Our own human dignity requires us to offer it.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights also affirms the human right to expression, the human right to freely move within our cities and as a consequence, affirms our right to ask for assistance.

“The problems [associated with panhandling] have spread since Mayor Jorge Elorza, responding to the threat of action from the American Civil Liberties Union and others, directed that the police should no longer enforce ordinances dealing with panhandling and loitering,” said Tobin in his letter. “The ACLU, while presumably well-intentioned, has done no one a favor.”

In defending the human and constitutional rights of panhandlers, the ACLU respected human dignity in a way Bishop Tobin seems unprepared to do. The “favor” the ACLU did was to remind us that rather than sweeping people in need out of sight, it is far better to provide the things they need to live their lives comfortably.

Some religious leaders understand this, but many others don’t get it, even as they wonder why their moral authority is crumbling.

September 14, 2016

Press conference presents a glimpse of our dystopian future

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On Wednesday morning, reporters and activists were prevented from attending real estate developer Joseph Paolino’s press conference where he was to announce his plans regarding the issue of homelessness. The behavior of the security guards and police officers at the Providence Convention Center, where the press conference was held, became a preview of what many fear might become the norm if the wrong policies are instituted in downtown Providence.

As activists and reporters entered the convention center, a security guard raised his hand and stopped everyone cold. “I don’t know where you guys are trying to go,” said the guard, “but I can’t let you guys go anywhere.”

A Providence police officer added that only “designated” people were allow to go up to the fifth floor where the press conference was taking place. It became quickly apparent that the activists and some reporters were not the “right kind of people” for the exclusive press conference.

Calls upstairs to the people in charge were useless. It didn’t matter to the convention center security guards or to the police officers that reporters and city residents were being denied access to a public meeting pertinent to their lives. What mattered, it seemed, was how one was dressed, who you knew, and how security perceived you.

People who were dressed in nice suits and ties, wearing nice clothes and carrying briefcases – or, let’s face it, white and upper class people – were allowed access. If you didn’t fit that bill, you were stopped in the lobby.

WPRO reporter Anita Baffoni was allowed upstairs with another woman who claimed she was a reporter, but RI Future’s Bob Plain was denied. Security claimed that the women had “credentials.” This is a matter in dispute.

Soon, people came downstairs from where the press conference was taking place and started approving some people and turning down others. Again, this was done either from familiarity, i.e. people in positions of authority recognizing each other, or through profiling along racial and class lines.

“It’s a private meeting,” said a man, who suddenly seemed in charge. “We’re trying to treat everyone like ladies and gentlemen,” he said. I countered that he was treating people like “second-class citizens” but he doubled down, saying that that “was absolutely not true.”

Some people were allowed to take the escalator without having so much as a single word or objection from security lobbied at them. These people were white and dressed nicely. For others it became necessary to storm past security and risk arrest if they wished to attend the press conference.

Convention center security eventually admitted that they couldn’t accost people. That didn’t stop them from threatening arrest. The Providence Police who were present were not arresting people, however, even when some activists made it all the way up to the fifth floor and began chanting outside the room where Paolino was holding court.

Is this the future for Kennedy Plaza? Access for some, as long as they look rich and white and have the right connections, while others become subject to ruthless regulations meant to keep us always on the edge of arrest?

Ordinances, such as “banning the distribution of anything to occupants of vehicles” are being proposed to the Providence City Council and being seriously considered. The ACLU’s Steve Brown calls this proposed ordinance “a direct attack on individuals who are struggling with homelessness or poverty and who seek to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights to solicit donations.”

To his credit, Paolino said that restricting access to some reporters was inadvertent. He said he had no intention of preventing RI Future, the Providence Journal, RINPR and the Providence Business News from attending. But he did want to keep the activists and protesters away. He didn’t want his press conference disrupted.

When we hide our public meetings and press conferences behind security guards and police officers, restricting access to only the “right” people and the proper, embedded media, we set up a system that respects the rights of the rich over the rights of the poor. We set up a two tiered class system of the kind that lifts up some people by stepping on others.

Not unlike what some people would like to see in Kennedy Plaza.

September 13, 2016September 13, 2016

Burrillville files motion to dismiss Invenergy application

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Because Invenergy “has either refused or is unable to provide timely information regarding its proposed water supply… its Application should… be dismissed” writes Attorney Michael McElroy, representing the Town of Burrillville, in a motion filed with the Energy Facilities Siting Board (EFSB) today.

Invenergy is proposing to build a $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant in Burrillville, a project that has the support of both Governor Gina Raimondo and the Providence Journal. The residents of Burrillville and every environmental group in Rhode Island oppose the plan.

Invenergy’s original plan was to pump water from a well contaminated with MTBE, but on Aug 19 the Pascoag Utility District voted unanimously to deny Invenergy access to that water. Under EFSB rules and the Act that established the EFSB, “Applications must include information regarding all required support facilities, including water resources.” Without such information, writes McElroy, “The Application cannot be evaluated in a meaningful way.”

McElroy’s motion to dismiss also notes that the Town of Burrillville, the Burrillville Planning Board and the Burrillville Zoning Board of Review “have formally requested information regarding Invenergy’s water source on multiple occasions” and that “Invenergy repeatedly promised to provide such information, but to date has failed to do so.”

“In fact,” writes McElroy, “in a Motion for Extension filed by Invenergy last Friday, Invenergy stated that its ‘expects’ to have a water source ‘within the coming weeks.’ This is uselessly vague.

Jerry Elmer, Senior Attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), “supports the Town of Burrillville’s Motion to Dismiss the Invenergy case, which was filed today. In fact, CLF has been preparing its own Motion to Dismiss on the same grounds as the Town’s Motion: The Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB) process cannot go forward without the required Advisory Opinions from the Town; and the Town cannot prepare the required Advisory Opinions because Invenergy has failed to provide legally required information.

“Invenergy’s application to build a new fossil fuel power plant in Burrillville is incomplete, and the EFSB must dismiss the application. CLF argued its first Motion to Dismiss last January because Invenergy’s application was incomplete then; and CLF will continue to argue the same point now: Invenergy’s application remains incomplete. It is past time for the EFSB to dismiss this case.”

August 30, 2016August 30, 2016

EFSB established as ‘one-stop shopping’ for power companies

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On the day the Rhode Island Senate Finance committee passed the legislation that would establish the Energy Facilities Siting Board (EFSB), Robert L Bendick Jr, the director of the RI Department of Environmental Management (DEM) asked, “I just wonder what’s going on here. What’s the driving force behind this?” [Providence Journal, April 11, 1986; pg A-15]

The question Bendick asked on April 9, 1986 strongly resonates today. Jerry Elmer, of the Conservation Law Foundation, said the EFSB “was designed to take the power to stop a proposal like Invenergy’s out of the hands of the local people… and put it into the hands of the EFSB.”

Governor Gina Raimondo refers to EFSB decision making as “the process” and asks us all to trust in it, but how are we to trust if we can’t tell if the intent of the process is to serve Rhode Islanders or to serve the energy industry?

What is going on here? Here’s some historical context.

Back in 1986, Ward Pimley, writing for the ProJo, wrote, “Sen. Victoria Lederberg, D-Providence, the sponsor, said the [EFSB] bill streamlines the approval process required for obtaining licenses to build major energy facilities for generation of electricity, treatment of liquefied natural gas, oil refineries and the like…”

Victoria Lederberg was an impressive woman and public servant. A judge, she “served as state representative from 1975-1983 ,representing the East Side of Providence, and state senator from 1985-1991… Lederberg was a trailblazer, becoming the first woman of Italian heritage to serve in the Rhode Island legislature.”

Pimley continues, “In previous testimony, Lederberg called the siting board concept ‘one-stop shopping,’ where interested developers could learn what they must do to obtain licenses and fulfill obligations to build. She said it removes jurisdictional overlapping among regulatory agencies.

“She said the bill recognizes the state’s need for ‘reasonably priced, reliable sources of energy’ and balances that with issues affecting public health and environmental impact.”

Nine years earlier, in his January 1977 inaugural address, Governor J Joseph Garahy outlined his ideas for the state’s energy objectives. Siting of energy projects heretofore had been haphazard, and based solely on the whims of industry. Garahy had a vision “to site energy facilities in light of state plans, rather than private industry decisions.” He was governor of a Rhode Island that was suffering from environmental mismanagement, and the new governor was hoping for a different approach. The EFSB, at its best, would be a realization of Garahy’s vision, but in an effort to please industry rather than regulate it, Garahy’s vision may have been compromised.

Public Utilities Commission] Chairman Edward F Burke, Pimley wrote, “testified earlier that the legislation is important because there are eight or nine potential applications for energy-generating facilities that could be built in some other state unless the licensing procedure were streamlined.

“He cited a $300-million facility proposed for Burrillville that should provide electricity by 1989 on property owned by Narragansett Electric as an example of the type of facility that can be built.”

This $300-million facility is the Ocean State Power plant, which currently uses 4 million gallons of water a day to cool its turbines.

Recognizing that the EFSB would allow industry to override the environmental concerns of the state, Sen. William C. O’Neill, today more famous as a South County bike path than a Democratic senator from Narragansett, objected. Here’s Pimley’s play-by-play of what he called a ‘hot debate’:

“You feel DEM is an obstacle,” O’Neill said. “You removed that obstacle, and you know it.”

“You’re absolutely incorrect,” Lederberg shot back.

“I’m concerned that you’re allowing other agencies to override DEM,” O’Neill said.

“I totally disagree,” Lederberg said. “This shares decision-making. DEM has an important role. That’s why we’ve made them one of the board members. It does not weaken the permit-granting power by DEM.”

Lederberg said DEM does not have veto authority to stop any project it wants, but it still is involved in the planning process.

Then Sen. David R. Carlin Jr, D-Newport, said the siting board can overrule decisions of other agencies.

“It seems it’s clearly overriding DEM,” he said.

O’Neill, seeing DEM Director Robert L Bendick Jr watching the proceedings, said he would vote for the bill if Bendick agreed that DEM’s interests would not be jeopardized by it, but committee chairman Donald R. Hickey, D-Providence, called for a vote.

“The bill was approved, 8 to 4.”

This is what prompted Bendick to ask, “What’s going on here?” adding, “If what they’re doing is overriding the department’s authority, I’m opposed to it.”

Months earlier, in an editorial, the ProJo had endorsed Lederberg’s proposal writing, “As a House member in 1979, Mrs. Lederberg sponsored a similar bill that died in the Senate. Former Gov. J. Joseph Garrahy, who supported the bill, issued an executive order embodying many of its details, but that wasn’t an adequate substitute for statutory enactment…

“Mrs. Lederberg says energy installations must be reviewed in terms of regional need and cost-effectiveness, not on the basis that Rhode Island must be totally self-sufficient in energy.” [Providence Journal February 17, 1986; page A-10] Note that Lederberg is not quoted as mentioning, and that the ProJo editorial seems uninterested in, environmental issues.

Pimley noted that the bill, as originally introduced by Lederberg, allowed the General Assembly to override an EFSB decision, but that provision was removed before passage because “it was no longer needed.”

Pimley also noted that “support for the legislation came from the Governor’s Office of Energy Assistance, the PUC and Narragansett Electric Co.”

Narragansett Electric is today a wholly owned sub-entity of National Grid.

Of special concern to all involved with the establishment of the EFSB was a proposal “to build twin natural-gas-fired plants in Burrillville. According to a plan disclosed Tuesday, the plants would be supplied by a new, 25-mile gas pipeline that would run from Sutton, Mass., to the Burrillville site and on to Cranston.” [Providence Journal, February 13, 1986; page A-14]

The very first application the EFSB took up was the Ocean State Power Plant in Burrillville.

June 16, 2016June 16, 2016

Keable/Fogarty power plant bill: An autopsy

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Perhaps the most honest statement to come out of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding Paul Fogarty’s bill S3037A came in the hallway outside the hearing room after the vote, courtesy of Senator Leo Raptakis.

“What happened in there?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Raptakis, “I don’t know why they brought it up for a vote at all.”

The confusion Raptakis felt was understandable. Normally, if you want to kill a bill in the General Assembly, you just never let it come to a vote. Eventually the session ends and the bill is dead.

So why bring the bill up for a vote? What was really going on?

Senator Paul Fogarty’s bill would have allowed the voters of Burrillville the opportunity to vote on any tax agreements made by their town council with any power plant located in the town. The immediate effect of the bill would be to allow voters to decide on a tax treaty being negotiated with Invenergy, which wants to build a $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant in the town. The Burrillville Town Council has been repeatedly dishonest with the residents of the town, and has been actively working to bring the power plant into the town against the wishes of most residents. Residents of Burrillville want a say in the process and they want to prevent the power plant from being built.

The House version of the bill, sponsored by Representative Cale Keable, passed out of the House Committee on Environment and Natural Resources on an 11-2 vote and passed the full House on June 8. The Senate version, after a long, contentious hearing that pitted Burrillville residents and environmentalists against labor and business, was tabled without a vote.

The forces in favor of the power plant did not want this bill to pass. It is believed by many that this bill will make it impossible for the power plant to be built, because it will interfere with Invenergy’s ability to secure financing for the project. A stable tax treaty is important to Invenergy because without it, the company faces the prospect of paying full taxes on the power plant. No tax treaty, no funding, some say.

In an effort to kill the bill, Invenergy paid for a full page ad in the Providence Journal. An editorial and an op-ed were published in the paper as well. Pressure was brought to bear on the Senate from the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce whose lobbyists testified against the bills. And labor, which wants the plant built because of the much needed jobs it will provide, lobbied the Senate hard.

Meanwhile, there was pressure being placed on Governor Gina Raimondo by environmentalists to not veto the bill, were it to be passed. Raimondo did not want to be put in the position of having to veto this bill. She wants the public appearance of being strong on environmental issues, even if she supports fracking and fossil fuels. For Raimondo’s purposes, the less known on the national scene about her true environmental positions, the better. Vetoing this bill would create the wrong kind of headlines, the kind of headlines that might hamper her national political ambitions.

Satisfying these powerful players is easy. All that needed to happen was for the bill to never get out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the bill would die, never to be voted on. There’s only one problem: If that were to happen, Senator Paul Fogarty would have failed the community he serves, and though Fogarty, for political reasons, is opposed to the power plant and in favor of his bill, he’s a strong union member and supporter. Under normal circumstances he would be a reliable pro-union vote and a valuable ally.

A way to both kill the bill and save Paul Fogarty’s political career was therefore devised.

Four Senators, Frank Lombardi, William Conley, Donna Nesselbush and Stephen Archambault, presented legal-sounding arguments against the bill, all the while telling Burrillville residents watching the proceedings live or at home how wonderful their Senator Paul Fogarty is. They laid it on pretty thick at times.

“Kudos to Senator Fogarty for the concerns that he showed his constituency in the town of Burrillville,” said Senator Lombardi, “and [for] having the intestinal fortitude to bring forth the bill on the behalf of his constituents.

“And I mean this, Senator,” continued Lombardi, looking at Fogarty who was seated in the center of the room, “I think that the people of the town of Burrillville are very fortunate to have you as their Senator and the work that you do for them. Quite frankly you listened to them and you put forth what you thought was a very favorable bill for your citizenry.”

Not to be out done, Senator Conley said, “Senator Fogarty’s advocacy on behalf of the people of Burrillville on this issue was extraordinary. I’m just about at the close of my fourth year in the General Assembly and I can say without reservation that I’ve never seen one of my colleagues advocate in such a meaningful and, I don’t want to say aggressive but certainly in a strong way, on behalf of legislation. His heart and soul is behind this bill and whether you agree with one of your colleagues or not, it’s always that kind of advocacy in this building that often goes unsung. So it’s important to note that.”

Senator Nesselbush was more circumspect in her praise, saying, “Senator Fogarty has been a passionate supporter of this bill that he even convinced me to be a co-sponsor of the bill.”

Senator Archambault, who might run for Attorney General in 2018, also chimed in with praise for Fogarty, “I want to echo the sentiments of my brothers and sister with respect to Senator Fogarty. He’s been here for you all along, he’s put in a tough piece of legislation, it certainly hasn’t made him any friends on one side but he did it because he cares. I think his actions speak for themselves.” After this performance, I don’t think any environmentalists will be voting for him.

With Senator Fogarty properly lionized and hopefully protected, all the Senators needed was an excuse, any excuse, to vote against the bill. As it is, they produced three excuses. They also needed someone to blame. They couldn’t blame the business community, they couldn’t blame the Governor and they couldn’t blame labor.

Enter the Republican Burrillville Town Council with their press release turned resolution. At the original Senate Judiciary Committee meeting to discuss the bill, Senator Lombardi foolishly tried to pass off a press release against the bill from the town council as a resolution, but in fact the Burrillville Town Council didn’t get around to issuing an actual resolution until the committee meeting was almost over. But now, with a “proper” resolution in hand, Lombardi was able to produce a villain: the Burrillville Town Council.

In his statement after the vote, Fogarty expressed his disappointment at the bills defeat, but did not blame the vote on his fellow senators. Instead, he referred to the resolution, writing that the “last-minute opposition of the Town Council… [was] the equivalent of getting two torpedoes to the bow.”

“It’s a shame that the Burrillville Town Council does not have enough faith and confidence in the local citizenry to make an informed decision on a matter that will impact the future of their community,” wrote Fogarty, forgetting that it was the Senate Judiciary Committee, not the Burrillville Town Council that killed the bill.

Lombardi’s second excuse was that he was concerned about the precedent that passing the bill would set. He said that when the residents of a city or town disagree with their elected officials, they shouldn’t be looking to the state to pass new laws. Lombardi feared that the General Assembly might be flooded with every local issue that is “controversial” if they passed this bill. Of course, it’s fairly easy to find dozens of examples where the state has stepped in to override local laws and ordinances. The very creation of the Energy Facilities Siting Board, the body that will ultimately decide whether or not the power plant will be built, is an example of the state overriding local concerns and laws, for instance.

Lastly, Lombardi noted that one of his colleagues “was gracious enough to provide us with a Rhode Island Supreme Court case entitled Warwick Mall Trust v State of Rhode Island.” Sources told me that the court case was provided to Lombardi and the other senators by Senate Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio, a strong supporter of labor who sat in on the original Senate Judiciary Committee meeting that heard testimony on this bill.

Lombardi said that the decision in this case could be applied to Fogarty’s bill, and claimed that the bill, as written, would be unconstitutional.

In the end, of course, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Fogarty’s bill down. It was such an unusual occurrence that Chairman Michael McCaffrey couldn’t quite get his head around how it was supposed to work. As the chairman struggled to find the right way to phrase a no vote, two Capitol Police Officers entered the room, to make sure the crowd did not react aggressively to the decision everyone seemed to know was coming. The vote was 7 -2 against. Only Nesselbush and Erin Lynch Prada voted in favor of the bill.

The disappointment of the Burrillville residents could be felt physically. There were tears. Nick Katkevich, of the FANG Collective, shouted “Shame!” as he was leaving the room. The Capitol Police responded by telling Katkevich to leave, but he was already gone. Out in the hallway, there were more hugs and tears among the Burrillville residents.

They say they will continue the fight.

Looking over every single Senate Judiciary Committee vote this session, you will find that every bill brought up for a vote passed. In fact, every bill before this committee, but two, passed with no votes against them. The two exceptions were S2333 on May 5 and S2505 on March 3, and both times it was Senator Harold Metts casting the lone vote against. Until this day, six of the senators present had not cast a no vote in committee this year.

The truth is that no one is ever really supposed to vote no. These committee votes are pro forma. It’s theater. Every vote serves a purpose and no bill is voted on in committee without a predetermined outcome known well in advance.

And the vote on Paul Fogarty’s bill was no different.

June 14, 2016

CLF: Invenergy lied to public at EFSB hearing in Burrillville

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John Niland, director of development for Invenergy, knowingly mislead both the public and the EFSB, the board tasked with deciding the fate of the Burrillville power plant proposal, at a public hearing on the matter, according to the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF).

The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) today filed two expert witness testimonies with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) that reveals Invenergy representatives knowingly presented false facts and figures at a public Energy Facilities Siting Board (EFSB) hearing in Burrillville attended by 700 people.

The CLF testimony also provides further evidence that the electricity produced by a proposed $700 million fracked gas and diesel burning power plant in Burrillville is not needed in New England.

Invenergy’s estimates of consumer savings from the proposed plant are grossly inflated and inaccurate, says the CLF. Invenergy claims the power plant will save between $118 to $120 million for ratepayers. The actual number, according to CLF’s witnesses, is between 0 and $36 million.

Christopher Stix, first witness

The first testimony is from Christopher Stix, a volunteer financial analyst for the CLF providing financial and market analysis for CLF’s energy initiatives, specifically in the area of power plant licensing and electric and gas transmission. The testimony is lengthy and technical (and can be downloaded at the link above) but the actual conclusions of the testimony are fairly easy to present.

False Facts

Stix claims in his testimony that Invenergy knowingly presented false information at the March 31, 2016 EFSB hearing at the Burrillville High School.

“…on March 31, in front of 700 people, Invenergy presented in two different ways… information that Invenergy knew, at the time, was false. First, the words “$280 million in Savings” appear in big, green letters on Slide 12 of Invenergy’s presentation… Second, the false information was emphasized by Invenergy’s John Niland, who said, “Talking about ratepayer savings, the analysis we’ve done looks at what happens to the cost of power to the region when you put in a plant like this. – – [T]hat’s really what the $280 million number represents.” [EFSB March 31, 2016 Hearing Transcript. page 16, lines 8-11; 15-17.)

“…eventually Invenergy backed off its wrong assertion of $180 – $120 million in capacity savings in just FCA-10. In Ryan Hardy’s April 22 testimony, page 13, lines 20-21, Invenergy touts ‘Capacity cost savings to Rhode Island ratepayers . . . to be $170 million from 2019 to 2022, or $42 million annually on average.’ It is important to note here that in his testimony, Mr. Hardy gives no specific figure at all for projected capacity savings from just FCA-10. Instead, he sticks with a vague average over a period of several years.

“Mr. Hardy does not acknowledge in his April 22 testimony that his figure had changed radically from his sworn testimony before the EFSB on January 12, 2016, when he stated under oath that ‘the savings from capacity costs alone is nearly 212 million…’” [January 12, 2016 Transcript. page 164, lines 6-14; and Slide 24.]

“Third, and importantly, nothing changed between March 31, when Invenergy publicly presented figures that were grossly wrong, and April 22, when Invenergy presented very different figures. The relevant FCA had occurred on February 8. Invenergy acquired no new information between March 31 and April 22. Thus, there was absolutely no reason for Invenergy to have presented inaccurate information to the EFSB and Burrillville residents on March 31.”

Power plant not needed

Early on, Stix was asked if the New England electricity grid needs the proposed Invenergy plant.

Stix replied, “neither the New England electricity grid, nor the ISO, needs Invenergy in order to keep the grid reliable. Overall, in FCA-lO, the ISO procured fully 1,416 MW more than its ICR. Even if you subtract all 485 MW of the CSO acquired by Invenergy, the ISO would have still over-procured 931MW. And, here in the SENE zone, the ISO procured 1,321 MW more than its LSR Again, even if you subtract all 485 MW of the CSO acquired by Invenergy, the ISO would still have over-procured 836 MW in the zone The result of FCA-10 shows that the generation capacity that the Invenergy plant would bring to the electricity grid is not needed in Rhode Island, and is not needed in New England.”

Inaccurate consumer savings

Stix testified that “[t]he irrefutable, bottom-line fact is that Mr. Hardy and [PA Consulting Group] wrongly predicted savings to Rhode Island ratepayers,just from capacity, and just from FCA-l0, to be between $118 and $120 million dollars. The actual figure was somewhere between zero and $36 million. Mr. Hardy’s projected figure was 272% of the actual figure, and maybe much, much more than that. To put it another way, it is just not true to say that a predicted result of $118 million in ratepayer savings in one year “is very close to” ratepayer savings of between zero and $36 million. I doubt very much if Rhode Island ratepayers consider $118 million in one-year savings to be “very close” to zero to $36 million. And I doubt that the PUC will view it that way, either.”

Robert Fagan, second witness

The second witness testimony presented by the CLF today is from Robert Fagan, a Principal Associate at Synapse Energy Economics, a research and consulting firm specializing in electricity industry regulation, planning and analysis.

Fagan also says the proposed power plant is not needed in both the short, medium and long terms. He says there is no “near-to-medium term reliability need for the proposed Invenergy plant,” pointing out that “existing and projected energy efficiency and behind-the-meter solar PV resources in New England more than supplant the energy output of the proposed plant and support a reliable electric sector in Rhode Island and New England without the proposed plant” and “there is no longer-term reliability need for the proposed plant.”

Fagan says that “Rhode Island and New England net loads… exhibit declining trends, contrary to the applicant’s assertions.” Invenergy claims that the ISO-New England Forward Capacity Markets indicate need, but as we have seen, they do not.

Further, Invenergy offers, “no evidence of any longer-term reliability or other need for the proposed plant. They incorrectly inflate the energy forecast need for Rhode Island and New England. Their narrative on alternative energy resources, including energy efficiency and renewable energy resources, is completely absent of any quantitative analysis of the effect of a portfolio of energy efficiency and renewable resource supply as an alternative to the proposed plant.

Looking to the longer term future of energy in Rhode Island, Fagan says, “When considering energy efficiency and alternative new resources including behind-the-meter solar PV, other solar PV (utility scale), onshore wind, offshore wind, Canadian hydro, demand response, and storage alternatives – in addition to existing capacity resources and a recently strengthened New England transmission system – near-term and long-term reliability of Rhode Island and New England electric power sectors can be assured without reliance on the proposed power plant.”

Fagan also says that, “The applicant’s failure to present any evidence of a long-term reliability need for the plant is significant, because absent such a need, I don’t see how this proposed plant fits with Rhode Island state energy policy that, according to the applicant, emphasizes increasing energy efficiency, integration of renewable energy into the system, and achieving reductions in greenhouse gases.”

June 8, 2016June 8, 2016

Burrillville Town Council opposes Keable/Fogarty power plant bill

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The Burrillville Town Council opposes legislation moving through the State House that would give local residents greater say on the tax agreement between the town and the proposed fracked gas power plant.

“The ill-conceived legislation before the General Assembly that purports to give residents a voice in the matter – in fact does the opposite,” said a letter released to RIPR’s Ian Donnis last night. “It weakens the Town Council’s ability to protect its residents and obtain financial compensation for hosting the proposed power plant.

The documents were released to Donnis by Dyana Koelsch, retained by the Town Council to handle public relations on their behalf. Koelsch, a former journalist-turned-public relations consultant, told me in a phone conversation last week she was retained by the Town Council to facilitate better communication between the Town Council and local residents.

The release of these documents seems to have come some time after the House passed Representative Cale Keable‘s bill, H8420 Sub A, which, if it becomes law, will allow the voters of Burrillville the opportunity to approve or reject any proposed tax treaty the Town Council makes with an power plant by popular vote. In recent days opposition to this bill has been ramping up, with Invenergy purchasing a full page ad in the Providence Journal on Saturday, an op-ed co-signed by Laurie White of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and Michael Sabitoni of the Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council on Sunday, and a bellicose tirade on the Journal’s editorial page yesterday.

Despite the opposition of business leaders and unions the Keable bill passed the floor 64 to 7 as Burrillville residents applauded. You can watch the vote below and see the reaction of Burrillville residents below. The difference between the votes reported above and the votes pictured is due to some legislators entering their votes late.

The release of the Burrillville Town Council letter opposing the Keable bill provoked a flurry of responses on social media. At about 10:30pm Burrillville City Councillor David Place confirmed that the letter was indeed accurate when he commented on Burrillville resident and power plant opponent Jeremy Bailey’s Facebook page.

The reaction from Burrillville residents has been negative and angry:

“I have NEVER seen such political BS in my life!!!“
“Has to be a back room deal going on ! Obviously representing Invenergy’s interest over the citizens!!!!“
“This is very disappointing and kicks us in the gut ! These council people are traitors and sneaky too, it’s not fair to the towns people!“

It’s unclear when the Town Council decided to write the letter, or if that decision was made at a public meeting.

The timing of the release is strange, since tomorrow evening there is a Town Council meeting scheduled, with public comment. Past Burrillville Town Council meetings have been contentious. Tomorrow night’s promises to be explosive. Why the Town Council would choose to invite the approbation of their constituents is a mystery. There is talk of a recall election for the four Town Councillors not up for re-election this fall.

The most startling thing about the documents released is that they contain details of the town’s negotiated tax deal with Invenergy, details that the Town Council has previously stated must remain secret while being negotiated. Though the tax deal is not yet done, the Town Council says there is “an agreement in principle on the following:”

$2.9 million upfront payment – $1.2 million in guaranteed payments even if the EFSB denies the application
$92 million – $180 million guaranteed payments over the next 20 years
Protection for property owners near the proposed power plant site through a property value agreement
Fully binds future owners if the plant is sold or otherwise transferred
Protection for Town residents into the future by locking in place a decommissioning plan

The Town Council claims that the legislation weakens the Council’s ability to protect its residents and obtain financial compensation for hosting the proposed power plant, strips the Town Council’s negotiating leverage that can force Invenergy to compensate the town, and jeopardizes efforts to put financial safeguards in place for residents near the power plant and compromises an agreement for the decommissioning of the plant.

I reached out to Jerry Elmer, a Senior Attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, overnight and he was kind enough to send me some notes on the various documents, which I will quote in full beneath the page he references.

Elmer said, in summary, “The bottom line is this: The members of the Town Council of Burrillville know, with absolute certainty, that the sweetheart deal they are negotiating with Invenergy would be overwhelmingly rejected by the voters of Burrillville if the voters of Burrillville got the right to vote on it. The members of the Town Council are correct in their assessment. That is why they are urging that the Keable-Fogarty Bill be rejected.”

From Jerry Elmer: “Document 2, page 1, bullets at the bottom: Town Council claims it has remained “neutral” on whether the plant should be built in order not to taint its comments to the EFSB. Two things must be said about this. First (and maybe more important), these documents show that the Town Council has not remained neutral, and that the Town Council very much wants to enter into a Tax Treaty with Invenergy. The Town Council is urging defeat of the Keable-Fogarty bill which would give the people of Burrillville the right to vote on such a (possible, future) tax treaty. That is not “remaining neutral.” Second, the Town Council has (very seriously) misunderstood what kind of “neutrality” is required of it by Rhode Island law. The Town Council has consistently refused to discuss the proposed Invenergy plant, even at public meetings, called pursuant to the state’s Open Meetings Act, even with a stenographer present. The Town Council pretends that this is being “neutral,” but this is merely ignoring constituents. And, crucially, this refusal to discuss the Invenergy proposal in open meetings is not required by any Rhode Island statute, law, rule, or regulation, including the state’s Open Records Act.”

From Jerry Elmer: “Document 2, page 1, bullets at the bottom: Town Council says that the purpose of the tax treaty is “to properly compensate Burrillville” if the Invenergy plant is built. However, what constitutes a “proper” level of compensation is a judgment call, about which reasonable people may disagree. The main effect of the Keable-Fogarty Bill would be to return that judgment call to the people of Burrillville.”

From Jerry Elmer: “Document 2, page 3, bullet half way down page [above], Town Council says: Having a tax treaty is a “guarantee of full taxability” of Invenergy. This is factually incorrect, and it is inconceivable to me that the Town Council is not fully aware of that fact. There is today, in the Town of Burrillville, a background, already-existing tax law that would cover this power plant (just as every municipality in Rhode Island, and indeed the United States, has an existing, background law on how to tax the real estate of individuals and businesses). The only reason that Invenergy wants a tax treaty with the Town of Burrillville is in order to get a different, lower tax rate. This makes sense: Invenergy will not negotiate with the Town for a higher tax rate; no business would do that, because it makes zero business sense. The reason that Invenergy would not negotiate for a higher tax rate is that Invenergy, without any negotiations at all, could get the currently existing tax rate. The only purpose of a tax treaty is to give the applicant (here, Invenergy) a lower tax rate than the existing one. This is true of this tax treaty, just as it has been true of every tax treaty since tax treaties were invented. In other words, when the Town Council says that a tax treaty is meant to be a “guarantee of full taxability” that statement is just factually incorrect.”

From Jerry Elmer: “Document 2, page 2, Town Council says that having a tax treaty in place “eliminates costly appraisals” and “eliminates volatility in future appraisals.” On these two points, the Town Council is speaking the literal truth, but in a deeply misleading way. These statements of the Town Council are factually accurate, but what is left unsaid is that, if the Keable-Fogarty Bill is defeated, that defeat will eliminate the right and ability of the people of Burrillville to vote on a Tax Treaty that may be reached between the Town Council and Invenergy. Let me use an analogy: I am threatening to murder you in cold blood. Before I do it, I tell you to think about the many “advantages” of being dead: you’ll save money on food, you’ll save money on rent, and you’ll never again go to a movie that you end up not liking. What I am saying is literally true, but what I am saying is misleading (in the extreme). So, too, with the Town Council statement. A tax treaty would eliminate costly appraisals — and would eliminate the right of the people of Burrillville to vote on a sweetheart deal reached between the Town Council and the people of Burrillville.”

Tomorrow the Senate takes up their version of the bill, S3037 in Senate Judiciary at 2:30pm in room 313 in the State House. The Burrillville Town Council meets tomorrow evening at 7:00pm in the Town Council Chambers, Town Building, 105 Harrisville Main St., Harrisville.

June 1, 2016June 1, 2016

ProJo’s coverage of stabbing ‘disrespectful and dangerous’

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When the Providence Journal first reported the story about a transgender woman stabbed early Saturday in South Providence, it not only reported her name, it reported her birth name. This is, in the words of Ethan Huckel, board president of TGI Network of RI, “disrespectful and dangerous, because it has the potential to out her as transgender.”

Huckel explained, “This is not only a violation of her privacy, but, depending on her personal circumstances, could jeopardize her safety.”

The ProJo corrected this lapse of judgement and the story no longer contains the victim’s birth name, but the click-bait titling of the story, which refers to the woman as a “transgender prostitute” is also problematic.

The ProJo provides no corroboration that the woman was a prostitute. The headline reports that “police say” the woman is a prostitute, but such a claim is both unsubstantiated and irrelevant. As Ethan Huckel again explains, referring to the victim as a prostitute “shifts the focus of the report away from the attack and insinuates that [the victim] is somehow responsible. TGI Network of RI urges the media to use restraint and critical thought when reporting on this assault.”

As a reporter I know how tempting it is to go for the easy, click bait headline, but the victim of this crime deserves our compassion and respect. She should not be reduced to an object, gratifying our salacious curiosity.

As of Tuesday the police were still working to determine if the attack was a hate crime. In deference to the victim’s privacy we have chosen not to link to the original story.

May 25, 2016

ProJo touts its comment section, ignores racism

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The Providence Journal has done a piece on how their on-line commenters have reacted to their battles with Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and the General Assembly over legislative grants.

Left out of the ProJo’s reporting is the fact that there is no greater cesspool of racism in RI than the ProJo’s comments section, such as this comment from “Arya Stark” who says of Rep Anastasia Williams, and I apologize for repeating this, “I’m pretty sure her speech was spoken in Ebonics” and “She sounded like a thug.”

Also left out of the reporting is the low opinion people have of the Projo, such as, “The Journal finally grew a pair” by “Holy Tamoly” and this comment by “Trier” :

Two highly ineffective and contemptible institutions calling out one another – the RI General Assembly and the Providence Journal.”

In many ways, the commentary on the ProJo site is the worst thing about the once great newspaper. I’d think twice about drawing attention to it if I were the paper’s editor.

April 11, 2016

ACLU ‘disappointed’ with Caleb Chafee records request ruling

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The Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled today that Providence Journal reporter Amanda Milkovits “would not be granted access to public records the Rhode Island State Police made concerning an investigation of an underage drinking incident at property owned by then-Governor Lincoln Chafee that involved the governor’s son, Caleb,” reported Bill Thompson at Channel 12.

In response to this ruling, the ACLU of Rhode Island issued the following statement regarding The Providence Journal Company et al. v. The RI Dept. of Public Safety:

The ACLU is very disappointed by the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Caleb Chafee case. We believe it fails to give sufficient weight to the important public interest in monitoring police investigations of high-profile cases.

“In denying the Providence Journal access to any of the requested documents, the Court inexplicably points to the large number of records that were withheld as proof that ‘a thorough investigation was performed.’ But without being able to examine the documents, it is impossible to determine a key fact behind the records request — whether the public outcome of the investigation properly reflects what the undisclosed investigation actually uncovered.

“For decades, the ACLU has strongly supported both the individual’s right to privacy and the public’s right to know. In this instance, we believe the Court tipped the scales the wrong way. Instead, the decision highlights the need for a stronger open records law in order to allow the public more critical oversight of the state’s law enforcement agencies.”

March 16, 2016March 17, 2016

Dear ProJo: Trump’s not the only presidential candidate

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In the latest Providence Journal good old Donald Trump was once again front and center. The March 11 editorial by Edward Fitzpatrick has a very one sided perspective of Rhode Island’s presidential campaign. If you follow the Journal you would think that Trump was the only candidate that was going to be on the ballot in this state. There is not the slightest attempt by the Journal to offer fair space to other candidates, including Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders has incredible support in Rhode Island, but one wouldn’t know it from reading the Journal. Has the Journal ever attempted to cover any of the many packed Bernie events throughout the state? Have they covered Sander’s message of justice anywhere near as much as they have covered the billionaire’s message of hate?

The Providence Journal should be more than a soundboard for the company that owns them, Gatehouse Media, and the conservative movement that it supports. Rhode Island is a state whose citizens are fiercely independent and the great majority has had enough with establishment politics and the status quo…

But Trump is not the answer.

The Journal owes it to the people of this state to be cognizant of the fact that Bernie Sanders campaign also is reaching out to people who are tired of politics as usual. The campaign has attracted not only the millennials, but the disenfranchised: feminists, minorities, moderate Republicans, progressive Democrats, Greens, unaffiliated and many more. Sanders represents all those who are sick and tired of being marginalized while corporate interests take over. It is time that the Journal does its due diligence to make that known to their readers.

March 7, 2016March 7, 2016

The Bernie blackout is real, and it’s happening at the Providence Journal

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The media blackout on U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is real, and it’s happening with our home state newspaper. Please read further for the gruesome details.

On Saturday, March 5, 2016, Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in Democratic caucuses by voting margins of 35% in Kansas and 14% in Nebraska. He also lost by a margin of 48% in the Louisiana primary.

In the Providence Sunday Journal, there is not ONE headline mentioning any of these facts nor one article dedicated to the Democratic presidential race. A review of today’s “A” section reveals the following articles related to the 2016 presidential race:

Page A1 (above the fold): “Cruz gains ground – Beats Trump handily in Kansas, Maine”

Page A1 (below the fold): “Trump taps into fears of changing America – A champion to the disgruntled white working class, a ‘monster’ to the GOP elite”

Page A7: “Trump primary win roils Mass. GOP – But Democrats have left their party, too, to back the maverick Republican”

Page A8: “Clinton backers pursue ‘gender gap'” – an article that discusses the gender gap in Trump’s supporters and how a Trump/Clinton general election could feature the largest gender gap ever in a presidential election, again pushing the narrative that Trump and Clinton will be the nominees.

Page A9: “GOP points to Obama tenure as cause of party’s schism” with the featured quote “There would be no Donald Trump without Barack Obama.” – Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Page A9: “5 states will shape 2016 race on weekend” – it mentions that “both parties had contests in Kansas and Louisiana … and Democrats in Nebraska also vote” but made no mention of the results. In fact, the article also mentions that these states “possess the power to make Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump closer to unstoppable.” The bias here is frightening, and this is from an AP article. The article also gives the “delegate count” for the Democrats without noting that the count includes as of yet unofficial counts of superdelegates, another misleading tactic.

And in the “Commentary” section…

Page A13: “Clinton backers split on Trump strategy” – you guessed it, an op-ed on how Hillary should take on Trump in the general election.

Page A13: “Republican ‘takers’ take down the establishment” – a GOP-focused op-ed

Page A14: “Romney’s warning” – an editorial from the Providence Journal Editorial Board, again focused on the GOP and coming out against Trump.

Page A14: “Letters to the Editor” – even the ones included here are anti-abortion, about Ben Carson, and about John Kasich.

To top it all off, on the Providence Journal’s Facebook page, they posted, on March 6 at 9:10 am, an AP article whose headline insinuates that both Cruz and Sanders’ wins yesterday were meaningless.

What is going on here?

I will be calling the Providence Journal to complain about the lack of coverage of the Democratic nomination process. I will ask two questions:

Why were the Democratic results not given any consideration?
Will the Journal commit to giving equal consideration to the Democratic and Republican races, and give equal consideration to the only two Democrats in the race?

I will also email David J. Butler, the Executive Editor & Senior VP of News for The Providence Journal directly as his email is listed on page A2: dbutler@providencejournal.com.

As I do not expect to get satisfactory answers to my questions, I am left to do what you must always do when something doesn’t pass the sniff test: follow the money.

The Providence Journal is “a subsidiary of GateHouse Media, Inc.” according to page A2. According to Wikipedia, GateHouse Media (which went through a planned bankruptcy and is now part of the holding company New Media Investment Group Inc) is owned by Fortress Investment Group. Also according to Wikipedia, Fortress “was founded as a private equity firm in 1998 by Wesley R. Edens, a former partner at BlackRock Financial Management, Inc.; Rob Kauffman (businessman), a managing director of UBS; and Randal A. Nardone, also a managing director of UBS. Fortress quickly expanded into hedge funds, real estate-related investments and debt securities, run by Michael Novogratz and Pete Briger, both former partners at Goldman Sachs.”

Big surprise.

Please, contact the Journal and put pressure on them to do right by the people it serves and give equal consideration to the presidential races and publish articles and op-eds from all points of view, not just those that match their owners’ views.

Please call the Journal. Please email. Please share this post. Please do anything so that the corrupt influence of “big media” does not infiltrate the biggest paper in our little state.

(Editor’s note: This was originally a Facebook post)

February 2, 2016

Satellites and thermometers: Ed Achorn on truth, science and reason

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It’s bad enough that Providence Journal editor Ed Achorn regularly runs op/eds from climate change deniers but its worse that he responds to those who question his decision to do so by accusing them of having a “totalitarian mindset” and of believing that “issues of vast public importance should not be debated.”

Achorn made his comment to me on Facebook, after I wrote that “publishing anti-climate change op-eds from conservative disinformation groups” is “completely irresponsible ‘journalism.’” I was referring to Herbert E. Stevens’ piece “Fuzzy data on warming” in which the meteorologist claimed that readings from surface thermometers that show the Earth is warming are less accurate than satellite readings of temperature that, Stevens claims, show “much less warming… than the surface data — and show no net warming of the planet over the past 18 years and 8 months.”

The piece seems innocuous enough, until you realize that it’s a piece in defense of Ted Cruz, Republican nominee for President, who repeatedly claims that there has been “no significant warming whatsoever for the last 18 years.”

As Chris Mooney ably demonstrates in his Washington Post piece, Cruz is seriously misleading the public when he makes these claims. He’s taking a minor (if interesting) debate about the accuracy of surface thermometers versus satellites when taking global temperature readings and using it as a way of calling into question the very existence of human caused climate change, which is not a seriously debated issue at all.

Nowhere in the op/ed does Stevens mention Cruz. He writes as if he is simply covering an interesting meteorological topic, apropos of nothing. But Stevens ideological bent is revealed when he includes obvious falsehoods, such as when he says, “Back in the early 1990s NASA recommended that satellite measurements be used as the preferred method of measurement because it was the most accurate method.”

The truth is that “Roy Spencer and John Christy, two satellite experts affiliated with NASA and the University of Alabama in Huntsville, argued in the prominent journal Science that satellite measurements are able to deliver “more precise atmospheric temperature information than that obtained from the relatively sparse distribution of thermometers over the earth’s surface.”

Two university experts “affiliated with” NASA is a far cry from an official NASA statement. But it gets worse. One of those experts, John Christy, is known as a climate “skeptic” and he’s one of the key people that Cruz seems to be depending on for his climate denial position, a position that Stevens seems happy to echo in the pages of the ProJo, without proper attribution.

The idea that satellites are more or less accurate than surface thermometers is not settled science, and that debate is interesting, but that’s not the context in which Stevens frames his article. Stevens wants us to believe that satellite data is more accurate and that this more accurate data somehow contradicts the idea that the Earth is warming. Therein lies his second falsehood.

Stevens claims that the data shows that there has been “no net warming of the planet over the past 18 years and 8 months,” ignoring the fact that we have satellite data going back to 1979, not just 1998. As Mooney points out in his piece debunking Cruz, 18 years gives us a starting point during the “very warm El Niño event of 1997/1998.” Starting in 1998 shows little to no warming, because our starting point is artificially higher due to El Niño. If we start in 1979, however, even the satellites show a warming trend that can only be caused by humans using fossil fuels.

Stevens has committed a serious scientific fallacy called cherry picking that even a climate skeptic like John Christy has disavowed. Stevens is only looking at the evidence that bolsters his claim, not the evidence that runs counter to what he’s trying to prove. That’s dishonest.

In response to Achorn telling me that I have a “Totalitarian mindset” I said, “Following the science, rather than the vested opinions of think tanks and cranks, is not totalitarian. Using that word [Totalitarian] against critics to silence them is.”

Instead of acknowledging my point, Achorn doubled down saying, “I strongly believe that discussion of major matters of public interest is healthy. I strongly oppose the totalitarian mindset that those who disagree with me must be silenced.”

Is disinformation masquerading as science contributing to the healthy “discussion of major matters of public interest,” as Achorn seems to be claiming? Is it “totalitarian” to demand something akin to the truth and honesty – even in a ProJo op/ed?

I wish I had taken the time to compose a better response to Achorn, but Facebook is a place of quick writing and off the cuff thoughts. Achorn graciously allowed me the last word, not responding to me when I wrote:

“Though as an editor, you choose all the time who to print and [who] to silence, by not printing their opinions. One of the qualifying rationales for accepting a[n op/ed] piece must be truth, as informed by reason and science. If not, what are you basing the decisions on? There are disagreements in the community of climate scientists, but these are not the subjects you traditionally cover. Instead, you print pieces by deniers following the same playbook as the tobacco lobby followed in the 50s, 60s and 70s. This does nothing to further the discourse, but instead hinders and reduces it.”

January 27, 2016February 4, 2016

Don’t close Rhode Island’s state-run group homes for the disabled!

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Update (February 4, 2016). In response to public concern the BHDDH has requested supplemental funding in order to obviate the need to implement its previous transfer plan, adopted reluctantly under pressure from the house finance committee. The governor has granted the request for supplemental funding. The intention now is to aim at the transfer to adult foster care (“shared living arrangements”) of only 100 individuals, not “up to 300.” These individuals will be selected from group homes run by private agencies as well as state-run group homes. There is no longer any deadline for meeting the target and the usual safeguards will be used. Under these conditions the risk to residents is greatly reduced and the issue can be regarded as resolved.

In the January 14, 2016 issue of The Providence Journal, Jennifer Bogdan reports that “the [Rhode Island] Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals (BHDDH) plans to move up to 300 adults with developmental disabilities from group homes into shared residential living arrangements by the end of March.”

What is a “shared residential living arrangement”? It means that a disabled individual lives with a family that volunteers to accommodate and look after him or her and is paid for doing so. Another clearer term for such an arrangement is “adult foster care.” However, this term may be used to refer to group homes as well as family homes, so a better term is “family adult foster care.”

The report continues: “Maria Montanaro, the agency’s director, said it’s a model the state should be moving toward regardless of whether there is a budget crisis.” Nevertheless, it is clear that the main appeal of family adult foster care to policy makers is the fact that it is cheaper.

In fact, as professionals with long experience in this field have told me, no single model of care is suitable for all disabled people. It is therefore important to maintain a balanced mix of facilities, and group homes are an essential part of this mix.

Criteria for foster care

When is family adult foster care an appropriate model and when is it inappropriate? It depends on the severity of the disabilities. Beyond a certain point on the scale of severity, an ordinary family will simply lack the skills, time, energy, and other resources needed to provide the disabled person with an adequate standard of care. (This is not to deny the existence of special cases in which family members happen to be professionals with relevant knowledge and experience.) By intending to keep two specialized group homes in operation, the BHDDH implicitly acknowledges that some disabled people have needs that cannot easily be met in family adult foster care. The question is where exactly the line should be drawn.

I have searched for documents that specify criteria for placing a disabled adult in family adult foster care. I did not find such a document on a federal government website, but some state government sites are more helpful. Here are the criteria specified on one of these sites:

1. The individual must require minimal assistance in activities of daily living (dressing, bathing, eating, using the toilet, brushing teeth, combing hair, cutting nails, etc.) or need supervision or monitoring in these activities, in the self-administration of medications, or in the self-treatment of a physical disorder.

2. The individual must be capable of self-preservation in emergency situations.

In other words, members of the foster family are not expected to provide more than “minimal” assistance to the disabled person, however that may be defined. They are not expected to administer medications or treat a physical disorder, but only to supervise or monitor the disabled person doing so. The disabled person must be able to vacate premises in the event of a fire or other emergency. All this requires that the degree of disability must be moderate.

How severely disabled are the people to be transferred?

How severe are the disabilities of the residents in Rhode Island’s state-run group homes? I do not have detailed data, but all indications are that the average level of disability is high. A retired informant who worked in these homes for thirty years tells me that about half of the residents are confined to wheelchairs; many have severe mental disabilities and quite a few are unable to speak. (Others communicate by sign language. Would members of foster families be required to learn sign language?) In the group homes they receive round-the-clock care from well-trained dedicated staff.

We must also bear in mind that the figure for the number of residents to be transferred to foster care by the end of March – 300 – was determined by the amount of money that has to be saved in order to close a budget shortfall. It is not an estimate of the number of residents whose disabilities are sufficiently moderate to be safely placed in foster care. The 300 may therefore include people with severe physical and/or mental disabilities. In fact, Ms. Montanaro clearly implies that this is so when she states that “matches have been found across the spectrum of needs.”

It is true that volunteer families are vetted for suitability. But how reliable is the vetting procedure? Does it effectively exclude people whose motives are purely financial? Moreover, the planned transfers are to be made under strong time pressure. According to Montanaro 100 new families have already been found and 200 more are needed. It may well prove necessary to relax the requirements set for foster families in order to meet the deadline.

These circumstances justify fears that many of the disabled people hastily placed in foster care will be neglected or abused. True, neglect and abuse also occur in group homes. However, in the group home context there are always others around who may observe and report abuses. Awareness of this deters many care staff who might otherwise mistreat residents. In a foster home the disabled person is more isolated and abuse may remain undetected for a long time (unless inspections are frequent, intrusive, and unannounced).

Not many of those who are to be removed from their familiar environment to foster care still have relatives who visit regularly and look out for their welfare. Most are wards of the state. This makes them especially vulnerable.

The question of stability

The Providence Journal quotes Montanaro as saying that foster care “is preferable in part because group homes tend to have frequent staff turnover” while foster care “can offer more stable relationships.”

The first thing that a careful reader of this sentence notices is that Montanaro is comparing like with unlike – the high staff turnover that group homes actually have with the stability that foster care can offer. This is dishonest. As the expression “tend to” implies, group homes do not always suffer from high turnover. It depends on the interrelated factors of morale and pay. State-run group homes, where workers are relatively well paid, may well have much lower turnover than group homes run by private agencies, where pay is only a little above the minimum wage.

Nor is foster care necessarily stable. Individuals who are difficult to look after may have to be moved repeatedly from one family to another. Even a family that does achieve a stable and caring relationship with their disabled ward will have to be relieved of their responsibilities when their circumstances change or as they age. A disabled person needs care for the whole of his or her natural life.

Moreover, stability is not a matter solely of relationships with caregivers. Even with fairly high staff turnover a group home offers a measure of environmental and institutional stability. A caregiver may leave, but the person remains in a familiar physical environment and the daily routine probably also remains the same. Disruption is less total than that involved in a move from one family to another.

The question of choice

The Providence Journal also quotes Ms. Montanaro as saying: “We’re not forcing people into these arrangements.” Are the candidates for transfer really in a position to make a free and informed choice?

We have to give separate consideration to two cases – that in which the person’s mental and linguistic abilities suffice for a conversation about alternative residential and care arrangements and that in which the person’s disabilities make such a conversation impossible.

Free choice requires that the BHDDH social worker conducting the conversation should exert no psychological pressure. There must be no sign that she prefers one possible answer to another. In reality she does have a preference because she herself is under pressure to help meet the target number of transfers. How effectively does she conceal this preference?

Informed choice requires that the social worker explain not only the possible advantages and benefits of foster care but also its possible disadvantages and risks. And yet her boss, Maria Montanaro, is unwilling to give the state legislature a balanced assessment that acknowledges these disadvantages and risks.

It is especially difficult to ensure that force is not used against those incapable of speaking for themselves. What methods will be used to give them a choice? Generally speaking, people with severe developmental disabilities, provided that they are not being abused, show a strong desire to stick to familiar routines and remain in a familiar environment. Change upsets them.

A couple of suggestions

Even if the BHDDH is unwilling to give up the idea of transferring disabled residents of group homes to family foster care, moves could be made in this direction with less risk to the wellbeing of the disabled.

I suggest, first, that candidates for transfer be selected from all group homes, including those run by private agencies, and not only from state-run group homes. Expansion of the pool would make it possible to choose more individuals who had only moderate disabilities and were therefore really suitable for foster care.

Why are state-run homes being specially targeted for closure? The explanation seems to lie in the ideological animosity that many of our politicians feel for public institutions. This is shown, for example, in changes that the Rhode Island legislature made to the budget proposed by the state governor for the current financial year (2016). The governor had recommended $46.5 million for the state-run facilities, but the legislators switched $4 million of this sum (almost 9%) to “assistance and grants” to private agencies. (See here. The state-run homes come under Rhode Island Community Living and Supports (RICLAS), which forms part of the BHDDH.)

My second suggestion is to take an experimental approach, first trying the transfer to foster care on a small scale and assessing the results before committing irreversibly to the strategy. The 300 individuals whose transfer is contemplated would be identified, a representative sample of (say) 20 of them selected and placed with foster families, and the results assessed at three-month intervals for a year, without yet closing any group homes. Further decisions would then be made in light of the results of the experiment. If the experiment is a failure then the sampled individuals can be returned to their group homes. If group homes are closed before the results of the transfer to foster care are known, where are disabled people to go if foster placements prove unsatisfactory? There is reason to fear that they may end up in some mental hospital.

Just to save a little money

For what are the group homes being closed and the wellbeing of their residents placed in jeopardy? The aim of the exercise is “to close a projected $6 million budget shortfall.” This may seem a lot of money to some people, but in terms of total expenditures of state government it is loose change — a mere 0.07% of the FY 2016 operating budget. Fifty times as much ($300m) is being spent in FY 2016 on administering the state lottery.

The way in which a society treats its weakest, most defenseless and vulnerable members is a good measure of its level of civilization — or barbarism.

December 28, 2015

First Amendment protects freedom of conscience, not just religion

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“It is beyond reproach that the First Amendment only protects sincerely held beliefs that are ‘rooted in religion,’” said Assistant Attorney General Adam J. Sholes, as quoted in the Providence Journal.

Sholes couldn’t be more wrong and his position is particularly troubling given that he practices law in the State of Rhode Island, the place where the first government guaranteeing freedom of conscience was formed.

The case revolves around Devon Letourneau and Robert Vangel, two men at the ACI who are suing the state, alleging that “they are being blocked from practicing their faith” while in prison. The faith they maintain they are being blocked from practicing is the Five-Percent Nation, which many in law enforcement see as little more than a criminal gang.

According to the ProJo, “The state is asking that the suit be dismissed, saying that prison officials acted reasonably and in good faith in their official capacities and that the First Amendment and the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act do not protect ‘cultural activities and beliefs.’ The state emphasizes that Letourneau and Vangel explicitly reject defining [their beliefs] as a religion and instead consider it a culture or way of life.”

While acknowledging that the state may have compelling interests in preventing these men from engaging in the fullness of their religious practice due to concerns about safety, security and rehabilitation, I have to firmly disagree with Assistant Attorney General Sholes. There is no question that the establishment clause of the Constitution, the part that reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” fully applies.

There are many world views, philosophies, life stances or ways of life that are not religious in nature, yet are considered fully equal to religion in terms of conscience and liberty, under the law. Though I confess to not fully understanding the intricacies of Letourneau and Vangel’s beliefs, from what I’ve read they make no less sense than any number of other religions, faiths and beliefs that are routinely accorded First Amendment protections. Further, non-religious belief systems, such as atheism and Humanism, are protected under the First Amendment as surely as Christianity or Judaism.

Thomas Jefferson wrote “that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions.” He further wrote that officers of civil government should “interfere [only] when [religious] principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.” In penning these words, Jefferson set a high bar for the United States, a bar we have not always met in times of crisis or fear.

According to the ProJo, five states have classified the Five-Percent Nation as a gang or a security threat. This determination in no way diminishes the Five-Percent Nation’s status as a protected belief, but, per Jefferson, creates an onus on the government to take extra care when restricting an inmate’s ability to practice their beliefs.

The state’s defense then, should not be that the Letourneau and Vangel’s Five-Percent Nation beliefs are not protected by the Constitution as Assistant Attorney General Sholes seems to maintain, but that the state has made every safe and reasonable effort accommodate the beliefs.

In doing so, we will have protected not just the beliefs of two inmates, but the liberty of conscience of all Rhode Islanders.

November 29, 2015November 29, 2015

Why I write Hendricken ’05 on my pro-choice petitions

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Following the terrorist actions of an anti-choice militant in Colorado on November 27, 2015, I feel compelled to offer a few reflections on this notion of ‘the sanctity of life’ and why I invoke my Bishop Hendricken High School alumnus status when I contact my congressional representatives in Washington regarding choice issues. It is worth noting here that these opinions are my own and they do not represent the opinions of the school or any association of students past or present, though I hope they one day might. I also would be remiss if I did not add that I understand and respect the feelings this might engender within those aforementioned communities, but I do not intend this as an insult to anyone in those groups.

When I was at Hendricken, there was something called the Irish Club, a group of students and faculty that engaged in an after-school celebratory discourse about Celtic Catholic spirituality and culture. We would from time to time touch on the tremendously fraught issue that is the Irish Republican Army. The overwhelming opinion was that, even though the IRA was right in its aims, they were wrong to launch attacks in a fashion that resulted in civilian casualties. Leaving aside my own further intellectual development since I discovered the works of Frantz Fanon, the reality is that one can and should apply this logic to the murder of people at a women’s clinic.

Anything less than a full-throated rejection of an act of religiously-influenced domestic terrorism on par with the violence of 9/11, including modifying phrases that condemns the activities of the victims, is the stuff of cowardice. If a school should be involved in such acts of cowardice, their ability to be serviced by taxpayer-funded free school bussing should be revoked, as should the supply of taxpayer-funded text books in math, science, and other subjects. If we are going to have some individuals harping and howling over whether President Obama was taught in a radical Muslim madrassa in Indonesia, we are going to hold Catholic education to the same standards while remembering that Osama bin Laden was also opposed to abortion rights.

One of the lessons that I took from 9/11 that I think very few others likewise took was understanding why that event happened. Some would call this a Left position, others an anti-American position, but I call a logical and educated position. Those attacks were not random acts, they were a violent climax of events over decades involving American military force in the post-colonial world. From the bloody vistas of Vietnam to Jimmy Carter’s idiotic policies in Afghanistan and beyond, America planted hateful seeds abroad that blew back onto our shores and killed civilians.

We should be wise and apply this logic herein. This violence was not random, it was a violent and bloody culmination of years of a coordinated series of anti-choice actions that the media has refused to cover or failed to properly dissect in the name of their farcical ‘objectivity’. Clinics nationwide have been closed over the past several years with a series of Kafkaesque building codes. For months, there have been arson attacks on women’s healthcare clinics that have not been front page news on the Providence Journal (do not even get me started with their misogynist coverage of this violence). The farcical and utterly transparent videos produced by anti-choice scoundrels this summer are now confirmed to have fueled this madman’s violence and that vanguard of objectivity, Edward Achorn, printed letters and columns in his editorial pages that furthered those lies. I would not hesitate to show him as much contempt as some of his colleagues have shown for Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning (though the fact is that they were telling the truth whereas Achorn was promoting lies). The trail of tears leads to many doorways, including his. No longer can he talk of concerns about promoting terrorism in the Arab world without having this held over his head.

Let us consider for a moment the odious Bishop Thomas Tobin, whose war against women included his Know-Nothing rally at the doors of Planned Parenthood last summer. I would respect Bishop Tobin if he was actually serious about protecting children, but considering how he continues to give soft glove treatment to Bishop Emeritus Gelineau while the man has reams of testimony against him regarding sexual abuse of minors (here, here, and here), I would trust Charles Manson to protect a youth before I trusted Bishop Tobin. What is more, he is a publicly-registered Republican and actively opposed the Affordable Care Act, a law that provides the very contraceptive care that can prevent unwanted pregnancy and therefore abortion. If the Church opposes contraception, fine, that is the realm of moral instruction of membership. But when you get into actively lobbying against public policy, that is a wholly different realm. The Providence Diocese for a long time now has ceased to be a purely religious body and become the politically lobbying Grand Old Diocese, or GOD. This is such a transparent farce that the Three Stooges would blanch in embarrassment.

But there is plenty blame left. What about our allegedly pro-choice Gov. Gina Raimondo, who threw women under the bus this year at the whims of the aforementioned Republican Diocese? Can we call this rolling over for both the opposition party and the Church that took her picture off the walls of LaSalle Academy anything but a terminal lack of backbone? Why is our democracy allowed to be controlled by a body that fails to pay taxes, shelters child abusers, and supports terrorism? Are all the women of Rhode Island worth a quickie compromise with these fools? The precedents she has created are deadly and fed into this madness.

Yet the ultimate amount of guilt lies with ourselves. We failed women. We were unable, unwilling, or uncaring enough to take these warning signs serious enough. We should have been more full-throated about this than a bickering fest about a baseball stadium. In the days before 9/11, the record shows that a select few government employees were running around Washington like their hair was on fire, begging the Bush administration for attention. Were there such figures in the Ocean State landscape I missed? Steve Ahlquist has been one, his coverage of the Raimondo legal moves have been admirable and is going to be used as primary sources by future historians. But was there a Richard Clarke on hand telling we alleged feminists to watch out? Why were we not like he was? To quote the Bard “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but ourselves.”

After this, every reproductive healthcare center should be under the same level of protection that T.F. Green Airport is. After this, we should quit worrying about Syrian Muslim terrorism and start worrying about American Christian anti-choice terrorism. After this, we should be more vocal and saying that abortion accounts for only 3% of Planned Parenthood medical care and the rest is focused on low-cost healthcare for men and women, including contraceptive, cancer, and STI testing/treatment care, medical care that would otherwise be unavailable for many of their patients. We should vocalize that, prior to the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, the largest killer of women of child-bearing age was septic abortion, more than car accidents or cancer.

If moral absolutists are going to argue that they do not want their tax dollars funding abortion, they should be as vocal about funding our murderous, child-killing military-industrial complex and be pro-life regarding Palestinian children. Yet the only religious group I know of that does that is the generally pro-choice Quakers. Are Catholic Bishops willing to use the same condemnatory tones used towards those who help procure abortions with Catholic soldiers and threaten automatic excommunication for drone killings, especially since the revelations by The Intercept and other publications reveal the targeted assassinations program has killed so many innocent children?

NARAL Pro Choice petitions I recently received in the mail.

I write Hendricken ’05 on my pro-choice petitions to our Congressional delegates because Jack Reed is a Catholic and James Langevin went to Hendricken. I write Hendricken ’05 on my pro-choice petitions because, once you void the privacy of the doctor’s office, you create a slippery slope that could void the privacy of the Catholic priest’s confessional due to the fact clergy and medical personnel are protected by the same statutory logic. I sign Hendricken ’05 because I oppose terrorism. I sign Hendricken’05 because I believe women know better than anyone else what medical care they need and that the patient is always the best advocate for their care, not priests. I sign Hendricken ’05 because I respect the female teachers at Hendricken. When I was a student, there were instances where male instructors would sometimes talk about the ‘morality’ of regarding why some of these teachers did not have a large number of children, behavior showing of a lack of respect for these women that screams Human Resources complaint. But I also sign Hendricken ’05 because I believe in sanity, secularism, feminism, and maturity and do not believe in governance by religious fundamentalism. It was John Adams who said “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

Finally, I sign Hendricken ’05 because all Hawks are quality one, even if they are pro-choice. By pro-choice, I do not mean I push my sexist nose into the doctor’s office to observe all the activities therein. Rather, it means I respect when that door closes and do not dare open it ever lest I have the same be done to my mother, aunt, grandmother, sister, or female friends. This is the kind of respect I also express for the Seal of the Confessional.

Those who tell you that being pro-choice automatically means being in favor of abortion are lying. It is the complete opposite. Being pro-choice means not being in favor of anything a woman chooses to do in her doctor’s office because it is none of your business, period. Being pro-choice also means opposing state-mandated abortion, such as the Chinese one-child policy, because a law like that strips a woman of her agency and intrudes on the relationship she has with her doctor. Men are not subjected to the level of regulation and scrutiny when they choose medical care that I might not agree with, ergo a woman is due that same level of respect. Refusal to grant that is defined by an SAT vocabulary word, misogyny.

January 12, 2015

Vigil for Charlie Hebdo attacks outside the ProJo offices

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About 60 people gathered outside the Providence Journal offices in Providence Sunday to hold a vigil for those killed in last week’s Charlie Hebdo terror attacks in France in which fundamentalist Muslim gunmen indiscriminately murdered cartoonists and police officers. The vigil was organized by the Alliance Française de Providence, RI in cooperation with Muslim supporters and attended by many who have been touched by the tragedy, including local artists.

The Providence Journal was chosen as the site of the vigil because organizers saw the nearly 200 year old newspaper as a strong symbol for the freedom of the press, a value shared by France and the United States.

I spoke with Dominique Gregoire, president of the local Alliance Française about the attacks, the response both here and internationally and about Charlie Hebdo.

Gregoire put the event into perspective when he told me, “This is just as if a commando came onto the set of Saturday Night Live and killed Amy Poehler and people like that.”

What can RI, ProJo expect from GateHouse?

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I was a just journalism student at URI when the Providence Journal was sold to Belo in 1997. Linda Levin was the best professor we had, and her schtick was regaling us with stories of her and her husband Len Levin’s glory days in the ProJo newsroom. She was outwardly devastated. I was made to understand this didn’t bode well for my chances of taking over Bill Reynold’s For What It’s Worth Column after graduation.

Before I even had a diploma, I had already been through a newspaper sale myself. The previous summer I interned for the Block Island Times when it was purchased by Jamestown Press owner Jeff McDonough. And ever since then, I’ve spent what seems like the bulk of my career being either bought or sold.

I left the Ashland Daily Tidings when Rupert Murdoch bought our parent company, and ended up at the Brattleboro Reformer, which MediaNews Group had recently acquired. My new beat required the labor two employees performed under the previous owner. I left that job to launch a community news site in East Greenwich, which was soon sold to Patch. So I took a job at WPRO, and was downsized when the talk radio station’s parent company was swallowed by Citadel Broadcasting. In seven years, I’ve been either one step ahead of or behind no fewer than four media mergers and/or acquisitions.

So pardon me if after 17 years of learning that they almost always eventually lead to downsizing, if I’m not as “excited” for the second sale of the Providence Journal as is Michael Reed. He’s the president of New Media Investment Group, the ProJo’s soon-to-be owner. He said in a press release: “We are very excited to welcome the paper, its employees and the community into the growing New Media family.”

He should be excited. He just paid $46 million for what the Metcalf family begrudgingly sold for $1.5 billion in 1997. Belo also got some TV stations when they bought in ’97 (which it has long ago spun off) and will hold on to the Fountain Street real estate in this sale. Some think New Media paid a premium (Rhode Islanders know it got a great deal!).

And how about us Rhode Islanders, and our trusted Providence Journal reporters? We know Reed is excited to have us in his life, but should we be equally excited to have him in ours?

Probably not.

New Media Investment Group is the internet-y sounding alias for GateHouse, and GateHouse is known as one of the worst employers in the newspaper industry. It owns close to 500 newspapers around the country, and I’ve never, ever heard of a newspaper improving when GateHouse takes over. Though I believe they often become more profitable. Google GateHouse and it’s too easy to find tales of rampant layoffs and Dickensian cost cutting – journalists have been known to lose both their newsroom coffee, and also their copy desk!

But the new boss has something very unique in the Providence Journal. Something the Metcalf family was able to tap into much more effectively than Belo ever did. The new boss doesn’t own another metro market-leading news platform, and Rhode Island, with its city-state like community, is unlike any other state-wide media market. It’s very reasonable to assume Michael Reed would want develop a unique approach to this unique asset.

Maybe the new boss will look to John Henry and the Boston Globe for inspiration, and invest in The Providence Journal rather than divest?

June 3, 2014June 3, 2014

Who’s barrel has more ink: Linc Chafee or Ed Achorn?

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When Governor Chafee criticized Providence Journal editorial page editor Ed Achorn in an op/ed he submitted to the Providence Journal, the critique was edited out of the submission. As a result, Chafee released an “unedited” version of his piece this morning.

Removed from the piece that ran in the Providence Journal was the governor’s lede:

Back in June 2011, in the first months of my administration, Jack O’Rourke, who I don’t know and have never met, had a letter published in the Providence Journal. He wrote, “Some divide the world into two camps: The people of reason and logic versus the haters. Instead of debating the people of reason and logic with reason and logic of their own, haters attack their opponents personally.” O’Rourke continued, “I find it clear that Edward Achorn is a hater. Instead of putting meat on the bones of the Journal’s vague suggestions for reforms, Achorn repeatedly attacks Governor Chafee personally.”

I have chuckled at the veracity and wisdom of Jack O’Rourke’s observations as his point has been reinforced in Mr. Achorn’s many editorials since. I have been successful in politics for nearly 30 years and I take pride in ignoring the taunts of lilliputians. I do believe that Mr. O’Rourke’s “haters” will never admit they are wrong and thus are difficult to engage, and I haven’t.

Chafee’s submission is 646 words. Achorn typically asks for submissions to be under 700 words.

A lengthy “Editor’s note” accompanied the Journal’s edited version of the piece that reads, “The editorial argued that Mr. Licht’s qualifications were not the issue, but that the process of his appointment should wait until he has been out of office for a year, in the spirit of Rhode Island’s revolving-door law.”

The Journal ran the edited version on the web, as well.

Here’s an example of a paragraph that was slightly altered:

Chafee’s unedited version: “Let’s look at this latest editorial. The Providence Journal claims that it and unnamed “others” who care about protecting the public oppose my nomination of Mr. Licht because it violates the “spirit” of the state’s revolving-door law. Rather than citing any provision of that law, the Journal simply asserts that “people in positions of great power are supposed to wait a year” before being appointed to the bench. The Journal is wrong on the law, and it glosses over the role of two important public bodies – institutions whose actual job it is to protect the public interest – that vetted and approved his nomination long before it ever came to my desk.”

The ProJo edited version contains layout errors as well: “The Journal claims that it and unnamed “others” who care about protecting the public oppose my nomination of Mr. Licht because it violates the “spirit” of the state’s revolving-door law. Rather than citing any provision of that law, The Journal simply asserts that “people in positions of great power are supposed to wait a year” before being appointed to the bench. The Journal is wrong on the law, and it glosses over the role of two important public bodies

— institutions whose actual job it is to protect the public interest

— that vetted and approved this nomination long before it ever came to my desk.”

The last sentence of the piece was edited to remove Ed Achorn’s name.

Chafee’s unedited version: “Mr. Achorn supports those processes only when he likes the result. Otherwise, as here, he defaults to personal attacks and invented legal theories.”

ProJo edited version: “The Journal’s Editorial Board supports those processes only when it likes the results. Otherwise, it defaults to personal attacks and invented legal theories.”

Here’s Chafee’s full, unedited submission:

Elevate the Dialogue
By Governor Lincoln D. Chafee

Back in June 2011, in the first months of my administration, Jack O’Rourke, who I don’t know and have never met, had a letter published in the Providence Journal. He wrote, “Some divide the world into two camps: The people of reason and logic versus the haters. Instead of debating the people of reason and logic with reason and logic of their own, haters attack their opponents personally.” O’Rourke continued, “I find it clear that Edward Achorn is a hater. Instead of putting meat on the bones of the Journal’s vague suggestions for reforms, Achorn repeatedly attacks Governor Chafee personally. ”

I have chuckled at the veracity and wisdom of Jack O’Rourke’s observations as his point has been reinforced in Mr. Achorn’s many editorials since. I have been successful in politics for nearly 30 years and I take pride in ignoring the taunts of lilliputians. I do believe that Mr. O’Rourke’s “haters” will never admit they are wrong and thus are difficult to engage, and I haven’t.

But the May 25^th editorial’s attack on Richard Licht and my nomination of him to the Superior Court Bench deserves a rebuttal. Of all the challenges we face in this great state, it is mindboggling to imagine the wastefulness of spending capital on opposing a Rhode Islander of the stature of Richard Licht to be a judge. His education, legal career and long record of public service make our state proud.

Mr. Licht holds a bachelor’s and J.D. from Harvard, and an LLM in Taxation from Boston University. He has served his country in the military. He vigorously has worked for the people of Rhode Island as a former state Senator and Lt. Governor. His distinguished public service has garnered him several awards such as the Israel Peace Medal, David Ben-Gurion Award, Outstanding Man of the Year from the Jaycees, Honorary Public Service on behalf of the handicapped from the Meeting Street School, and Governmental Service Award from Ocean State Residences for the Retarded. He has fought for and achieved reforms for early childhood development and the passage of the nation’s first Family and Medical Leave acts, as well as consumer protection legislation. He has been Rhode Island’s best Director of the Rhode Island Department of Administration. Ted Nesi of Channel 12 recently called Richard Licht “indispensable.”

Let’s look at this latest editorial. The Providence Journal claims that it and unnamed “others” who care about protecting the public oppose my nomination of Mr. Licht because it violates the “spirit” of the state’s revolving-door law. Rather than citing any provision of that law, the Journal simply asserts that “people in positions of great power are supposed to wait a year” before being appointed to the bench. The Journal is wrong on the law, and it glosses over the role of two important public bodies – institutions whose actual job it is to protect the public interest – that vetted and approved his nomination long before it ever came to my desk.

First, the Rhode Island Ethics Commission reviewed the revolving-door statute. I assume they did this with the full understanding of the high visibility of their decision. They then determined that Richard Licht is not subject to its provisions. Second, the Judicial Nominating Commission conducted a meticulous evaluation of all judicial candidates, including lengthy written submissions, background checks and interviews. As a result of that process, the Commission sent me a list of five candidates each of whom the Commissions deemed “highly qualified.” Mr. Licht was one of two candidates receiving eight votes, a unanimous display of support.

I believe in the law and public processes established to determine conflicts and to select judges. I abide by the law and those processes, and I am entitled to rely upon them. Mr. Achorn supports those processes only when he likes the result. Otherwise, as here, he defaults to personal attacks and invented legal theories.

May 16, 2014

Government FOR the People

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Last week I wrote an op-ed in response to Mike Stenhouse’s op-ed Left won’t defend failed RI Policies lambasting Tom Sgouros and Sam Bell .

My first draft went to the Providence Journal, but the conversation with the editor didn’t go well for a variety of reasons.

Next I sent it to GoLocalProv with the intention of it being the first of a series of weekly columns. I made the mistake of sending an invoice to GoLocal, and evidently the idea of paying for content was so far out of the framework, that they immediately removed the article.

I’m not saying this is my best piece of work. But it does reflect my thinking these days.

I believe that people are more important than corporations, that government’s job isn’t to prop-up business interests and who also think that the system of our government needs repair. Enjoy the article. Too bad you can’t read the slew of negative comments that popped up on GoLocal.
– Mark Binder

Government FOR the People

Enough about Left versus Right and Liberal or Progressive versus Conservative. Mike Stenhouse is a shill for the wealthy, who thinks that his ideas and opinion should be treated as gospel.

I’m not sure if I’m a leftist, a liberal, or a progressive. I know there’s waste in government: just look how much education funding has been funneled into the testing industry and how many dollars enable cars rather than RIPTA.

Stenhouse claims that the left won’t defend failed RI policies, damned right. Because the State government’s policies aren’t “left” policies, they’re just lame. Our State is run by a pair of appointed “leaders”, who bully our elected legislators, who are funded and buffaloed by corporate lobbiests and are too poorly paid to fight for the interests of citizens. At the same time, Stenhouse and his band of so-called experts spout nonsense, ignore facts and “chuckle” when faced with inconvenient truths.

Let’s lay it out. There is a myth created by followers of Reagan and Rove that cutting taxes will create jobs. It’s bull. We know because we’ve tried it. We’ve seen corporations outsource manufacturing and cut retail price by lowering wages, driving out small businesses, and putting the cost of underpaid employee health care on taxpayers. Then they wonder why nobody’s trained for a “job.”

Here’s what happens when you cut taxes. You also have to cut services and funding for transportation and funding for education. You get a race to the bottom, with municipalities and states trying to “attract” businesses that pit government against government and move on when the next best deal comes. (Hello New London.)

Our government stinks at “job creation.” (Hello 38 Studios.) In the old days, when a politician was running for election, he (not she) created jobs to get votes. This is effective politically, but produces bloat and inefficiency. The job of government is to protect the people and to organize projects that benefit the people.

Now, though, billionaires and multinational corporations fund non-profits and hire consultants to sway the rhetoric. Remember how staunchly George W. Bush denied climate change? (Hello, Matunuck.)

But enough about “them.” Let’s talk about what we, the people, really want.

We want more money for public education so that we can hire more teachers, because the single most important factor in improving learning is the ratio of students to teachers. At the same time, we want to create a testing policy that helps teachers assess students, not one that puts fear in the heart of educators and learners.

We want more money for public and alternative transportations. Europe and Japan had high taxes on petrol for years while we laughed and drove. Now they’ve got rail systems and lead in energy efficiency. We’ve made little progress since the so-called “energy crisis” of the 1970s.

We want corporations to pay to keep our environment clean, not sweep regulation aside to make it easier for them to pollute.

We want universal healthcare, not a bloated compromise designed to keep insurance corporations and non-profit boards fat and healthy.

We want our government to raise taxes so we can stop the borrowing that funnels citizens’ money to investors who manipulate bond ratings to get the best deals.

Don’t cut taxes on the arts and pretend that everybody’s going to run out and buy a painting. This is a benefit for the wealthy. And then, because the arts aren’t generating revenue, don’t push for a so-called bond issue that’s going to be run by the renamed EDC. If government believes that arts generate revenue, increase funding for the arts!

Don’t even consider the pathetic pleas from real estate interests (hello Superman building) to borrow money to bail them out. And face the truth that rebuilding in a flood zone is building on sand.

We want the wealthy to pay more, exactly because their fair share isn’t the same as the poor’s fair share.

And we want the opposition to stop ignoring facts, figures and realities.

My company published Tom Sgouros’s most recent book, “Checking the Banks” because it explains in simple terms how banks and investments firms scam governments. One of the tactics of Stenhouse and his lot is to ignore the facts and restate dogma.

When Tom debated Stenhouse’s out-of-state expert, he realized that the man knew nothing of the actual history, facts and policies of Rhode Island. Tom didn’t say that those failures were good things. Checking the Banks> suggests that rather than borrowing, our taxpayers would do better if Rhode Island created its own internal bank. But the chuckleheads laughed, and then swiped some of the copies of the book that Tom had for sale.

That’s exactly the challenge that honorable human beings face. Wealthy people aren’t satisfied with what they have. They want to us begging for scraps. They blame us for laziness and waste and then steal even more from those of us who are trying to make a living.

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Tag: Providence Journal

Panhandling and human dignity

Press conference presents a glimpse of our dystopian future

Burrillville files motion to dismiss Invenergy application

EFSB established as ‘one-stop shopping’ for power companies

Keable/Fogarty power plant bill: An autopsy

CLF: Invenergy lied to public at EFSB hearing in Burrillville

Christopher Stix, first witness

False Facts

Power plant not needed

Inaccurate consumer savings

Robert Fagan, second witness

Burrillville Town Council opposes Keable/Fogarty power plant bill

ProJo’s coverage of stabbing ‘disrespectful and dangerous’

ProJo touts its comment section, ignores racism

ACLU ‘disappointed’ with Caleb Chafee records request ruling

Dear ProJo: Trump’s not the only presidential candidate

The Bernie blackout is real, and it’s happening at the Providence Journal

Satellites and thermometers: Ed Achorn on truth, science and reason

Don’t close Rhode Island’s state-run group homes for the disabled!

First Amendment protects freedom of conscience, not just religion

Why I write Hendricken ’05 on my pro-choice petitions

Vigil for Charlie Hebdo attacks outside the ProJo offices

See also: Balancing words and body: Je suis Charlie

What can RI, ProJo expect from GateHouse?

Who’s barrel has more ink: Linc Chafee or Ed Achorn?

Government FOR the People

Government FOR the People