On a cold day in December, bus monitor Michele Schenck may have saved the life of Bill Jiacovelli as he waited with his 10 year old daughter Giovanna for the bus.
As he does most mornings before heading off to work, East Side dad Jiacovelli drove his daughter Giovanna to her bus stop on Hope St, keeping the heat on in the car as they waited for the bus. When the bus arrived, Bill got out of the car as Giovanna got onto the bus, escorted by Schenck, a bus monitor who has been on the job for 22 years.
As Bill got out of his car on this particular day, Schenck noticed he, “trembled a little bit and needed to lean on the car a little bit.”
Schenck asked Bill if he was feeling all right, but Bill dismissed her concerns, saying, “Oh, I just got dizzy.”
Schenck wasn’t convinced. She asked asked another parent to look after Bill while she made sure all the kids were safe so that the bus could get underway. Though Bill had dismissed her concerns, Schenck couldn’t let it go. “I know how men are,” she said to me, “They brush things like this off really quick. By the time he gets home, he’s not going to even tell [his wife] Polly that anything was wrong.”
Schenck asked Giovanna if she knew her mom’s number. Schenck called Polly and expressed her concerns. “I had to make the call short and quick, because I had to look after the kids on the bus.”
Polly immediately called Bill’s doctor and arranged a visit over Bill’s protestations. Doctor Rosenberg found that Bill had a previously undiagnosed AFib heart condition that put him at serious risk of a stroke. Had Bill not been admitted to the hospital that morning, he might have died.
Looking back, Bill now realizes that his condition was worse than he was willing to admit.
When Schenck returned to the bus stop to drop off Giovanna that afternoon, Polly was waiting with “a big bouquet of flowers” and a teary eyed hug. Polly told an amazed Schenck that she had saved Bill’s life.
“The bus monitors do amazing work,” Polly told me, “My daughter has a severe nut allergy, so Michele is always making sure that the kids aren’t bringing snacks on the bus that might hurt her. Other kids have asthma or other medical conditions. Michele has to break up fights between kids. Never mind that she makes sure that no kid gets left behind or run over.”
“The cars on Hope St. go way too fast,” continued Polly, “cars are always blowing past the bus, putting kids at risk. Since the incident with Bill I get misty eyed every time I see Michele look under the bus to make sure it’s clear of children.”
After 22 years on the job, Michele Schenck makes $11.44 an hour. Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza is considering privatizing the bus monitors in an effort to cut costs, but the bids from Ocean State Transit and First Student, the only two bidders for the bus monitor contract, are in the $30 range. It’s hard to know where the city intends to see any savings with that kind of math.
Meanwhile, a petition has begun circulating online asking Elorza to fulfill his “campaign promise to stand with working families” and “oppose the privatization of Providence’s bus monitors.” According to the petition, the job of bus monitor was “created after the tragic accidental death of a student in 1985. There had been at least one fatal student death each year from 1979 until monitors were mandated — and since then there hasn’t been a single one while a monitor was on duty.”
Bill Jiacovelli is out of the hospital and on medication for his heart condition. Thanks to bus monitor Michele Schenck, his daughter still has a father to bring her to the bus stop every morning.
“I’m working,” said Schenck, “but I’m paying attention. What I did I would do for all the people on my route. We see each other every day. I watch their kids. We’re like a family.”
The coalition behind The People’s Agenda and the action at the inauguration includes the 
In Jorge Elorza’s inauguration speech, (video and full text below) which ran for the last half of an hour’s worth of prayers, singing, speeches 
My parents came to this country to work in our factories and to strive for a better life. They chose Providence because this city offered the promise of steady work and it was a tolerant community that would embrace and welcome them. They came to work hard, and they made sacrifice upon sacrifice to build a life of even greater opportunity for my sister and me.
Now, doing so will not be easy. Providence is still regaining its footing in the wake of some of the most challenging financial times we’ve seen. My predecessor, Mayor Angel Taveras, led our city with great distinction during these times. I thank you – and Providence thanks you – Mayor, for making the important decisions our city needed to move forward.
Just as with our State, I believe the City of Providence is on the cusp of a remarkable season; a spring of renewal and reinvention. It is said that the secret of change and progress is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new. We are going to “build the new” here in Providence. And we are going to do it so that every one of our residents benefits.
A friend of mine often says that “we can do anything, but we cannot do everything.” That means that we have to be strategic and intelligent and build on our strengths. Luckily for us, we have many assets and resources to build upon here in Providence. Everything we need to become a successful city is already here. We will build the New Providence from the raw material at hand.
In order to build the New Providence, we must recognize what a charming and fantastic city this is. We must have concrete plans but that alone will not make us great; I firmly believe the future of our city depends, not just on bricks and mortar, but on the intangible element of building pride in Providence. We all want to belong to something bigger than ourselves – a city, a team, a tribe – something that inspires us to be greater than what we thought we were capable of. I believe the New Providence depends on a shared sense of community, responsibility and potential. And, here is how we achieve it.
As Mayor Angel Taveras and Mayor-elect Jorge Elorza enjoyed a celebration of “the great city of Providence and what it has to offer” at the the neighboring 
Marino Cruz was 
The protesters were not just demanding Cruz’ reinstatement, they were there to demand fair wages, decent working conditions and plain old human decency on the part of The Procaccianti Group, the management company responsible for many hotels in Rhode Island and throughout the world.
Providence City Councilperson Carmen Castillo was marching with the protesters. Castillo is a fierce advocate for worker’s rights, having helped to organize a union at the Westin Hotel around 15 years ago. When she attempted to enter the hotel lobby, a police officer physically prevented her entrance by grabbing her arm and threatened with arrest. As can be seen and heard in the video, Castillo was not very pleased by this. In the next video we hear Castillo addressing the protesters.
When I asked the small crowd of bus monitors how many of them lived in Providence, every hand went up. Many are single mothers and fathers. Make no mistake: being a bus monitor does not pay a lot, but it pays enough so that the men and women I talked to can maintain their homes, afford health care and send their children to school. Bus monitors take pride in their work. They know how important their jobs are. They are aware that they play a key role in the safety, security and wellbeing of our children.
Spaight O’Reilly says that privatization is not yet a done deal. “Seeking this pricing in no way obligates the School Department to have the transportation vendor provide the monitors, but provides us factual information regarding costs.”
As State Representative-elect Aaron Regunberg 
Providence Mayor-elect Jorge Elorza walked back his promise to join with advocates and demand that the General Assembly repeal the state ban on municipal minimum wage rates.
The hardworking hotel workers had successfully petitioned the city council into placing a $15 minimum wage measure onto the ballot. Citizens of Providence would have voted on that measure Tuesday, if not for the actions of the General Assembly. There is little doubt that the measure would have passed here in Providence. I mean, seriously, are voters in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota more compassionate than voters in Providence?
When Gina Raimondo took the stage as a newly minted governor elect, she pledge to build a government in Rhode Island that works for everyone, not just connected insiders. Was this mere rhetoric, or a shot across the bow of Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello, who presides over the Harwood/Murphy/Fox machine, the ultimate black box of Rhode Island politics?
The Grand Ballroom of the Providence Biltmore was the wrong place for these kind of thoughts last night as the Rhode Island Democratic Party rocketed to victory in all the big races. Last night was a celebration. Representative David Cicilline, stepping off stage after delivering his victory speech, rushed back to the podium, a huge smile on his face, to announce Nellie Gorbea’s Secretary of State win to a cheering crowd. Treasurer elect Seth Magaziner’s victory speech was short and sweet and Lt. Governor elect Dan McKee’s speech went on way too long, but the best speeches came from Gorbea and Raimondo.
Providence Mayoral candidate Jorge Elorza campaigned on Broad St. Monday afternoon in the company of Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, visiting businesses and glad-handing pedestrians along the way. State Representative Grace Dias led the tour and State Senator Juan Pichardo came along for the stroll.
Closer to downtown Providence, also on Broad St., Buddy Cianci, the once and (he hopes) future mayor was followed by a small group of reporters as he campaigned, but I was more interested in watching Elorza take half of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation on a tour of a vibrant, yet financially struggling part of the city.
“He’s just complaining,” said Representative Dias, roughly translating the words of a man who stopped the delegation in the Family Dollar parking lot. In Spanish, the man had asked Elorza and the senators if they will be out walking in his neighborhood when his vote wasn’t needed. To be fair, Dias wasn’t being condescending in dismissing the man’s question. The political reality is that these visits are made to secure votes and listening to the concerns of voters is a secondary consideration.
After all, the clock is ticking, and the mayoral campaigns needs the support of engaged voters, not the marginal, the forgotten and the underclass. As Elorza’s campaign passed by, the man didn’t look up from his shopping cart and trash can. There are two worlds here: the world of the political campaign and the world we live in. Rarely do these worlds communicate, which is a shame.
FOR Governor: Robert Healey
FOR Lt. Governor: Cathrine Taylor
The People’s Forum, an opportunity for the community most interested in economic and social justice to interview and hold accountable the Providence mayoral candidates, explored some interesting ideas not usually brought up in other forums or debates.
More than 200 people watched as the Providence mayoral candidates took the stage at the Southside Cultural Center on Broad St for 
The candidates, Democrat Jorge Elorza, Republican Dan Harrop and Independent Buddy Cianci, gave remarkably similar answers to all the questions and largely supported all the suggestions the community groups proposed. Even when the candidates disagreed with the ideas presented by the community, they mostly agreed with each other.
“I should emphasize that being an atheist would neither recommend nor disqualify [Jorge Elorza] from being Mayor of Providence,” said Bishop Thomas Tobin in a surprising, recent 
