Providence – Page 2

June 1, 2016June 1, 2016

Don’t eliminate parking meters, fix them

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I was a little flabbergasted to see a piece highlighting an effort to remove parking meters on a progressive website like RI Future. We should not remove the parking meters on Thayer Street, but we should change their implementation.

There are a lot of legitimate complaints about the way the Elorza Administration has implemented parking meters. I know, because I’ve been doing a lot of the complaining. I advocated during the 2014 election for Elorza and other candidates to take on Donald Shoup’s parking policies as part of their campaigns. Elorza came closest of all the candidates to speaking the right way on the issue, and it was a big piece of why he earned Transport Providence’s endorsement. Post-election, I’ve been happy with some aspects of what Elorza has done, but unhappy with a lot more.

Parking meters are an essential part of land use policy in any city. If we don’t want the city to gradually turn into a parking crater of surface lots, we have to properly manage parking demand. Meters are front & center in that. If we don’t get our parking situation right, we’ll have many ecological and equity issues as a result.

Andrew Stewart’s piece is sloppy journalism because it doesn’t corroborate the Avon Theater’s perspective on the meters at all. I sat at the zoning board meeting where the Avon Theater spoke in favor of tearing down half a block of multifamily housing to create a “temporary” parking lot off of Thayer Street. The argument at that time was that there wasn’t enough parking on Thayer, and that the lack of parking was turning customers away. In fighting against parking meters, Richard Dulgarian, Avon’s owner, has said that he has “never seen so many vacant parking spaces on Thayer Street” due to the meters. Either Thayer doesn’t have enough parking, or Thayer has empty parking that’s not being filled. Either can be true, but both can’t be true.

But that doesn’t mean that all is well or that nothing should be changed. As I said, there’s a lot that is wrong with the way metering is being done, and we should fight to get a better system in place.

Here’s how we should address the legitimate complaints of businesses on Thayer Street about parking meters: rather than remove the parking meters (which is a horrible idea) we should implement them properly the way successful cities have.

All the revenue of the parking meters should be given directly back to the metered districts. That the Elorza Administration promised this and did not deliver is one of the principle complaints of merchants. Successful cities always return the parking meter revenue to the local districts.

Meters should be implemented where demand is high, and the price of the meters should be flexible based on demand. This is also a big part of what makes successful metering programs work.

We should also look to implement meters that have helpful features, like being able to re-up on the parking from the comfort of one’s table in a restaurant. In Washington, DC, meters remind your cell phone that your time is about to be up. You also have options like being able to be refunded money you overpaid if you leave early. Why can’t Providence have that?

There should be no minimum or maximum times. One of the annoying things about meters in Providence is that they have a $2.50 minimum fee if a card is used. Another problem mentioned by Dulgarian is that the maximum times are too short for people to properly enjoy meals. But the whole purpose of charging a price for parking is to allow people to escape time limits. If people are willing to pay to park on Thayer all day long, then they should be allowed to, so long as they pay the price. This could even be part of a policy to better balance the needs of food trucks with brick-and-mortar restaurants.

We tend to reserve certain areas as parking for this thing or that thing. For instance, East Siders, like people in many neighborhoods, naturally feel attached to the parking spot near their house or apartment. The solution is, again, to add parking meters to areas where people want to park, allow the residents to set a price that balances demand and leaves enough spaces open for their own use, and pass the revenue back to them as tax cuts on their property taxes. We’re constantly imagining new ways to subsidize parking garages in Providence to fill the assumed need for more parking, instead of thinking creatively about how to use the parking we have.

A separate, but not completely unrelated issue, is that Providence needs to think about land taxation as a way of supporting its business districts. Many small businesses take up tiny parcels of land and cost the city very little in terms of services consumed, but pay more than their fair share of property taxes. I did a report on this in Eco RI which was based on the work by the group Urban 3 in Asheville, North Carolina. Thayer Street, like many districts, pays too much. But it’s not because of parking meters. Efforts to add parking, like the expected demolition of the seven houses on Brook Street, will only undermine the tax base of the city that Urban 3’s analysis helps to shine light on.

We also need to look to alternatives to help support other ways of getting to Thayer. The #1 bus on Thayer runs very infrequently, making it a poor way of getting to and from shopping. Other buses, like the 92, run really zig-zaggy and infrequent routes that don’t help much either. There’s virtually nothing to make biking safe on the East Side, or anywhere in the city. And none of these plans has to be expensive. Just to speak of fixing the #1 bus, for instance: many of the changes can be revenue neutral. Now that RIPTA is getting a new chairperson, this is one of the things business districts should take up: a frequent bus network, not a last-resort one.

I will join side by side with a call to change the way the parking meters are currently implemented. As a Providence resident who shops on Thayer Street and goes to movies at the Avon all the time, I won’t support efforts to remove parking meters. Let’s do parking meters the right way.

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May 30, 2016

Avon Theater owner Richard Dulgarian on Thayer Street parking meters

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If you have been up to Thayer Street within the past few months you probably have noticed a series of new parking meters being installed on the roadway. These new meters are part of an effort to raise monies for the city that have been wildly unpopular.

There are several issues that are coming up for patrons as they try to visit the stores. First, the meter system has proven to be confusing and not as user-friendly as hoped. Second, the maximum time limit for parking is in fact far too short for anyone who wants to go out to eat at Andrea’s Restaurant, have a few drinks at the bars, or see a movie at the Avon.

And that in turn leads to the third problem. The meters, which were billed by the city as a way to bring in more customers, are in reality chasing away business. Storefronts have been vacated and left that way for spans of time that have not been seen before. Grosses are down for businesses. One of the longest-lasting Providence shopping centers in its history which has brought in a consistent line of high-spending clientele is effectively being given a slow and painful death sentence.

Richard Dulgarian is the owner of several properties on College Hill and the Avon Theater with his brother Kenny. His family has been doing business on the street for decades and has started this petition online calling for the removal of the parking meters. He sat down for an interview with me and explained his consternation.

“First they did one street, then another street, then they came up with parking pay stations. It’s happening over the last year, I think, and every time one section goes in, it was affecting my business, it would go down a little bit. You know, it’s like peeling off a band-aid one little bit at a time, you keep thinking that was the last tug,” he says.

“It doesn’t make it pleasant. Next time you’re thinking of coming here, he’s going to remember parking meters didn’t work, he had to find a merchant to help him out, and he’s going to go somewhere else. These things are not friendly and our business has gone down. Not just ours, other businesses on the street, they’re all reporting their grosses are off up to 40%, some more, and how can you sustain that? We’re seeing vacancies like we’ve never seen before. I’ve been on the street forty years and, I’m not saying a business never went out of business, but within a couple of days something took its place. Now we’ve got eleven empty storefronts, last time I checked, and no one is coming in.”

“This administration has destroyed in a year what it took 50-70 years to build up!”

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May 13, 2016

Replacing Councilman Kevin Jackson

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

Someone to fight for lower taxes on renters

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

Someone to fight for higher taxes on parking

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

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

Someone who will fight to get rid of exclusionary zoning

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

Someone who will speak truth on the car tax

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

Someone who will fight water privatization

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

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

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

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

Someone who isn’t too parochial

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

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

May 9, 2016May 9, 2016

The parking tax: How to tax the rich, and get away with it

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It’s hard to tax the rich at the local level. The area within the borders of a local community is small, and tax avoidance becomes a game to people with money. One need simply relocate a block across the border to smack back at most local popular efforts. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying it’s true. But there is a way to tax the rich in Providence, and get away with it.

Taxing parking might seem like another consumption tax, but it’s not. It’s a Robin Hood tax– and one that even businesses should be in favor of.

Why? A great piece on this appeared in Greater Greater Washington just a year ago. It points out, for instance, that the tax write-off for paid parking is larger than the one for transit, meaning that commuters who pay for parking already get a direct subsidy to repay themselves. But it also points out an even deeper point about the marketplace for (garage and lot) parking in cities.

Parking acts as an oligopoly more than many other markets, so (in garages and pay lots) it’s being sold at the highest bid it can sustain:

[P]arking operators are in the business to make money, so aren’t they already charging as much as the market will bear? In other words, if they could raise their prices when there’s a new tax, why don’t they just raise their prices now regardless?

Well, isn’t that true of all markets? But in most markets, competition drives down the prices of goods. If you’re making more money than a small profit over and above the cost of providing the service, someone else will enter the market too and try to undercut you.

Parking isn’t really a competitive market. In the short run, the supply of parking is absolutely fixed, and there isn’t empty land to turn into new parking in central DC. Also, many people also only really want to park in the building where they work, are going to the doctor, etc. and aren’t shopping around. That’s especially true when a company is buying parking for executives.

These factors make the parking market closer to a monopoly and/or oligopoly, and consequently, the pricing is more at the level that maximizes total revenue in the entire market, a level that’s higher than the perfect competition price.

The GGW piece cited a report commissioned by the Philadelphia Parking Authority in which garage owners complained that they would have to swallow any taxes levied on parking because there would be no one willing to pay a higher price for parking if they tried to pass it to consumers. When your business is an oligopoly, you’re already getting the best price you can, so a tax on your business just means a lower profit margin.

Not everyone buys my notion that keeping the car tax where it is makes sense, though the fourth grade math involved in showing why that tax cut isn’t progressive is pretty straightforward. But everyone agrees (including me) that taxing a person’s car purchase is a type of consumption tax. If the reports on parking are correct, taxing parking lots (and garages) is not. The owner pays. And in Providence, the largest owner of parking lots is one of the wealthiest people in the state: former mayor, Joseph Paolino.

A business argument

I started my argument with the “tax the rich” pitch for the parking tax, because try as I might to convince people otherwise, I’ve still encountered friction from some on the left who think taxing parking is a flat tax on consumers (some people on the left even like the idea that parking taxes are a tax on consumers, saying that it’s a way to get the suburbs to pay their share towards city services they use). But if you’re a local businessperson, you might not care for this argument. Why shouldn’t you be concerned about the parking cutting and running? Isn’t a tax on parking going to drive people away?

Short answer: no.

Parking lots and garages aren’t golden geese. You can tax them, but like all things, their owners have the ability to try to evade taxation. But we shouldn’t be troubled by the this possibility because of the mechanisms involved. The PPA report cited within the Greater Greater Washington piece had garage owners complaining that while they would pay the cost of the tax in the short-run:

In the long run the story is quite different. An increase in parking taxes discourages the rejuvenation of aging facilities, the replacement of facilities lost to development, and the construction of additional facilities. Thus higher parking taxes will decrease the long-run supply of parking, will increase the cost to the public of parking, and will decrease profits to owners of parking facilities.

Further, should an additional parking facility be required, a higher parking tax implies that the facility will require larger subsidies to develop than it would in the absence of the parking tax increase.

Parking lot/garage owners can only escape the parking tax two ways: they can sell their land to someone else (who still, of course, has to pay the parking tax), or they can turn the parking into something that’s not parking. The PPA report reveals a lot. For instance, why would a city worry that it’s not able to replace “facilities lost to development”? Doesn’t the fact that development is replacing parking imply a healthy local economy, and that people are visiting that new development by some means?

In the second paragraph, we have the even more revealing “a higher parking tax implies that the facility will require larger subsidies to develop than it would in the absence of the parking tax increase.”

Indeed, in many cities, parking garages are subsidized by a city or state authority because the all-knowing hand of government thinks that people need better access to parking above all else. (If you’re a local business owner and wondering why the all-knowing hand of government doesn’t have free money for you instead, you’d be right to wonder).

The truth is, parking lot/garage owners have three choices: pay up (and swallow the cost), develop something better (and make the neighborhood more desirable), or sell (at a cut-rate price, making it easier for the next person to develop something). As a business, none of these should worry you, because they all represent the neighborhood becoming healthier for your enterprise. Lower taxes or lower land prices will both mean more of the development that supports transit, and will also add to the tax rolls, so even as the revenue from the parking tax slowly dissipates, the problems that creates solve themselves.

Give it all back

If parking owners being unable to increase their prices, and the flat out arrogance of parking owners getting government hand-outs isn’t a good enough business argument, then how about this: the best use of the parking tax in Providence would be to directly lower other taxes.

Even in a hypothetical case where parking was more expensive, the collected money would equalize that shift in price, and returning the money to local businesses through lower taxes would help them compensate with better services or lower prices. But the more likely event is that parking prices will stay the same while allowing your taxes to go down. Who could argue against that?

You’re getting taxed anyway

The strongest argument against the parking tax is to ignore all the data and examples I laid out, and just cry Chicken Little. OH NO, EVERYTHING WILL COST MORE! OH NO, THERE WILL BE PARKING-GEDDON! OH NO, STOP TAXING US!

The problem with this argument is that you are being taxed.

Though rates technically went down on some taxes in the mayor’s budget, the amount paid has gone up on just about everything. One of the newly raised taxes is the “meal and beverage” tax.

If we were trying not to tax parking because we were worried it might chase people away from local businesses, was taxing restaurants instead the way to go?

Give it to me in a paragraph

Parking is a weird oligopoly, and the owners are charging you as much as they can. Taxing them more doesn’t actually allow them to pass that on to you, because they’ve already maximized their price. So parking taxes are a tax on rich people who are speculating on land. Parking taxes encourage those people to turn that parking into something else, but in the meantime, the city collects revenue that lowers your taxes. The city is “considering” taxes on parking rather than “implementing” taxes on parking because they’ve got cold feet about taking on one of the richest people in the city. You should tell the city government that you want a tax on parking, because if they don’t tax parking, they’re going to tax your house, your apartment, the restaurant you go to, and everything else first.

Tax parking.

May 4, 2016May 4, 2016

Providence’s lead water pipes

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According to the Providence Water Supply website, “there are approximately 20,000…[lead] lines still in existence in the Providence Water system.” The Water Supply Board’s website includes an interactive map of lead water pipes in the city. The red dots are lead lines and blue are other materials.

It is difficult to discern from this figure how many residents and businesses in Providence are therefore consuming water from lead water lines due to the varied nature of occupancy at a given address in the city. According to Water Supply website 60.85 million gallons are used per day.

Customers are not facing the immediate danger of lead poisoning similar to Flint. The disaster in Flint happened because a chemical was added to the water that leached lead from the pipes and solder, infusing the water with lead that would otherwise not have been present. This chemical was added to the water supply because, in an effort to save money, the government had switched the water supply from the much cleaner Detroit Water and Sewage supply system to the much dirtier Flint river, a waterway that was polluted over decades by industrial and automotive factories that were built up alongside its banks. If this chemical had not been added to the Flint river water supply, the plumbing system in the municipality, still including lead pipes and solder, would not have poisoned the population. Providence, like many other municipalities, regularly flushes its plumbing systems via fire hydrants to prevent concentration of lead from accumulating.

Recently, the Associated Press issued a report on Providence’s aging water infrastructure:

An analysis of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data by The Associated Press found that Providence’s drinking water system was one of the largest in the country to exceed a federal lead standard since 2013. It has gone over the limit six times since 2010 after testing samples of the tap water used by about 300,000 people in Providence and the surrounding cities of Cranston, Johnston and North Providence.

This is akin to what Rhode Island’s Future reported several months ago when this news was carried in The Guardian.

The crisis in Flint, Michigan has reignited a national conversation about lead plumbing and safety, a discussion that includes the water system of Providence. We decided to take a deeper look at this issue and outline first the parameters and then the solutions possible to this issue.

April 29, 2016April 30, 2016

Against a lower car tax

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Hopeful discussion of a possible parking tax earlier this week gave way to the realization that Jorge Elorza and Providence City Council are more likely to forego such a measure, and instead lower the car tax. Sigh. . .

I know that many in the progressive community feel the car tax is too high, or that there should be a higher exemption at the lower end of the price spectrum. I strenuously disagree.

This year was my highest earning year– it was the first time as a child or an adult that I wasn’t eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit. I made a whopping $17,000 and change, which was matched by a somewhat lower return for my partner. In order to sell products at farmers’ markets, Rachel has recently purchased a car– another first for us. So raising the exemption on the car tax benefits us both as people at the marginal end of the income spectrum and now (gasp) as car owners. But just because something benefits us does not mean that it’s right.

There are many costs to life, and I do not begrudge people for the fact that they dislike paying the car tax. I don’t like paying for things that are expensive either. When we discussed owning a car, we were in full awareness that we’d have to pay a very high car tax, and we agreed as a couple that we would register the car in the city and pay that tax, instead of doing what some people do, which is to find a relative and cheat the system by registering it elsewhere. We agreed that if it came a time that we couldn’t afford to pay that tax any more, that was a sign that maybe we shouldn’t own a car. It doesn’t mean that we love paying a huge sum of money for the car tax. It means we’re mature people who recognize that not paying that tax doesn’t make the costs of car ownership go away. Shifting the costs away from us just means that someone else will pay through a loss of an important program somewhere else in the city budget.

I’d love to see the city target more money to lower income people. I grew up in a marginal income single family house, and at thirty, I still struggle economically. There are people even further down the ladder than I am, and some of them have additional burdens I don’t face. We should of course find creative ways to make our tax system less burdensome to people of low incomes. But why is the car tax always people’s chosen medium to accomplish this?

Why not lower property taxes– especially on multifamily housing and apartments, which are currently taxed at a higher rate (property tax rates go down under the proposed budget, but the Projo notes that the actual amount paid will go up due to higher assessments of properties in the city)? Why not get rid of multiple examples of exclusionary zoning, such as the zoning that was added to Ward 1 to make it less friendly to multifamily housing, and the zoning that excludes more than three students living in five and seven bedroom houses? Getting rid of exclusionary zoning would allow more affordable housing development, which would also bring in more taxes for the city.

Why not charge a surface parking tax, and use the money to lower taxes on the lowest rung of housing? We know that the particularities of parking mean that the wealthy owners of parking lots and garages– land speculators who aren’t contributing to the city– have to swallow the cost of a new parking tax. That money could be used to help lower taxes on things we want in our city, like housing or jobs. It could also be used to pay for things we like– better schools or transit.

Why not even lower commercial taxes on businesses below a certain threshold? The city has very high commercial taxes, and that means that we often have vacancies. Having a land tax to bring in revenue from big boxes might allow the city to lower costs on smaller businesses, and maybe even fill some vacant storefronts. Those vacancies are part of what makes it so necessary to own a car in the first place– there are fewer jobs and fewer shopping possibilities within distance of one’s house. What more grotesque example of the primacy of driving in our city could exist than Providence Place Mall turning the JC Penney’s across from the train station into additional parking. What exactly are people parking for, as this city of ours hollows out and loses things to visit day by day?

If the city has money to lower the car tax in the midst of a fiscal crisis, then why does it not have money for other social needs? Why can’t we start paying for better early childhood education? Why can’t we figure out a guaranteed minimum income supplement for local residents? Or add the the stipend low income people get for food stamps? Philadelphia recently worked with the private William Penn Foundation to subsidize bike share for low income residents. Providence is still trying to work out a start for its bike share. It costs $5 monthly for any food stamps recipient in Philadelphia to use unlimited bike share in the city. Every time I pay a full dollar to transfer to another bus for the last leg of a journey, I wish I could flash my food stamps card and get that deal.

The truth is that the reason we don’t put more money to schools, or to food security or public transportation or any other need is that if we called for spending on those things, we’d be laughed out of the room. There’s no money! What are you thinking?! But, of course, we have money to cut the car tax.

At the end of the day, we call this “Elorza’s” proposal, and I do not claim to know the internal politics. Lots of people don’t like the parking tax, all across the city, and all across the political spectrum. And why would they? It sucks to pay for things. Maybe the mayor faces pressure from city councilors, or this is part of a deal for something else. It’s still not a good idea. How can we be raising taxes on housing at exactly the time we’re lowering taxes on driving? But when our city has to put bonds out to do basic repaving work, as in the Taveras admin., that’s a sign that we’re running in the red. Why not let car owners pay the costs of roads, so that we don’t let those costs creep into the things we really want to share as a commons, such as our crumbling schools? People should contact their city council people and say that this is an unacceptable position.

No lower car tax. Not when we face such climate problems on our horizon. Not when there are so many other needs.

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April 15, 2016

Ray Rickman on Elorza, possibilities for Providence

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Ray Rickman, the head of Stages of Freedom and a former member of the General Assembly, offered tough criticism and some sage advice for Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, who recently announced severe fiscal problems in the Capital City.

“So he’s trying to signal to us bankruptcy might be required,” Rickman said. “I think it’s inappropriate.”

Rickman isn’t confident Elorza can handle the task. “He doesn’t have the fiscal understanding or experience to manage this problem nor does his administration,” he said. “It is so obvious that they don’t have the ability to tackle this.”

“First thing he should do is assemble a group of people,” Rickman said. “I don’t know if it’s 15 or 20, but he needs to get some financial advice… He has to take responsibility. I think he should get a group of people in place that understand municipal finance.”

Rickman said property taxes can fairly be raised on those with the largest lots in the city.

“The more land you have, the lower your taxes,” he said. “So if you’re on the East Side and you have three lots, they charge you less money, no matter how valuable your land is… There are twenty people, very, very rich people with very big pieces of land and they don’t pay the tax that they would pay if they had a piece of land 1/3 of the size.”

Rickman said bold new ideas are necessary.

“I think you have to examine the whole ball of wax before you start deciding what to do,” he said. “We have scores…[of] millionaires on the East Side of Providence… Could we get a fund for Providence?”

For more of Rickman’s insights, click to listen to the audio below.

April 10, 2016

Bernie Sanders office opens In Providence

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The Grand Opening of the Bernie Sanders for President campaign office is taking place Sunday, April 10th on 500 Broad St. in Providence from noon to 1PM. Over 100 people have already signed up to join in the event.

Progressives of all stripes are invited to the political revolution to take back the country from the establishment.

The primaries are turning out to be a classic 1% v the 99%. The Republicans leader is a four times bankrupt billionaire “You’re Fired” celebrity and the Democrats offer the possibility of Bernie Sanders, a social, economic and environmental justice champion, who is saying “You’re Hired” to America.

Sanders won the Wyoming caucus, where he gave his victory speech after a stunning romp of Clinton in Wisconsin, birthplace of modern Progressivism, Sanders will have won 7 0f the last 8 Primaries/Caucuses…as his campaign rolls east. Should be an exciting event.

March 15, 2016March 16, 2016

St. Patrick’s Day, 1989: The biggest upset in college basketball history almost happened in Providence

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There should be an interesting twist to this year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Providence.

The NCAA’s March Madness basketball extravaganza tips off in the Capital City on March 17 featuring eight very diverse teams. So there will be quite a few foreigners – as we should and will regard them - wandering the streets and undoubtedly getting a skinful on St. Paddy’s Day. Smile, treat ‘em nice, and just enjoy the free sideshow by basketball fans exploring the eccentricities of Little Rhody. They are legion.

But this isn’t the first time the NCAA tournament and St. Patrick’s Day came crashing together in Providence, Rhode Island. The last time was 1989, and it turned out to be the show of all shows.

Notre Dame played Vanderbilt in the nightcap of a doubleheader that day. When you have a team named the Fighting Irish playing in any kind of competition on St. Patrick’s Day, it exponentially ratchets up the amount of drinking that will be done by the sons and daughters of The Auld Sod, as well as those pretenders to the breed who annoyingly use Irish accents for a day. (Just stop it! Stop it now!)

So the streets of Providence that day were teeming with Ireland-affiliated men and women and the tag-alongs. Kind of like “The Walking Shitfaced.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many drunks being readily accepted in public as a whole, and I worked in midtown Manhattan on St. Patrick’s Day for a few years. Nuf sed.

But inside Civic Center, one of the most memorable games in NCAA history was being played, and we got a perhaps not-so-nice slice of American culture. Princeton, the lowest (#16) seed in the region, was playing Georgetown, the #1 seed. A #16 had never beaten a #1 in tournament history. It would take a miracle.

Georgetown then was the NWA of college hoops. Led by its gigantic and intimidating black coach, John Thompson (a PC grad and former b-ball star here), his team was full of in-your-face, talk-shit-take-none bruisers with a reputation for a defense that strictly took names and kicked ass, with an essentially all black cast.

Princeton had a coach named Pete Carril, as tiny as Thompson was imposing, a kind of basketball Yoda, although the way he danced around on the sidelines that day made you think more of a leprechaun. His team of “smart,” virtually all white players essentially gave clinics on how the game of basketball should be played.

Problem was, Princeton took control of the game and made Georgetown look shambolic. Running plays that would have made a drill sergeant proud, the Tigers took their time and just kept putting points on the board, as the crowd went crazy.

As Princeton neared the biggest March Madness upset of all time, the Civic Center became louder than I have ever heard it. Anyone who wasn’t a Georgetown fan, which meant most of the 10,000-plus on hand, was rooting for Princeton. Part of it was because local PC fans detested Georgetown, but for the neutrals, not only was it an abiding love of the underdog, but it was those wonderful, cerebral white kids outsmarting their fierce and frightening black opponents. You didn’t need to be Cornel West or Donald Trump to figure that one out, however distasteful. Ah, nice to know we have come so far.

At any rate, Georgetown’s only lead was taken on what was to be their final basket, to go ahead 50-49. Princeton had two shots left with less than 10 seconds to win it, but the first was blocked out of bounds. Princeton’s second shot was a) deflected by Mourning as Princeton’s Kit Mueller shot; or b) Mourning hit Mueller on the wrist as he shot, which would have given Mueller two potentially game-winning free throws. Due to this non-call, Georgetown and the refs were booed off the court as loudly as the dreamers and hopers and perhaps darker thinkers in the crowd could muster.

And maybe only an old snake charmer like St. Patrick could appreciate what happened in the not so far future, for any number of reasons that make you feel better: John Thompson’s son went on to play college basketball…at Princeton…for Pete Carril. Were everything so nice.

On The Ball And Off The Wall is an occasional sports column by Chip Young, a Rhode Island journalist who was a sportswriter and broadcaster for 25 years. Best known as Phillipe, of Phillipe and Jorge’s Cool, Cool World, Young was also an All-America soccer player in college, he is in the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame. Today he takes a look at one of the most near-famous basketball games ever played in Rhode Island.

February 15, 2016February 16, 2016

Will Providence continue to be a Northeast Corridor rail city?

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The federal government is considering improvements and changes to train service along the Northeast Corridor rail line that could end up bypassing Providence in favor of Worcester. Here’s how:

“NEC FUTURE – a plan for rail investment for the Northeast Corridor,” sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), and as their title indicates, is a program to determine a long-term vision and investment program for the Northeast Corridor (NEC), and to provide a Tier 1 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Service Development Plan (SDP) in 2016 in support of that vision. The FRA launched NEC FUTURE in February 2012.

February 16, 2016 will be the last day to make comments on the Tier 1 Draft EIS (DEIS) before NEC FUTURE prepares the final document.

Throughout the last few years there has been a series of public hearings and workshops in various cities situated along the NEC, including Providence, to gather information from the public and show direction and progress of the study and preparation for the EIS.

Summary of NEC FUTURE and the DEIS
NEC FUTURE has three alternatives, plus a no action alternative, for upgrades to the Northeast Corridor with a focus on developing or enhancing high-speed rail (HSR) service.

Alternate 1 – Proposes upgrades to the existing NEC route. Features include a new rail bypass to extend from Old Saybrook, CT to Kingston, RI to speed service by avoiding curvy sections of the NEC in eastern Connecticut. Also additional tracks are proposed at choke points along the length of the NEC and new rail tunnels in Baltimore and between New Jersey and New York.

Alternative 2 – Proposes multiple track segments from Washington through the New York area along with other improvements. In southern New England a new HSR route is proposed between New York and Boston from New Haven to Hartford to Providence.

Alternative 3 – Proposes a completely new track corridor between Washington and New York that would run roughly parallel the existing legacy NEC. North of the New York four potential combinations for new HSR routes that are suggested between New York and Boston:
3.1 Central CT-Hartford-Providence
3.2 Long Island-New Haven-Hartford-Providence
3.3 Long Island-New Haven-Hartford-Worcester
3.4 Central CT-Hartford-Worcester

As the NEC FUTURE process heads towards its conclusion, there seems to be more questions than answers.

Within NEC FUTURE’s Alternatives Report, NEC population and employment forecasts show serious discrepancies, as far as how metropolitan area population and employment are defined and counted.

The New Bedford area, but also the border cities and towns of Massachusetts, and some of Rhode Island’s population was left out of the Providence metropolitan area count. Springfield, which is 30-miles away and technically is its own distinct and separate metropolitan region (a Combined Statistical Area or CSA), was added to Hartford, where New Bedford, which is generally included in the Providence MSA (or Metropolitan Statistical Area) calculation, also 30-miles away but from Providence was left out.

Incorrect data from the DEIS Appendix – Alternatives Report (October 2015)
Population:

Providence 970,000
Hartford 1,800,000 (the separate CSA of Springfield is added to the Hartford count)

Employment:

Providence 426,000
Hartford 873,000

Actual U.S. Government data from Census Projections (2014) for Population and Bureau of Labor Statistics (November 2015) for Employment Statistics
Population:

Providence MSA 1,609,000
Hartford CSA 1,214,000
Worcester MSA 931,000
Springfield CSA 629,000

Employment:

Providence 649,000
Hartford 590,400
Springfield 395,000
Worcester 329,000
New Bedford 78,000.

What’s implied in the DEIS numbers is that Providence is equivalent to Worcester instead of Hartford. So, if Providence and Worcester are roughly the same (which they are not) why build a second HSR route (Alt 3.1 or 3.2) through Providence?   A Worcester route (Alt 3.3 or 3.4) would offer faster high-speed trains between Boston and New York, but if such a route were created, the coastal NEC would effectively become secondary local tracks. Coincidentally, a series of diagrams in the Alternatives Report illustrates the NEC coastal route in southern New England not as even intermediate tracks, but as “local tracks.”

If billions are spent on a new HSR Hartford-Worcester alignment, it’s highly unlikely that much will be done to improve the NEC coastal route. How then would a proposed 160mph HSR coastal route be developed along already congested Metro North tracks west of New Haven or curvy track sections of eastern Connecticut?

Today there are only two segments of the NEC north of New York in Rhode Island and Massachusetts that provide 150mph service.

There’s a huge difference in the quality of service that an inland 220mph route would provide compared to a 160mph coastal route. It’s not too difficult to imagine that if a new Danbury-Worcester NEC route were built that most people who want to travel between Boston and New York would use the inland route. The result for the coast would be the same slower service as today and likely a significant cut in the number of daily trains due to reduced ridership from the New Yorkers and Bostonians.

A 220mph inland route that went through Providence would have similar advantages as a 220mph inland route through Worcester for speed train service between Boston and New York.

In January a Providence Journal reporter, Patrick Anderson reached out to the FRA. When he asked about the population numbers used in the NEC FUTURE study, the FRA’s response was that they “acknowledged they didn’t use census figures, but Moody’s “market projections” because they wanted to use future numbers [and that] it was up to Moody’s what they included in each metro area.”

When he relayed this to me, it reminded me that a few years earlier at an NEC FUTURE public hearing that study staff members had mentioned that Moody’s Analytics was being used to supply data instead of using government figures, because they wanted to be “more accurate.”

So why is Moody’s data or numbers “future,” if the FRA is using Moody’s current numbers as the basis for determining future projections? Why are Moody’s figures more “accurate” than the U.S. government’s?

In a letter responding to questions I had raised that a staff person at Congressman Cicilline’s office received from the FRA, claimed that the numbers were:

“different due to the source quoted (Census data projections from 2014) and boundaries used to calculate the population and employment numbers. FRA’s data (obtained on a county-level basis for the Study Area) is based on Moody’s Analytics June 2013 “base” demographic forecasts. Moody’s data uses actual Census data (not the same as census projections) to make projections. Moody’s supplied three forecasts for the 2040 NEC population and employment projections based on this data: low, base (most likely), and high.

In addition, the geographic boundaries FRA used are not the same as the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) boundaries cited by the constituent. The boundaries in the Tier 1 Draft EIS were drawn based on markets served and do not match up specifically to the MSA boundaries. For purposes of our analysis, the Providence and Hartford metro areas were defined as indicated below:

Providence (all of Rhode Island):  Providence County, RI, Bristol County, RI, Newport County, RI, Kent County, RI, Washington County, RI

Hartford (also includes Springfield):  Hampden County, MA, Hampshire County, MA, Hartford County, CT, Tolland County, CT, Northern half of Middlesex County, CT

New Bedford (Bristol County, MA) is included in the Boston metro area”

If Moody’s “uses actual Census data,” which is “not the same as census projections,” the difference is miniscule.

Example:

1,055,173 Rhode Island population (2014 census projection)
1,052,931 Rhode Island population (2010 census)
3,252 Difference

If the FRA’s data is “obtained on a county-level basis for the Study Area” and the claim that Moody’s is using “all of Rhode Island[‘s]” five counties to determine the Providence area population, where did the figure of 970,000 in the Alternatives Report come from, that misses 80,000 from Rhode Island’s population?

Was Newport County or something else left out of Moody’s calculation for Rhode Island Why is it that “boundaries in the [DEIS] were drawn based on markets served and do not match up specifically to the MSA boundaries” and “New Bedford (Bristol County, MA) is included in the Boston metro area?”

FRA further stated to Congressman Cicilline’s office that:

“Alternative 3 in the Tier 1 Draft EIS includes four representative route options for a second spine between New York and Boston. All four options – two for service between New York and Hartford and two for service between Hartford and Boston – have been objectively evaluated in the Tier 1 Draft EIS. Importantly, a second spine is intended to supplement the existing NEC, which would be brought to a state of good repair and expanded to accommodate 2040 demand. Thus, in any Alternative 3 route option the infrastructure and service on the existing NEC would be improved.   Most importantly, FRA has not chosen a Preferred Alternative. The decision on the Preferred Alternative will be based on the findings presented in the Tier 1 Draft EIS, public and stakeholder comments, and FRA policy guidance.”

How is it possible for the FRA to make an “objective” choice in selecting a “Preferred Alternative,” if the data that’s the basis of the study, uses inaccurate population figures, which artificially exaggerate or bloat the Hartford metro area and deflate or mask the actual population of the Providence metro area.

Whether Moody’s, FRA, or NEC FUTURE wants to believe it or not, the Providence metropolitan area includes all of Rhode Island and Bristol County, MA, and has over 1.6-million people making it the second largest metropolitan are in New England after Boston.

Rhode Island and Bristol County, MA are economically and culturally intertwined. Every day people cross the state line in both directions to work, attend school, shop, deliver goods, provide services, and attend cultural events. Members of families live on both sides of the state line.

It’s laughable to think that someone from New Bedford, who wanted to take Amtrak to Baltimore, would drive 60 miles north (in heavy traffic) to Boston instead of 30 miles west to Providence. As Moody’s defines it, Dartmouth or Westport, MA are “part of the Boston metro,” should medical helicopters with accident victims be redirected from the Rhode Island Hospital Trauma Center to Massachusetts General instead? Should the Providence/New Bedford TV stations be broken up, because Moody’s thinks Bristol County, MA is Boston?

Clearly Moody’s has misrepresented or misinterpreted the Providence metropolitan area geographic boundaries and population. With the FRA’s response to Patrick Anderson with its claim that they didn’t use census figures, contradicts with the response that Congressman’s Cicilline’s office received from an FRA insisting that Moody’s and the FRA used census figures instead of census projections.

What is the truth?

If Moody’s numbers stand uncorrected in the DEIS and the final EIS and the study process will not be credible, because it will be based on inaccurate and untrue data. The Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics or other appropriate federal agencies or possibly a private company that offers similar services as Moody’s, should be directed by the FRA to conduct a peer review to independently verify Moody’s assumptions, methodology, and numbers, before the Final EIS is competed and issued.

By the time any of the projects outlined in the DEIS are funded, many government office holders likely will be out of office. What will remain is a faulty document based on bad numbers, which future leaders will base decisions on. Anyone who’s ever worked on an EIS knows that you try to include examples and data that best support your proposal or preferred project.

Alternative 3.4 looks very similar to earlier Amtrak proposals, which were published around 2010 of a Danbury-Hartford-Worcester and Danbury-Hartford-Woonsocket alignments. To my knowledge Amtrak has never shown a second HSR alignment in southern New England that goes through Providence, even though the FRA does with this NEC FUTURE study.

Has a Preferred Alternative already chosen and is the EIS being used to justify that choice with erroneous numbers?

Any mistakes or wrong assumptions in data provided to the FRA and NEC FUTURE made by Moody’s Analytics must either be corrected or replaced by U.S. government population, employment, and economic data, If not this study and resulting EIS will be skewed and questionable.

This discussion would be a non-issue, if Alternates 1, 2, or 3.1 or 3.2 were selected as Preferred Alternatives. However, if Alternatives 3.3 or 3.4 are selected and eventually built, the implications for the Providence area, the second largest metropolitan area in New England, as well as possibly the New Haven area would be extremely negative. This might be an over dramatization, but in effect Providence would become an outpost on the NEC, similar to the relationship that Syracuse or Rochester has with New York, as Providence would no long have its current advantage of being located on the (real) NEC, if a second HSR line is developed that bypasses the city.

February 12, 2016February 12, 2016

An interview with Ted Siedle about the myth of Gina Raimondo, working class hero

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For years, Gina Raimondo has engineered a deceptive image for herself as a working-class Rhode Islander who broke out of the blue collar and got lucky while staying loyal to her proletarian roots. In one of her campaign ads, she goes for the heart by wandering around the factory her retired father worked at, pulling the heartstrings as if this were Frank Capra’s dream production. All she needed to make it complete was having one of the kids chime in at the end something about how teacher says every time you hear a bell ring an angel gets its wings.

What a farce.

This sham image has been one element in one of the biggest heists in Rhode Island history, a scheme that every tax payer is financing while she potentially profits! Without this Capra-esque smoke and mirrors charade, Raimondo would not just have lower public appeal, she would not be able to function as what she really is, a confidence artist for Wall Street.

Ted Siedle, the forensic auditor who has just completed the crowdfunding of a third investigation that will look into the real estate portfolio of the pension fund, was kind enough to share his thoughts on his investigations, including the lack of action by Seth Magaziner to address these problems.

How did this happen?

There were some pensions in America after the 2008 economic crash made vulnerable by the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and the other firms that Raimondo had ties to. So what she did as Treasurer was use the very real instance of pension instability in other states to claim the Rhode Island pension fund was in deep trouble. Of course, considering that the public sector is one of the largest employers in Rhode Island and thousands upon thousands of people per week are paying into the pension when they accept a paycheck, no one thought to ask how that logic is supposed to work. In any event, Raimondo used some fancy Wall Street lingo to make things seem dire while confusing union leaders who never were in the advanced graduate school math classes she was. And, since she was the Treasurer, she was supposed to be looking out for the best interests of the pension and was smart enough to understand what she said were the sophisticated elements of the public pension fund.

Or so we all thought, especially since Gina is such a working class hero.

But Siedle says it was not so. He writes in his first audit: [F]or the chief fiduciary to a pension to agree to permit investment managers to not provide material information [upon request from the public] regarding investment strategies and portfolio holdings related to ERSRI assets they have been entrusted with constitutes a complete abrogation of the duty to safeguard pension assets… [I]f the managers are truly unwilling to submit to public scrutiny, i.e., comply with applicable public disclosure laws, they should not be entrusted with the management of public assets. [Emphasis added] In another article, he writes in italicized bold letter the following:

Public pension funds aren’t sophisticated.

The real robbery is not the initial hit that the pension fund took when it was “reformed”, as the Treasurer told us. Instead, it is a weekly sum total of exorbitant and uncalled for service fees, significantly higher than industry standards, that prevents the pension from rebounding in a timely fashion. Every day that a teacher, firefighter, policeman, or other public sector employee who pays into the pension fund gets their check, they see a deduction made for the pension on the pay stub.

And every deduction should be read as a literal sweetheart card sent directly to Wall Street, sealed with a kiss by Gina Raimondo. To add insult to injury, the potential returns from Raimondo’s not-so-blind trust that she got the state to invest the pension into under not-totally-honest pretenses is contributing regularly to her personal wealth. Siedle writes “a significant portion of the [then-]Treasurer’s wealth and income relates to shares she owns in two illiquid, opaque venture capital partnerships she formerly managed at Point Judith Capital—one of which she convinced the state to invest in on different, less favorable terms.”

This has resulted in the cost of living adjustment (COLA) payments for retirees to be stopped by the Rhode Island Retirement Security Act of 2011 while Wall Street is boasting about a recovery that is funded by public money! The 2011 law said that the COLAs would return after the pension returns to 80% viability. But with all these fees, the only person being given an adjustment here may be Gina Raimondo!

And since it is obvious the Magaziner is not doing anything about this, nor the Attorney General, the operative question then becomes who else is in on the scheme? How many Democratic and Republican Party members who boast about this heist as Theresa Paiva Weed did in a recent story by Steve Ahlquist are actually collecting checks from the firms profiting off the pension? Is it just ironic that the recent Brookings Institute report on Rhode Island names as potential key success industries economic sectors known to be financed by firms like Point Judith Capital and the Tudor Investment Corporation that turned Raimondo’s firm from a bit player into a respectable enough outfit to make a bid for the pension?

February 9, 2016February 10, 2016

Why wait for the feds when AG Kilmartin can use the RICO Act against Raimondo’s pension scheme?

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Since the publication of Ted Seidle’s letter to various federal agencies regarding the Raimondo pension policies, the operative question has been when will the feds come knocking on Smith Hill? It is clear that Raimondo is desperate to rebuild her reputation with unions, hence the push for the union-friendly RhodeWorks project. But why wait when Attorney General Kilmartin has the RICO Act at his disposal?

The website NOLO.com, a free resource for legal information, says the following of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act:

It allows prosecution and civil penalties for racketeering activity performed as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise. Such activity may include illegal gambling, bribery, kidnapping, murder, money laundering, counterfeiting, embezzlement, drug trafficking, slavery, and a host of other unsavory business practices. To convict a defendant under RICO, the government must prove that the defendant engaged in two or more instances of racketeering activity and that the defendant directly invested in, maintained an interest in, or participated in a criminal enterprise affecting interstate or foreign commerce.

(1) racketeering activity means
(A) any act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled substance or listed chemical (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act), which is chargeable under State law and punishable by imprisonment for more than one year;
(B) any act which is indictable under any of the following provisions of title 18, United States Code: Section 201 (relating to bribery), section 224 (relating to sports bribery), sections 471, 472, and 473 (relating to counterfeiting), section 659 (relating to theft from interstate shipment) if the act indictable under section 659 is felonious, section 664 (relating to embezzlement from pension and welfare funds), sections 891894 (relating to extortionate credit transactions), section 1028 (relating to fraud and related activity in connection with identification documents), section 1029 (relating to fraud and related activity in connection with access devices), section 1084 (relating to the transmission of gambling information), section 1341 (relating to mail fraud), section 1343 (relating to wire fraud), section 1344 (relating to financial institution fraud), section 1425 (relating to the procurement of citizenship or nationalization unlawfully), section 1426 (relating to the reproduction of naturalization or citizenship papers), section 1427 (relating to the sale of naturalization or citizenship papers), sections 14611465 (relating to obscene matter), section 1503 (relating to obstruction of justice), section 1510 (relating to obstruction of criminal investigations), section 1511 (relating to the obstruction of State or local law enforcement), section 1512 (relating to tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant), section 1513 (relating to retaliating against a witness, victim, or an informant), section 1542 (relating to false statement in application and use of passport), section 1543 (relating to forgery or false use of passport), section 1544 (relating to misuse of passport), section 1546 (relating to fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents), sections 15811592 (relating to peonage, slavery, and trafficking in persons).,[1] section 1951 (relating to interference with commerce, robbery, or extortion), section 1952 (relating to racketeering), section 1953 (relating to interstate transportation of wagering paraphernalia), section 1954 (relating to unlawful welfare fund payments), section 1955 (relating to the prohibition of illegal gambling businesses), section 1956 (relating to the laundering of monetary instruments), section 1957 (relating to engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity), section 1958 (relating to use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire), section 1960 (relating to illegal money transmitters), sections 2251, 2251A, 2252, and 2260 (relating to sexual exploitation of children), sections 2312 and 2313 (relating to interstate transportation of stolen motor vehicles), sections 2314 and 2315 (relating to interstate transportation of stolen property), section 2318 (relating to trafficking in counterfeit labels for phonorecords, computer programs or computer program documentation or packaging and copies of motion pictures or other audiovisual works), section 2319 (relating to criminal infringement of a copyright), section 2319A (relating to unauthorized fixation of and trafficking in sound recordings and music videos of live musical performances), section 2320 (relating to trafficking in goods or services bearing counterfeit marks), section 2321 (relating to trafficking in certain motor vehicles or motor vehicle parts), sections 23412346 (relating to trafficking in contraband cigarettes), sections 242124 (relating to white slave traffic), sections 175178 (relating to biological weapons), sections 229229F (relating to chemical weapons), section 831 (relating to nuclear materials),
(C) any act which is indictable under title 29, United States Code, section 186 (dealing with restrictions on payments and loans to labor organizations) or section 501 (c) (relating to embezzlement from union funds),
(D) any offense involving fraud connected with a case under title 11 (except a case under section 157 of this title), fraud in the sale of securities, or the felonious manufacture, importation, receiving, concealment, buying, selling, or otherwise dealing in a controlled substance or listed chemical (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act), punishable under any law of the United States,
(E) any act which is indictable under the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act,
(F) any act which is indictable under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 274 (relating to bringing in and harboring certain aliens), section 277 (relating to aiding or assisting certain aliens to enter the United States), or section 278 (relating to importation of alien for immoral purpose) if the act indictable under such section of such Act was committed for the purpose of financial gain, or
(G) any act that is indictable under any provision listed in section 2332b (g)(5)(B) [Emphasis added]

So the question then becomes whether Raimondo and her associates have engaged in this behavior. And there are plenty of reasons to suspect so.

The first document to consult is one commissioned by the American Federation of Teachers, the Roosevelt Institute, the Refund America Project, and the Haas Institute titled All That Glitters is Not Gold: An Analysis of US Public Pension Investments in Hedge Funds. While the document does not specifically study Rhode Island, the lessons are applicable here and it says the following:

Key Findings: Hedge funds were responsible for an estimated $8 billion in lost investment revenue

Our findings suggest that these 11 pension funds’ hedge fund investments failed to deliver any significant benefits to the pension funds studied. Specifically, we found that:

Hedge fund net return rates lagged behind the total fund for nearly three-quarters of the total years reviewed, costing the group of pension funds an estimated $8 billion in lost investment revenue.
Despite lagging performance, hedge fund managers collected an estimated $7.1 billion in fees from the same pension funds over the period reviewed; on average, our estimates suggest that these pension funds paid 57 cents in fees to hedge fund managers for every dollar of net return to the pension fund.

Whereas hedge fund managers promise uncorrelated returns and downside protection, all of the 11 pension funds reviewed demonstrated significant correlation between hedge fund and total fund performance.

Recommendations:

Considering the implications of these findings for pension fund trustees, participants and consultants, we recommend that public pension funds currently invested in hedge funds immediately take the following steps:

– Conduct an asset allocation review to examine less costly and more effective diversification approaches. The review should include a complete analysis of past net performance of their hedge fund investments, as well as a comparison with low-fee alternatives.

– Require full and public disclosure from hedge fund managers and consultants, including complete disclosure of historical investment management and incentive (carry or profit-sharing) fees captured by hedge fund managers for the duration of their fund’s investments. Pension funds should also consider developing legislative policies requiring this level of disclosure. [Emphasis in original]

Before moving forward, it is worthwhile to recall here that the Governor has previously invoked a host of proprietary information reasons for not providing full disclosure of matters regarding the pension fund. In this sense, this document not only flies in the face of that logic, it is recommending things under the auspices of full disclosure laws that the Governor has said do not apply in this situation. As such, Attorney General Kilmartin could investigate further on this issue and hold people liable for failing to obey public disclosure laws.

Also notable is that, while the report does not deal specifically with the Rhode Island pension plan, it does discuss shortcomings of Daniel Loeb’s Third Point Capital, one of the firms the Rhode Island pension plan was invested in.

Here are further findings of this paper:

Indeed, our findings suggest that all 11 pension funds included in our analysis would have performed better having never invested in hedge funds in the first place. This has important implications not only for pension fund trustees, who have a fiduciary duty to prudently seek investments that provide the highest long-term returns for the lowest cost to the pension fund, but also for public employees, public employee unions, retirees and taxpayers, all of whom should be concerned about this overall negative impact that hedge funds are exerting on public pension funds. [Emphasis in original]

With that in mind, consider for a moment this information from Ted Seidle’s first audit of the pension, Rhode Island Public Pension Reform: Wall Street’s License to Steal:

[A] significant portion of the Treasurer’s wealth and income relates to shares she owns in two illiquid, opaque venture capital partnerships she formerly managed at Point Judith Capital—one of which she convinced the state to invest in on different, less favorable terms. Unlike the state which paid millions for its shares in one of the Point Judith funds, the Treasurer was granted shares in both of the venture capital funds for free… In a letter to the Rhode Island Ethics Commission requesting an advisory opinion concerning whether she had taken sufficient steps to avoid conflicts of interest relative to her ties to a venture capital fund in which the state had made an investment, the Treasurer represented that in 2007 the State Investment Commission entered into a ten-year contract with Point Judith in which the State agreed to invest $5 million dollars in the Point Judith II fund. She also represented that the State’s investment in the fund was passive, meaning that after signing the contract with Point Judith and making its investment commitment, the State Investment Commission had no say in the fund’s ongoing management or investment decisions.
The Treasurer notably failed to mention in her letter to the Ethics Commission that the state had not merely entered into a ten-year contract with Point Judith. Rather, the state was a limited partner in a fund managed by Point Judith as General Partner and, as a limited partner the state may have broad rights in the fund’s ongoing management, or investment decisions, the exercise of which may conflict with her rights and interests.
Further, as a Point Judith insider, she, or other investors, may have been granted special rights more favorable than those granted to the state, including special withdrawal rights; rights to receive reports from the partnership on a more frequent basis or that include information not provided to other limited partners; rights to receive reduced rates of the incentive allocation and management fee; rights to receive a share of the incentive allocation, management fee or other amounts earned by the general partner or its affiliates. If true, the Treasurer may literally be profiting at the expense of the state…Regardless, the characterization of the investment in the Point Judith II Fund as merely a ten-year contract in a passive investment as to which the state had no say is neither complete nor accurate.
In order to create further separation from her investment in the Point Judith funds, the Treasurer represented that prior to assuming office she placed all her right, title and interest in both funds into a blind trust designated as the Raimondo Blind Trust. While a blind trust may be of value in certain circumstances, where, as here, the sole assets of the trust, i.e. the shares in the two Point Judith funds, are illiquid, i.e. cannot be sold for a decade, no protection is afforded. The purpose of the blind trust is to keep the beneficiary unaware of the specific assets of the trust, so as to avoid a conflict of interest between the beneficiary and the investments.
In this case, the Treasurer knows precisely the assets held in the Blind Trust during her entire term as Treasurer and continues to enjoy cash distributions related to the Point Judith funds—payments exponentially greater than her state salary in the past year— and payments related to shares she was granted for free.
Rather than provide protection against conflicts, here the blind trust serves to enable the conflict of interest involving ERSRI to persist throughout her term.
Most important, in connection with granting the Advisory Opinion, the Treasurer did not indicate, and Ethics Commission did not consider, that the Treasurer would subsequently refuse to disclose to the public information regarding ERSRI’s investment in Point Judith II.
Ironically, the Blind Trust scheme she proposed to the Ethics Commission coupled with her nondisclosure policy regarding the Point Judith II fund, has resulted in only the public being “blind” as to the Point Judith II fund.
In short, in our opinion, this arrangement constitutes a misuse of the blind trust device. [Emphasis added]

This presents a host of not just interest conflicts but potential illegal market manipulation committed in totality on the state level. If Raimondo manipulated the public in portraying the investments of the pension in a fashion to personally benefit her, that would constitute a serious malfeasance for investigation by the Attorney General. Furthermore, as this matter has involved court proceedings in a variety of cases, there could be potential perjury charges brought.

We will continue to explore these documents and bring highlights in further reporting.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Following this report, it was indicated by readers that the aforementioned RICO Act is the federal as opposed the Rhode Island definition of the law. It is worth noting that, due to the interstate and international nature of the pension fund investments, the federal definition is still applicable and relevant. That law, Rhode Island General Laws Title 7 Chapter 15, says the following:

§ 7-15-1  Definitions. – (a) “Enterprise” includes any sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated for a particular purpose although not a legal entity.

(b) “Person” includes any individual or entity capable of holding a legal or beneficial interest in property.

(c) “Racketeering activity” means any act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson in the first, second, or third degree, robbery, bribery, extortion, larceny or prostitution, or any dealing in narcotic or dangerous drugs which is chargeable as a crime under state law and punishable by imprisonment for more than one year, or child exploitations for commercial or immoral purposes in violation of § 11-9-1(b) or (c) or § 11-9-1.1.

(d) “Unlawful debt” means a debt incurred or contracted in an illegal gambling activity or business or which is unenforceable under state law in whole or in part as to principal or interest because of the law relating to usury.

§ 7-15-2  Prohibited activities. – (a) It is unlawful for any person who has knowingly received any income derived directly or indirectly from a racketeering activity or through collection of an unlawful debt, to directly or indirectly use or invest any part of that income, or the proceeds of that income in the acquisition of an interest in, or the establishment or operation of any enterprise.

(b) It is unlawful for any person through a racketeering activity or through collection of an unlawful debt to directly or indirectly acquire or maintain any interest in or control of any enterprise.

(c) It is unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise to conduct or participate in the conduct of the affairs of the enterprise through racketeering activity or collection of an unlawful debt.

(d) Provided, that a purchase of securities on the open market for purposes of investment and without the intention of controlling or participating in the control of the issuer, or of assisting another to do so, is not unlawful under this section if the securities of the issuer held by the purchaser, the members of his immediate family, and his or her or their accomplices in a racketeering activity or the collection of an unlawful debt after the purchase do not amount in the aggregate to one percent (1%) of the outstanding securities of any one class, and do not, either in law or in fact, confer the power to elect one or more directors of the issuer.

…

§ 7-15-7  Investigative demands. – (a) Issuance. Whenever the attorney general has reasonable cause to believe that any person or enterprise has knowledge or is in possession, custody, or control of any documentary material pertinent to an investigation of a possible violation of this chapter, he or she may, prior to and/or following the institution of a civil or criminal proceeding on the violation, issue in writing and cause to be served upon the person or enterprise a civil investigatory demand by which he or she may:

(1) Compel the attendance of the person and require him or her to submit to examination and give testimony under oath; and/or

(2) Require the production of documentary material pertinent to the investigation for inspection and/or copying; and/or

(3) Require answers under oath to written interrogatories.

(b) Power to issue. The power to issue investigative demands does not abate or terminate by reason of the bringing of any action or proceeding under this chapter. The attorney general may issue successive investigatory demands to the same person in order to obtain additional information pertinent to an ongoing investigation.

(c) Confidentiality. In the event the attorney general initiates a civil investigatory demand prior to a criminal indictment for violation of this chapter, then the commencement, contents, and results of the civil investigatory demand is held in the strictest confidence by the attorney general and shall remain so until the time that a civil action is commenced, indictment for violation of this chapter returned, or removal of the confidentiality is ordered by a justice of the superior court.

(d) Contents of investigative demand. Each investigatory demand shall:

(1) State the nature of the conduct constituting the alleged racketeering violation of this chapter which is under investigation and the provisions of law applicable to the conduct;

(2) Prescribe a reasonable return date no less than twenty (20) days from the date of the investigative demand, provided that an earlier date may be prescribed under compelling circumstances;

(3) Specify the time and place at which the person is to appear and give testimony, produce documentary material, and furnish answers to interrogatories, or do any or a combination of the above;

(4) Identify the custodian to whom any documentary material is to be made available;

(5) Describe by class any documentary material to be produced with such definiteness and certainty as to permit the material to be fairly identified;

(6) Contain any interrogatories to which written answers under oath are required; and

(7) Advise in writing the person upon whom the demand is served that the material or statements may constitute a basis for prosecution against the person.

(e) Prohibition against unreasonable demand. No investigatory demand shall:

(1) Contain any requirement which would be unreasonable or improper if contained in a subpoena or a subpoena duces tecum issued by a court of this state; or

(2) Require the disclosure of any material which would be privileged from disclosure if demanded by a subpoena or a subpoena duces tecum issued by a court of this state.

(f) Service of investigative demand.

(1) An investigative demand may be served by:

(i) Delivering an executed copy to the person to be served, or if the person is not a natural person, to any partner, executive officer, managing agent, general agent, or to any agent of the person authorized by appointment or by law to receive service of process on behalf of the person;

(ii) Delivering an executed copy to the principal office or place of business of the person to be served; or

(iii) Mailing by certified mail, return receipt requested, an executed copy addressed to the person to be served, or if the person is not a natural person, addressed to its principal office or place of business in this state, or if it has none in this state, to its principal office or place of business.

(2) A verified return by the individual serving any demand or petition setting forth the manner of service is prima facie proof of service. In the case of service by certified mail, the return shall be accompanied by the return post office receipt of delivery of the demand.

(g) Authorization to examine. The examination of all persons pursuant to this section shall be conducted by the attorney general or a representative designated in writing by him or her, before an officer authorized to administer oaths in this state. The statements made shall be taken down stenographically or by a sound recording device and shall be transcribed.

(h) Rights of persons served with investigative demands. Any person required to attend and give testimony or to submit documentary material pursuant to this section is entitled to retain, or, on payment of lawfully prescribed cost, to procure, a copy of any document he or she produces and of his or her own statements as transcribed. Any person compelled to appear under a demand for oral testimony pursuant to this section may be accompanied, represented, and advised by counsel. Counsel may advise the person in confidence, either upon the request of the person or upon counsel’s own initiative, with respect to any question asked of the person. The person or counsel may object on the record to any question, in whole or in part, and shall briefly state for the record the reason for the objection. An objection may properly be made, received, and entered upon the record when it is claimed that the person is entitled to refuse to answer the question on grounds of any constitutional or other legal right or privilege, including the privilege against self incrimination. The person shall not otherwise object to or refuse to answer any question, and shall not by him or herself or through counsel interrupt the oral examination. If the person refuses to answer any question, the attorney general may petition the superior court for an order compelling the person to answer the question. The information and materials supplied to the attorney general pursuant to an investigative demand are not permitted to become public or be disclosed by the attorney general or his or her employees beyond the extent necessary for legitimate law enforcement purposes pursuant to this chapter.

(i) Witness expenses. All persons served with an investigative demand, other than those persons whose conduct or practices are being investigated or any officer, director, or person in the employment of the person under investigation, are paid the same fees and mileage as paid witnesses in the courts of this state. No person is excused from attending the inquiry pursuant to the mandate of an investigative demand or from giving testimony, or from producing documentary material or from being required to answer questions on the ground of failure to tender or pay a witness fee or mileage, unless demand for the witness fee or mileage is made at the time testimony is about to be taken and unless payment of the witness fee or mileage is not made.

(j) Custody of documents. (1) The attorney general shall designate, from within the department of attorney general, an investigator to serve as racketeer document custodian and any racketeering investigators that he or she determines are necessary to serve as deputies to that officer.

(2) Any person on whom any demand issued under this section has been served shall make the material available for inspection and copying or reproduction to the custodian designated in the demand at the principal place of business of the person, or at any other place that the custodian and the person subsequently agree and prescribe in writing or as the court may direct, pursuant to this section on the return date specified in the demand, or on any later date that the custodian may prescribe in writing. The person may, upon written agreement between the person and the custodian, substitute copies of all or any part of the material for originals of the materials.

(3) The custodian to whom any documentary material is delivered shall take physical possession of it, and is responsible for its use and for its return pursuant to this chapter. The custodian may cause the preparation of any copies of the documentary material that are required for official use under regulations which are promulgated by the attorney general. While in the possession of the custodian, no material produced shall be available for examination, without the consent of the person who produced the material, other than for legitimate law enforcement purposes pursuant to this chapter. Under any reasonable terms and conditions that the attorney general prescribes, documentary material while in the possession of the custodian shall be available for examination by the person who produced the material or any authorized representatives of the person.

(4) Whenever any attorney has been designated to appear on behalf of the state before any court or grand jury in any case or proceeding involving any alleged violation of this chapter, the custodian may deliver to the attorney any documentary material in the possession of the custodian that the attorney determines to be required for use in the presentation of the case or proceeding on behalf of the state. Upon the conclusion of any case or proceeding, the attorney shall return to the custodian any documentary material withdrawn which has not passed into the control of the court or grand jury through its introduction into the record of the case or proceeding.

(5) Upon the completion of the investigation for which any documentary material was produced under this chapter, and any case or proceeding arising from the investigation, the custodian shall return to the person who produced the material all the material, other than copies of it made by the custodian pursuant to this section, which has not passed into the control of any court or grand jury through its introduction into the record of the case or proceeding.

(6)(i) When any documentary material has been produced by any person under this chapter, and no case or proceeding arising from it has been instituted within a reasonable time after completion of the examination and analysis of all evidence assembled in the course of the investigation, the person is entitled, upon written demand made upon the custodian, to the return of all documentary material. Provided, that no documentary material shall be tendered, delivered, or made available to any other state, federal, or municipal agency.

(ii) Anyone who knowingly and willfully violates the provision of this subdivision shall, in addition to any civil liability, be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars ($500) and/or imprisonment for no longer than one year.

(7) In the event of the death, disability, or separation from service of the custodian of any documentary material produced under any demand issued under this chapter or the official relief of the custodian from responsibility for the custody and control of the material, the attorney general shall promptly designate another racketeering investigator to serve as custodian of the documentary material, and transmit notice in writing to the person who produced the material as to the identity and address of the designated successor. Any designated successor has all duties and responsibilities as to the materials imposed by this chapter on his or her predecessor in office as to them, except that he or she is not responsible for any default or dereliction which occurred before his or her designation as custodian.

(k) Enforcement of investigative demands for production. Whenever any person fails to comply with any civil investigative demand served upon him or her under this chapter requiring the production of documentary material, or whenever satisfactory copying or reproduction of that material cannot be done, and the person refuses to surrender the material, the attorney general may file in the superior court and serve upon the person a petition for an order of the court for the enforcement of the demand.

(l) Refusal of persons served to testify or produce documents. Whenever any natural person neglects or refuses to attend and give testimony or to answer any lawful inquiry or to produce documentary material if in his or her power to do so in obedience to an investigative demand served upon him or her under this chapter, he or she may be adjudged in civil contempt by the superior court until any time that he or she purges him or herself of contempt by testifying, producing documentary material or presenting written answers as ordered. Any natural person who commits perjury or false swearing in response to an investigative demand pursuant to this section is punishable pursuant to the provisions of chapter 33 of title 11.

(m) Motion to quash. Within twenty (20) days after the service of an investigatory demand upon any person, or at any time before the return date specified in the demand, whichever period is shorter, the person served may file in the superior court and serve upon the custodian a petition for an order of the court modifying or setting aside the demand. The time allowed for compliance with the demand in whole or in part as deemed proper and ordered by the court shall not run during the pendency of the petition in the court. The petition shall specify each ground upon which the petitioner relies in seeking relief, and may be based on any failure of the demand to comply with the provisions of this chapter or on any constitutional or other legal right or privilege of the person.

(n) Right of persons producing documents. At any time during which any custodian is in custody or control of any documentary material delivered by any person in compliance with an investigatory demand, the person may file in the superior court and serve upon the custodian a petition for an order of the court requiring the performance by the custodian of any duty imposed upon him or her by this chapter.

(o) Duty to testify. (1) If, in any investigation brought by the attorney general pursuant to this section, any individual refuses to attend or to give testimony or to produce documentary material or to answer a written interrogatory in obedience to an investigative demand or under order of court on the ground that the testimony or material required of him or her may tend to incriminate him, that person may be ordered to attend and to give testimony or to produce documentary material or to answer the written interrogatory, or to do an applicable combination of these. The above order is an order of court given after a hearing in which the attorney general has established a need for the grant of immunity, as subsequently provided.

(2) The attorney general may petition the presiding justice of the superior court for an order as described in subdivision (1) of this subsection. The petition shall set forth the nature of the investigation and the need for the immunization of the witness.

(3) Compelled testimony shall not be used against the witness as evidence in any criminal proceedings against him or her in any court. However, the grant of immunity does not immunize the witness from civil liability arising from the transactions about which testimony is given, and he or she may nevertheless be prosecuted or subjected to penalty or forfeiture for any perjury, false swearing, or contempt committed in answering or in failing to answer or in producing evidence or failing to do so in accordance with the order. If a person refuses to testify after being granted immunity from prosecution and after being ordered to testify, he or she may be adjudged in civil contempt by the superior court until any time that he or she purges him or herself of contempt by testifying, producing documentary material or presenting written answers as ordered. The above does not prevent the attorney general from instituting other appropriate contempt proceedings against any person who violates any of the above provisions.

February 2, 2016

Watch Citizenfour with the ACLU

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oin the ACLU of Rhode Island and the Brown University Chapter of ACLU-RI on Thursday, February 4, for a free screening of Citizenfour and a discussion of surveillance and privacy in the digital age.

Academy Award-winning documentary CITIZENFOUR follows whistleblower Edward Snowden as he shares for the first time the classified National Security Agency documents that would expose the U.S. government’s illegal and indiscriminate mass surveillance programs. The camera rolls as Snowden meets with journalist Glenn Greenwald to explain the extent of the federal government’s dragnet surveillance, and then handles the political and personal ramifications of the leak.

Watch the story behind the headlines and learn why Snowden, an ACLU client, wanted to protect the privacy rights of all.

A Public Screening of Citizenfour

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Film starts at 6 PM

Discussion to Follow

Smith-Buonanno Hall at Brown University

95 Cushing St., Providence, RI 02906

January 25, 2016January 25, 2016

Follow the money on Raimondo pension scheme: Is Providence bankrupt?

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For some weeks now, there has been a great deal of conversation around the idea that Providence is on the verge of bankruptcy. A new rule regarding budget statements is key to understanding why.

A brief by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence titled How Will State Unfunded Pension Liabilities Affect Big Cities? lays out an explanation for new rules of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) that moved “unfunded actuarial accrued liability [UAAL] for public pension plans…from the footnotes of financial statements to the balance sheets of employers... Cities are now required to include on their balance sheets the pension accounting information currently in the footnotes of their financial statements and to report their share of the unfunded liability in cost-sharing plans. This calculation does not create new liabilities; it simply reallocates them from the state to the city.”

Translation by the Houston Municipal Employees Pension System: “Essentially, the UAAL is the amount of retirement that is owed to an employee in future years that exceed[s] current assets and their projected growth.” This means that Providence just went from $759,000,000 to $964,000,000 in pension liabilities that they could not fund in 2012.

Here is what Providence’s finances look like under the new GASB provisions:

Untitled-1 — Unfunded Actuarial Accrued Liability (UAAL) and UAAL Relative to Own-Source Revenue for Affected Cities, Before and Estimated After GASB 68, FY 2012

Of course, another aspect is what is being reported here. The shortfall is caused by the City having to report their portion of the liabilities of the State Pension, which we have been reporting is facing shortfalls because of shady fees imposed by Gov. Raimondo’s friends on Wall Street.

This is an issue that is going to affect all cities and towns in the state, not just Providence. It is worth noting that Woonsocket is also mentioned in this report.

December 7, 2015February 22, 2016

A #BlackLivesMatter winter reading list

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Race and racism is the topic of discussion in the press. Yet it remains to be seen if this discussion will include the use of the dreaded c-word (class) or dare use the g-verb of what harms people of color daily (gentrification). Here at RIFuture, we want to spice it up a little and talk about those issues as part of a guide to activists in #BlackLivesMatter and other movements.

We are approaching winter. I hope to suggest some books that activists can study amongst themselves so to better grasp how to radicalize their movements. Included on the list are suggestions by Antoinette Gomes of the Rhode Island College Unity Center, Ray Rickman of Rhode Island Black Heritage and Stages of Freedom, Jim Vincent of the NAACP, and Imam Farid Ansari of the Muslim American Dawah Center of Rhode Island, who has a background as a member of the Nation of Islam. Although these individuals have contributed to this list, the politics of volumes I suggest should not be construed as their own nor should my comments connected to my suggestions be conflated with their views. I would also be remiss if I did not add that, even though I consider myself a white ally, the reality is that any person of color has a better understanding of these issues in their little finger than I might in all my years of research. This is not intended as anything other than polite suggestion.

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen (Suggested by Antoinette Gomes)
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (Suggested by Antoinette Gomes)
In the Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process: The Colonial Period (Race and the American Legal Process, Volume I)/Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process (Race and the American Legal Process, Volume II) by A. Leon Higginbotham (Suggested by Farid Ansari)
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (Suggested by Jim Vincent)
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coate (Suggested by Ray Rickman)- A meditation on race in America.
March: Book One by John Lewis (Suggested by Ray Rickman)- Congressman Lewis writes about his childhood and the beginning of his work in the Civil Rights Movement.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X As Told to Alex Haley– This book remains a vital manual for understanding the inherent value of any member of a minority group. Despite the problems in the text caused by Haley’s intentional distortion of Malcolm X’s politics, it is a critical volume.
A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X edited by Jared Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs- When Marable’s biography of the slain leader was published posthumously, the Left in America was stunned by its lunacy. Obsessed with tabloid sexuality issues and trying to say that Malcolm X prefigured the neoliberal Obama administration, it was roundly condemned by everyone who knew the truth. Several rebuttal volumes were published but I would argue this is perhaps the finest. There is a corresponding collection of media files featuring discussions with various Left African American scholars at Prof. Ball’s website.
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon– Fanon was lying on his deathbed and dictated the material to his wife as it was written. The book analyzes the decolonization and how oppressed peoples can reorganize their societies. The first chapter, titled On Violence, was a stunning riposte to pacifists.
Black Skin White Masks by Frantz Fanon– Here the author writes a classic psycho-analytic dissection of racism and how it affects the victims.
The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois– The book that argued ‘the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line’, something all the more relevant today. Du Bois spared no punches when he fired across the bow of Booker T. Washington and dared people of color to dream of something greater than the lives of vocational workers dictated by the Tuskegee Institute.
John Brown by W.E.B. Du Bois– John Brown, the abolitionist martyr, was not the first to say Black Lives Matter, but when ‘he captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few/And frightened Old Virginnia till she trembled thru and thru’, the entirety of the United States was rocked so hard it caused a Civil War. I have previously written CounterPunch where I argue this is an essential volume for all white activists to read.
Race and Racism: An Introduction by Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban- A fantastic volume that explains the intricacies and contradictions of race written by a longtime member of the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society who taught classes on this topic at Rhode Island College.
Orientalism by Edward Said– A classic dissection of the notion of ‘The Orient’ as an imperialist construct.
The America in the King Years Trilogy by Taylor Branch- Branch’s epic biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. has some flaws, especially considering his too-close-for-comfort relationship to President Bill Clinton, yet this is essential reading, especially the first volume, Parting the Waters.
Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion edited by Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank- This volume is a Left-progressive response to the Obama administration. It includes essays from radical African writers to poor white southerners who have been equally marginalized by the neoliberal policies of this president.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire– This volume that argues for a re-definition of how teachers teach and students learn. Our charter school champions in the state and city governments could learn a thing or two from Freire.
What Gandhi Says: About Nonviolence, Resistance and Courage by Norman Finkelstein- Finkelstein is originally a Marxist and advocate for the Palestinians. Yet he turned to Gandhi to develop a manual for the people he loves so dearly and ended up giving us all a gift, dedicating the book to members of Occupy Wall Street. He has no delusions about the Mahatma and is very open about this but also has some stunning insights to share.
Communists in Harlem During the Depression by Mark Naison- A fantastic case study of liberation politics and a cautionary tale. The Communist Party had some truly brilliant moments, such as their campaign for the Scottsboro Boys, and some truly problematic ones.
A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey– When you go to another country, you find political parties that have wildly different economic programs. Yet both the American Democratic and Republican Parties rely on identity and social issue politics to win votes. Why? The reason is that both parties subscribe to a brand of economics called neoliberalism, which dictates mass-privatization of public utilities, eradication of the social safety net, and austerity policies. Harvey presents a very readable and vital history of how America got to where we are today economically.
Here I Stand by Paul Robeson- One-half memoir, one-half manifesto, this testament of the unabashed champion of his people, who faced censure from the McCarthyist mob in the 1950s, is a brilliant short collection of writings.
Anarchism: From Theory to Practice by Daniel Guérin– A classic pamphlet that explains the basics of libertarian socialism and the history of a communist movement that values liberty in a fashion far more honest than the old Leninist tradition did.
On Liberty by John Stuart Mill– Whenever one talks about rights and liberty, they consciously or unconsciously are invoking the ideas laid out by Mill.
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn– The author was open in his later years he made some mistakes and tried to impose a doctrinaire vision of class on the history of America that had some blind spots, including a gap regarding LGBTQQI people. Yet the book is so beautiful in some parts I still find myself misting up, especially when I read this passage:
There is no way of measuring the effect of that southern movement on the sensibilities of a whole generation of young black people, or of tracing the process by which some of them became activists and leaders. In Lee County, Georgia, after the events of 1961-1962, a black teenager named James Crawford joined SNCC and began taking black people to the county courthouse to vote. One day, bringing a woman there, he was approached by the deputy registrar. Another SNCC worker took notes on the conversation:
REGISTRAR: What do you want?
CRAWFORD: I brought this lady down to register.
REGISTRAR: (after giving the woman a card to fill out and sending her outside in the hall) Why did you bring this lady down here?
CRAWFORD: Because she wants to be a first class citizen like y’all.
REGISTRAR: Who are you to bring people down to register?
CRAWFORD: It’s my job.
REGISTRAR: Suppose you get two bullets in your head right now?
CRAWFORD: I got to die anyhow.
REGISTRAR: If I don’t do it, I can get somebody else to do it. (No reply)
REGISTRAR: Are you scared?
CRAWFORD: No.
REGISTRAR: Suppose somebody came in that door and shoot you in the back of the head right now. What would you do?
CRAWFORD: I couldn’t do nothing. If they shoot me in the back of the head there are people coming from all over the world.
REGISTRAR: What people?
CRAWFORD: The people I work for.

This list of books is not perfect and I do not pretend to that. I would be a fool not to note that there are almost no titles that deal with feminist issues and almost no women authors. I would in fact love to see Elisha Aldrich or another woman put together that list. But I hope that, armed with a curriculum that will keep these young people busy until spring, the winter will not kill the activist spirit as it did in the case of Occupy Providence. In the era of the charter school and cops who body-slam young women to the schoolhouse floor as if it were wrestle-mania, critical thinking in minority youths is a public enemy and democracy is the real terrorist threat. My hope and the hope of many is they will embrace their potential and create a big-tent movement that embraces labor unions, progressive religious bodies, women’s groups, LGBTQQI liberators, and a radical press to start a peaceful rebellion and win a bloodless class war.

November 24, 2015November 24, 2015

Grace Lee Boggs: RI-born revolutionary

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“I was born during World War I, above my father’s Chinese American restaurant in downtown Providence, Rhode Island.”

– Grace Lee Boggs

Grace Lee Boggs, who recently passed away at age 100, spent much of her life in what she described as the “great humanizing movements of the past seventy years- the labor, civil rights, Black Power, women’s, Asian American, environmental justice and antiwar movements.”

Grace Lee Boggs was a research associate of radical Caribbean Marxist CLR James, organizer among Socialists, activist for black Detroit Auto Workers, a colleague of Malcolm X, facilitated and promoted a network of small scale community gardens across abandoned neighborhoods in Detroit, organized youth leadership programs called “Detroit Summer,” and came to argue for a people oriented vision of radical, deep engagement in one’s community to create connections and tangible good. Born in Providence, educated in New York City, she lived, married, organized and passed away recently in her beloved Detroit, Michigan.

After being born in Providence, Grace Lee Boggs’ family moved to New York, and she grew up in Queens. Providence’s Chinatown was mostly eradicated by the urban renewal and highway construction programs of the 1950s and 1960s. Lee Boggs studied at Barnard College on a scholarship, and earned a PhD from Bryn Mawr College in 1940. Discrimination and prejudice limited her ability to work as an university academic, and she took a job as a research librarian. She became a collaborator with CLR James and Raya Dunayveska, Marxists who were critical of both of the Soviet Union and United States (not a popular position in Cold War politics).

In a Cold War era book she helped write with James and Dunyaveska, “State Capitalism and World Revolution,” Lee Boggs described the types of violence perpetuated against ordinary people around the world by both the “stranglehold of Stalinism” and the United States. In the 1950s, she and her peers wrote:

“Whether democratic or totalitarian, both types of society are in permanent decline and insoluble crisis. Both are at a stage when only a total reorganization can lift society a stage higher. It is noteworthy that in the United States the capitalist class is aware of this, and the most significant work that is being done in political economy is the desperate attempt to find some way of reconciling the working class to the agonies of mechanized production and transferring its implacable resistance into creative cooperation. That is of educational value and many of its findings will be used by the socialist proletariat. In Russia this resistance is labeled “remnants of capitalist ideology” and the whole power of the totalitarian state is organized to crrush it in theory as well as fact.”

In her last book, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the 21st Century, she writes, “I came to Detroit in the early 1950s because as a Marxist I wanted to be part of a revolution in which the workers n the auto factories would take the struggles of the 1930s to a higher level by struggle for worker’ control of production in the plant. My main difference with traditional Marxists was my belief that blacks, women, and young people, and not only workers, would play pivotal roles in this revolution.”

She noted, “Living with Jimmy Boggs (her husband, Alabama born, African American autoworker and labor organizer) it was not long before I realized that my ideas had come mostly out of books and that my expectations had little or no relationship to the reality that was rapidly changing around me. When I began living in Detroit in 1953, Jimmy, a member of the United Auto Workers, was still mainly engaged with his fellow workers in struggles in the plant against automation and speed-ups (which workers in the plant called man-o-nation). ”

Jimmy came to see that high-tech automation was changing the industry, and that the role of workers in car production would be irrevocably different. He and Grace became active in Black Power circles, seeking to mobilize young people. When the riots (or rebellions) of the late 1960s broke out, both came to reflect that militant organizing in itself was not a path to broad social transformation, even if real expressions of oppression and frustration.

As she wrote, “…our main responsibility as revolutionaries was to go beyond protest politics beyond just increasing anger and outrage of the oppressed, and concentrate instead on projecting and initiating struggles that involve people at the grassroots in assuming responsibility for creating new values, truths, infrastructures, and institutions.”

She saw many movement leaders become establishment politicians. She felt that without actually, creatively challenging and changing the rules, habit and structures of governance, the same interests would be promoted, by design, and regular people would be harmed. She saw political figures in Detroit spend huge amounts of time, money and energy working to hold onto a rapidly automating auto-industry, and little in creative thinking for building alternatives and opportunity for the actual people left behind by automation. Much of her later life was spent founding community organizations and ways for people to organize and build a future themselves, different from the one so often dictated to them.

Grace Lee Boggs, born in Providence, wrote, “…we need to recognize that the aptitudes and attitudes of people with BAs, BSs, MBAs, and PhDs bear a lot of the responsibility for our planetary and social problems… [the challenge is] creating a new American Dream whose goal is a higher Humanity instead of a higher standard of living dependent on Empire.”

Much of this remembrance gratuitously quotes from Grace Lee Boggs’ “The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the 21st Century.” Please check out her work.

October 26, 2015October 27, 2015

Activists drop Food Not Bombs on homeless people in Burnside Park

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A group of activists gathered in Providence’s Burnside Park to distribute free food and clothing to the homeless and needy in the park on Saturday. As the first direct action protest of the newly-reconstituted Food Not Bombs Providence (see previous report for an interview with two members), the action was a direct protest against the prioritizing of military-industrial spending over the needs of the homeless, a large sub-group of which consists of American military veterans.

There was no instance of police harassment or efforts to shut down the action and the individuals who took advantage of these services were grateful and civil to both activists and each other. One matter highlighted by various people who preferred not to go on the record was the newly-enacted anti-smoking laws being enforced in public parks. While the effort to ban tobacco use seems noble and a public health initiative, in practice it is merely another opportunity for the police to criminalize homelessness. This sort of deceptively-genuine public health policy is typical of neoliberal political and social control policies that is actively working to gentrify Providence and ethnically and socially cleanse the urban landscape of undesirables rather than proactively ending their problems in an emancipatory fashion.

Food Not Bombs as an anarchist movement is the type of direct action that counters these racist and classist policies developed by politicians like Jorge Elorza and smoking ban ordinance co-sponsor Louis Aponte, who invoke identity politics as a cover for a policy that, as irony would have it, includes as targets Latino and African residents of the city.

This reporter took the opportunity to sit down and conduct a short interview with a young man named Stephen, who shared his insights about living without a home and what he thinks needs to be done to improve the well-being of people like him.

October 23, 2015October 26, 2015

Food Not Bombs group to feed Providence on Saturday

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Food Not Bombs is a simple praxis that contains within it a radical emancipatory project that can fundamentally shift the tide of not just homeless issues but the entire American neoliberal imperial project.

There’s a new Food Not Bombs group in Providence, and I sat down with two of the organizers to talk about the program and the philosophy behind it.

“We are re-appropriating food that would otherwise be wasted and we are using that to feed people,” said Miranda, one of the organizers.

The group will be holding their first action, giving away free food, on Saturday, October 24, 2015 beginning at 2 pm in Burnside Park.

“The revolution does not need a permit,” said Ben Boyd, another organizer, about the decision to not register the free meal with the city or state. “The main mindset I’ve been taking for this operation is let’s just stay fluid and try to adapt.”

Food Not Bombs has groups all over the country now. But it started in Cambridge, Mass. in 1980, “as a sort of street theater-like demonstration, like they would gather outside of corporate offices,” Boyd said. “A couple people made soup and they had their banner, somewhere down the line got to thinking about how the military takes up so much of the budget and it just spread out from there.”

Added Miranda, “While our primary concern is to feed hungry people it’s definitely also to spread awareness for the need for social justice and to bring knowledge to people who might not know about the kinds of things we need to take action on.”

You can listen to my full interview with them here:

Sitting in their kitchen as they prepared food to give the most vulnerable, one cannot help feeling a sense of admiration and even shame for not being as brave as they are. One individual’s description of the empathy and solidarity she establishes with the homeless is the stuff of genuine holy work, far more worthy of praise then when a sanctimonious religious figurehead says much and does little or when activists quote their rote memorized writings of European socialists from last century.

With the coming catastrophe caused by climate change that will decentralize and upset our agricultural industrial complex, these activists might in fact be prophetic in their actions.

Founded in 1980 by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based activists Keith McHenry, Jo Swanson, Mira Brown, Susan Eaton, Brian Feigenbaum, C.T. Lawrence Butler, Jessie Constable and Amy Rothstien, the logic is deceptively easy to grasp. Simply put, the activists want to shift the economic budget so to focus on homelessness and hunger. But in doing so, the logic dictates a massive shift away from what Dr. Noam Chomsky has described as the main engine of Keynesian economic growth in American society, the Pentagon budget. As a result, we are talking about a massive change in the trajectory of our military, social, and political culture in America. The idea that something so radical can begin with a vegan serving of food to help the homeless is so stunning on the outset that one almost cannot resist the temptation to equate it with the utopian visions of John Lennon’s Imagine. But on the same token, by eliminating animal products from the menu, they reduce the need for refrigeration, sanitation, and other high-energy consuming utilities that are not required by vegan/vegetarian products. And by rebalancing the budget in such a fashion, imperialism recedes, as does racism, sexism, homo/trans-phobia, and persecution of those who are discriminated against due to class.

Those interested in getting involved with the group are encouraged to contact them via the following venues:

Phone: 401-400-5615
E-Mail: PVDFNB@yahoo.com
FaceBook: FaceBook.com/pvdfnb

EDITORIAL NOTE, 10/23: A previous version of this article incorrectly named one member as Amanda instead of Miranda.

October 17, 2015October 17, 2015

Arresting hate throughout our culture

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For the second time in several months, racist flyers have been distributed in mostly white neighborhoods in Rhode Island. The first was in East Greenwich, the most recent on the East Side of Providence. In some ways it is not surprising that as the country grapples with institutional racism in the frequent killing of unarmed people of color by the police and subsequent Black Lives Matter Movement, that people who feel threatened by that effort will push back, sometimes in pretty intense ways. These flyers, with their reference to the Ku Klux Klan, call up profound racist/anti-Semitic/terrorist actions from the past and plunk them down in our midst today. This act of white supremacist violence is not acceptable in our community.

Late night racist literature drop blights East Side of Providence

The killing of nine people in the church in Charleston South Carolina was perhaps the most virulent face of the racism that lurks barely beneath the surface, a legacy of our history in the U.S., but there are many smaller ways it is expressed every single day. The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that works to address the root causes of violence and oppression in communities worldwide, works to help communities face that legacy and to address the many faces of hate and fear.

Arresting the people who are pushing their agenda of hate and fear will arrest a person, but not the problem. We will make no progress as a society if we believe that justice is done simply by punishing one or more white supremacists. Racism is not just a historic problem or the work of a few individual “bad apples.” Racism – whether by direct intent or deeply entrenched structural factors – is a problem in all aspects of American life, including economics, housing, health care, criminal justice, policing, education, media coverage, among others.

We are living in a moment when many people in this country and abroad are seeing our nation’s addictions to racism and violence for what they are: social ills woven deeply into the tapestry of our society. This is a vital social challenge for all of us, and one that white people have particular responsibility to address. None of us will be truly secure until our systems are built to protect the wellbeing of all people.

Whether facing the actions of a gunman propelled by racist philosophies and a culture of violence that our society as a whole is accountable for, or the distribution of flyers drawing on the imagery of the Ku Klux Klan, each of us must recommit to ending these evils at their root. Acknowledging the effects of generations of racism and violence on our current condition is a first step. Taking concrete actions to transform our society, institutions, and relationships to end racism and violence is the next. We each have a part to play. And white people in particular need to step up, break the silence that can be understood to be complicity, stand with our neighbors who have been targeted, and say “no, this is not ok. Not in my neighborhood. Not in my state.”

October 13, 2015October 13, 2015

Elorza makes a PASS: new program pairs cops with kids as sports coaches

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Mayor Jorge Elorza playing catch with After Zone students.

Mayor Jorge Elorza announced a new program that pairs inner city students with police officers as after school sports coaches. It’s called PASS, or the Police After School Sports program.

“This is a great day for the city,” Elorza said on Friday at Gilbert Stuart Middle School. “This is something … many folks have been talking about and working on for a very long time.

Elorza added, “Nowadays with the conflict we’ve seen in other cities, truly the cause of it is that the connection between the police and the community doesn’t exist. But we’re working proactively here in Providence to make sure we have those strong relationships, between our police officers, between the police department, and the community.”

The PASS program is an initiative of PASA, the Providence After School Alliance, which was launched in 2004 by then mayor, now Congressman David N. Cicilline to provide quality after school programs.

PASS has 10 Student Resource Officers, or SROs, who have signed on to coach basketball and/or flag football for students from 5 different middle schools – Nathan Bishop, DelSesto, Esek Hopkins, Roger Williams and Gilbert Stuart.

Providence Police Chief Hugh Clements said officers are excited to work directly with students, stressing the importance of having police officers building relationships with students and in the community.

“And in this crazy world that’s a good thing, that’s really a good thing because we often times hear about bad interactions between the police and members of the community,” said Clements.
“And that may happen somewhere along the line, but at least if they have a perspective,” Clements continued. “They can say ‘Yeah, but I know Officer Wheeler, or Officer Carvallo, or Torres, and you know what he’s a good guy. I worked with him. I played ball with him before.”

A former SRO himself, Clements said interacting with the students on a daily basis provides a balanced and positive feeling not only for the kids but for the officers as well.

“When you walk in a school, in a day room, in a basketball court, on a field, and you see a young boy or girl you know and there’s a connection,” said Clements. “There’s no question, we as adults, we as police officers, walk away with a positive feeling, that day, that night and going forward.”

The students pictured are members of After Zone, a program dealing directly with middle school students and providing them a range of opportunities. After Zone is completely free of charge for the students as well as provides transportation home, supper, and mentorship outside of school. After Zone is an umbrella program allowing students to experience a wide range of programs and activities such as: Downcity Design, Explore the Bay, and various dance, and hip-hop courses as well.

The PASA and After Zone programs are funded through the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program, providing money to schools within impoverished areas and low-performing schools. Aiming to help the students, and the schools as a whole, meet core state & federal academic standards. Every year PASA works directly with over 2,000 middle school students in Rhode Island.

IGT donated $40,000 for the development of the project and purchasing of equipment for the program. As well as the Providence Fire Department buying basketballs for PASS, the program aims to motivate and build community ties between students and the police department in Providence.

Formerly GTECH, IGT is headquartered in Providence and has been an active member of the Providence community, often times donating computers and other technology for libraries and schools alike.

“We knew from the beginning when we came to Providence. It’s the neighborhoods is what makes the city great, and the kids in those neighborhoods…This is where we belong,” said Robert K. Vincent, IGT senior vice president of human resources and public affairs.

Vincent joked that IGT “had the easy part,” before ceremonially handing Mayor Elorza a large check, and explaining that Hillary Salmons, director of PASA, and the others involved had done the hard work to make the program a reality.

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