This week’s letter discusses a the City’s new “one strike” or “zero tolerance” policy concerning certain types of nightclub misconduct, a sidewalk repair plan and my perspective on some of the candidates and issues under discussion during the current political campaigns. Click here for pdf version This past Monday (August 11), the City Council held its final meeting prior to its traditional August recess. At the meeting, the City Council gave second and final approval to an Ordinance that calls for nightclub owners to forfeit their license upon a finding of either (1) sponsoring prostitution on the premises or (2) hiring a person below the age of majority for exotic dancing. The measure makes these violations a per se basis for forfeiture without the need for additional proceedings or considerations, provided the violations were either intentional or grossly negligent. The ordinance, which was supported by the responsible club owners in the City, responds to a recent proliferation of violence, disorder and mistreatment of girls and women at some of these locations. At the same meeting, the City Council unanimously approved a Resolution I introduced to compile an inventory of the sidewalks across the City in need of repair, assess the cost of repairing them as a group, and determine when the City would be in a position to borrow the necessary funds for such repairs consistent with maintaining a strong bond rating. The resolution seeks to address this basic infrastructure issue in a similar manner to the road repair bond, which brought $40 million of road improvements City-wide with priorities assigned on the basis of engineering criteria. As stated in the language of the Resolution, the City Council office received a preliminary list of more than 2,500 sidewalks in need of repair, with the date of the request in some cases going back more than a decade. Given the City’s current inability to address these repairs through a regular appropriation in the operating budget, the Resolution will provide the information needed to make a capital expenditure in this area. Over the past few months, a number of you have asked me to share my choices of candidates I support in the current campaign, as well as my perspective on a number of the competing policy plans under discussion. I have decided to post my endorsements and analysis in the Issues section of my website, which you can access by clicking here: Issues. The current version contains my endorsements for the offices of Governor, Secretary of State, General Treasurer, Rhode Island Senate (District 3), and Providence Mayor. For each of these offices, I list the names of all of the major candidates, and the reasons for my endorsement. I also have posted my analysis of some of the plans presented by the mayoral campaigns, namely the Harrop Receivership/Bankruptcy Plan, the Smiley Public Safety Plan, the Smiley “Bad Weather” School Bus Transportation Plan, the Elorza Bus Transportation Plan and the Elorza Municipal Broadband Plan There is a lot of material up there, but I plan to update the section from time to time. Please feel free to send me a message with your thoughts and comments for additions and amendments to this section.
