These are the audience comments from the Uncaucus 4.01 Listening Party held on April 1, 2010 at Waterplace Restaurant in Providence, RI, which was a public forum to discuss issues relating to the upcoming mayoral election in Providence.
These notes attempt to capture the spirit and essence of participants’ comments and are not a verbatim transcript. If any errors of intention or mis-attribution occur below (or if you would like to claim authorship of a comment from an ‘unknown’ below), please contact Uncaucus using the ‘contact’ tab above. Apologies in advance; a more accurate record in the form of a video will be posted soon.
Mayoral candidates in attendance included John Lombardi, Steven Constantino, Daniel Harrop, Carrie Marsh, Joe Paolino, Chris Young, and Angel Tavares.
Ground rules for the evening were that candidates submitted questions in writing advance, and were not allowed to speak or otherwise address the audience during the event. These questions (and responses) were to be about positive solutions with no grandstanding and no attacks on other candidates allowed. If questions did not meet these criteria, questions were disqualified. Of all the questions submitted by candidates, 9 were chosen for this discussion, were sorted into themes, and read without disclosure of their source.
Participants were notified that comments and a video of the event would be posted on the www.uncaucus.org website. Mike Ritz, Executive Director of Leadership RI, volunteered to lead the discussion with assistance from Michael Gazdacko.
THEME: Candidates’ Qualification and Personality
Question: What qualities are you looking for in a mayor?
John Taraborelli:
I would like the next mayor to be smart and well-informed. You should know that you don’t know everything, and surround yourself with people who do, and know when to listen and when you shouldn’t.
Nathanial Lepp:
I studied advocacy in college and worked in a RI Statehouse internship. I learned a lot and it was amazing to participate. When I returned to school, I did a lot of reflection and felt politicians were lacking two things.
First: motivation. Everyone should be motivated by public service, not self-aggrandizement, and not be featured and simply advance one’s career. Motivation to serve the public should exude from every politician and inspire others.
Second: empiricism. A commitment to looking at data and asking questions in a scientific way will result in greater participation and more voices and ultimately lead to better outcomes.
[Unknown]:
A would like to see a sense of compassion. If you understand market forces, those who can least afford it pay the most for mistakes. Thus the mayor needs to have a strong amount of compassion.
THEME: Government Function and Transparency
Question: How can government use technology for better communication?
Owen Johnson:
An example of one thing: the web application called see-click-fix.
You can take a picture and put in on the site with an address and say ‘this is something that’s wrong’ - for example, a pothole or light that’s out (or on all the time). I used it today to post about garbage strewn across the road, and by the time I got home there was a report from the city. That’s an example of something that government can do to be responsive.
Jeremy Withers:
No matter what the technology platform, none of them will do any good if the mayor is not proactive about communicating. The mayor must be willing to engage the community, and willing to talk and listen.
Delia Rodriguez:
Everyone is probably familiar with United Way 211, where people call a central line to get information on various non-profit services that are available. A call center similar to a 211 for the city so that residents would be able to talk to an informational specialist connected to city services would be great. People would have better access to information – for example seniors can access help with community activities or parents can get information the school system. The United Way 211 system works and the city should have a system like this.
Chace Baptista:
I think this question is loaded. It doesn’t matter what the technologies are, it’s how the citizens and how the mayor become active with it. You could have every option covered – a call center, phone line, websites - but the people wouldn’t use it unless the mayor champions it and welcomes accountability, versus letting government decisions happen behind closed doors and thinks that is ok.
Maryellen Butke:
To the next mayor: I don’t need to you to be perfect: I need you to be human, and admit your mistakes.
The worst thing is to coverup. You know when you blew it, and when you know you blew it, realize that it is not about being perfect: own it, admit it, and let’s move on together.
Stephanie Gerson:
Mayors should have the capacity for systems thinking. Let me explain: Wendell Berry famously said that modern farming took one solution and turned it into two problems. Livestock were put together on farms, so then we had a toxic situation with cows together scrunched in small spaces and needing antibiotics, then since there are no animals in the fields we also had crops with no natural fertilizer, so we need to add artificial fertilizer and poison the groundwater. So systems thinking is about weaving problems back together to create solutions. With government solutions this means working with diff government departments. Instead of individual silos, the mayor should facilitate them to work together so for example the Department of Transportation and Department of Health might work together to subsidize biking, and fulfill mutual goals of transit and promoting health together.
[Unknown]:
For schools, a local technology expert could put together a website with neighborhood maps that could tell residents what school area they are in when they move here. It seems simple but it doesn’t currently exist, and it is important information for people to have.
Melissa Withers
One thing frustrates me is that with new initiatives, we embark on a two or three year journey to implement them, and by the time roll them out they are irrelevant, but we’ve put so much resources into them that we’re stuck. I think we should carve out space to test and experiment, with some sort of rapid-prototyping environment, so we can re-iterate early, fail fast, and create a platform for innovation. The mayor would perhaps not cut as many ribbons, but we could leverage new ideas for city gain.
[Unknown]:
RIPTA last month improved absolutely free a year ago with a usability flaw uncovered and fixed by the local IT community. The website had a problem in that users couldn’t save their bus route. Some hackers made a workaround to bookmark a route, and finally it connected with RIPTA and now they have a big link to it on their home page. The problem was solved, and the cost was zero. If we learn who we have that can help in the community we can save money.
[Unknown]:
I’d like to see someone who can embrace diversity, relate to different cultures whether they are here legally or not, and talk them about what it is like being in the public school system for example. They should put the powerpoint aside, and speak to people warmly.
Question: What program you willing to do without?
Rebecca Baruzzi:
I could do without meter maids.
{General agreement from all participants)
Chace Baptista:
I think that’s an unfair question. The real question is the idea of how to target resources – that’s where should look at.
Where are we under-investing, and where are inefficiencies? They continue to go unchecked. Although you have to make cuts, before you do that, look at the waste. You may say you should cut the arts in the schools, but you can’t cut arts, since the schools in Providence don’t have any! Now we need to figure out what is inefficient and how to build on great things that we do have.
I would be ok with cutting the spending of millions on corporate tax stabilizations, tying corporate tax to clear, specific benefits to residents in terms of jobs and affordable housing, and calling these breaks back if they do not result in benefits to citizens.
[Unknown]:
I was on a panel with Police Chief Esserman and the Director of Corrections, and their position was that the best response to crime is education and strong families, yet both run agencies with growing budgets. I would be interested in scaling these back in a responsible manner. I live in the Armory District and there’s 5 million dollars spent on locking people up from my neighborhood every year. With all due respect, and of course public safety is very important; but policing is a defensive response, and I would like to see a proactive response.
[Unknown]:
The question is unfair. To citizens, with the complete lack of transparency into the current budget, there is no way I could tell you how much property tax is collected, how much is wasted, and how much is used for things I support or don’t support. I would be happy to give up more of my income in exchange for knowing where that money is going and where it is being used. Without transparency, I am unwilling to give it up, but give me something, and I’ll give you something in return.
David Ortiz:
The city is suffering because of mistakes made on the state and national level. In the way that Stephanie Gerson was talk about system, decisions, on the state level policy in with things such as property taxes are hurting the city. If the mayor was able to work with other municipalities to make policy changes that now can only occur at the state level, positive benefits would trickle down. If we’re only talking about the city here, we’re not solving systemically.
Leo Pollack:
I work with Southside Community Land Trust, and I am not a waste management person, but the way it is set up now has some pretty screwy incentives. I would love to see city composting. We have an incredible amount of organic amount in our landfill, but the city is paying in tipping fees and creating greenhouse gases. We could siphon the methane off. Southside Community Land Trust is spending $15,000 this year buying compost, yet all this organic material is ending up in the landfill. There would be some coordination needed but city composting would be producing something and also cutting costs. Better waste disposal is a win-win situation.
QUESTION: Are you in favor of more consolidation among municipalities?
(General Agreement, Applause}
Damian Ewens:
I am in the education field, and I think it is super important to think about creating a larger school district that encompasses the rest of the state. We’re in separate situation that cities in the rest of the country aren’t dealing with. They have transportation incentives to reduce the cost of getting kids to school. It would open chance for improving socio-economic diversity in our schools, and spread the wealth across the state and help people experience the diversity that other cities see.
[Unknown]:
One thing to consider is that as vacancies emerge, they don’t have to be filled. Government is our biggest employer and it is not the most flexible way to employ people.
Allen Harlan:
It makes me a bit crazy when think of the tax burden on citizens and my family. I moved here from Chicago and although we are much smaller we have the same taxes as Chicago. The tremendous cost of administration is driving up cost of living in Rhode Island and doing business. I understand that while we will lose some jobs by cutting spending we can create jobs by lowering the tax burden and luring people to live in Providence.
THEME Strengths and weaknesses
QUESTION: What do you love about Providence, and how city can support that? What is a weakness?
Stephanie Frederico:
I love Uncaucus! There should be some kind of mechanism for doing this when there is a new mayor: a website or ombudsman, or uncaucus in different form, but some kind of mechanism that allows citizens to contribute ideas that can be applied by people in office.
[Uknown]:
One of our strengths are the colleges and universities and the people they attract, both students and professors, but one of our weakness is that the city is not going after them to tax them.
Jen Cole:
I am exiled from Providence, and unequivocably what I miss is the sense of community. I can’t tell you how much I miss that living in Northern Virginia. One of our weaknesses is that there are fewer public-private partnerships that would allow jobs, green work and other important services to be done more effectively. The city has moved away from public-private partnership model and that’s a real shame.
Christine West:
I agree, we moved here from Northern Virginia, and within the first two weeks of arriving, we had made more friends in Providence than we had in the entire nine years we lived there. There is a strong sense of community here, and it is easy to take that for granted, especially if you have not lived anywhere else.
Melissa Withers:
We are very DIY. I have some experience with how funds are directed to specific initiatives ; it would be really exciting if the city could create a venture fund, like the Awesome Foundation which I am involved with, where no strings are attached, small amounts are directed to individuals for projects with no restrictions and no rules, except that the one requirement is that it would involve cross-neighborhood participation – for example, east side-south side, mount pleasant-west side. The city could take a small amount and put it in a fund, then when the ideas happen, celebrate the crap out of it, and celebrate ourselves for our own self-esteem.
John Taraborelli:
Two things that intertwine are great university education, and a sense of community and connectedness, where we all have one degree of separation that we joke about but is true. I work at a company with college students as interns. Typically they are in their last semester of college and they have impression that they will leave Providence because there are no jobs here, and then they come in and see what’s really happening in the city. When they see what is really happening, and realize ‘what other city could you get this group of people together?’ they see it differently. When these kids talk about the brain drain, if they could just see the real Providence and that if you’re willing to be DIY, you can make a big splash. If there were a regular series of community events, if you could show what resources are available, a lot more of these students would stay here.
Steve Mercurio:
I love Providence, I was born at St Josephs’s and have traveled around country and world. The diversity, the different wards, the people from all walks of life with different ideas and opinions that live here fairly harmoniously is one of the biggest strengths of Providence.
For weaknesses, we need to encourage some kind of benefit for small business. All over the country people should want to come to Providence to start their business. I would look to the mayor to advocate for small business; we are small, therefore small business should be one of our strengths.
[Unknown]:
What is great about Providence is that you don’t need to earn lots of money to have edgy urban cosmopolitain existence here. We’re going to be good, but competent is ok, and fine with me!
THEME Economic Development
QUESTION: How can city better work with entrepreneurs and small business?
Brian Hull:
I run a photography studio, as part of the pain-in-the-ass licensing process, I wasn’t able to put a sign on my house to promote that I own a studio. So I asked three different people at the city what I needed to do to rectify it, and they gave me three different answers, so you might want to fix that.
James Ruh
I am originally from Chicago, and have lived here ten years. The underlying thing is that the city doesn’t embrace small business, and doesn’t make easy for small guy to startup. The city should view small businesses as investment, and do anything they can to get storefronts occupied and foster the economic base; if you give them a 5 year tax deferment, you will have strong base in future. We need to stimulate economic activity all over the place.
Barret Bready
I am CEO of a biotech company and the Economist came to videotape our company, and show bright spot in our economy in the midst of all the unemployment. In preparation, I researched economic history, and what was interesting was that 100 years ago at height of the industrial revolution, Providence was the wealthiest of any community of its size. This was because back then they embraced technology. However they became complacent about manufacturing, and missed out on information technology revolution.
The city got used to having a lot of money to spend as a result of that manufacturing. Now we have very few of those companies left, but because of them we have great research university and teaching hospitals, and a great location for biotech which is the next great tech boom. I see a lot of ways to make Providence a great biotech cluster, and would like to see execution on that.
John Jacobson
I think in simplest terms the solution is to make things easier. I’ll give you an example. My field is real estate development; in 2006 a Wharton report ranked Providence as the most complicated area to do real estate development in entire country. They attached a financial number to the complications, and calculated it added 15—20% to development costs. Government can be making things easer. Why give tax breaks? Just make it easier, so I don’t have wait 5 months, if I do then my carrying costs go up, and I pass it on to end user. Make government more accountable so when you go to pull a permit, if they don’t act after 30 days, you get an automatic permit. The system needs to move, the city iis standing in the way. We don’t need to spend money to do this.
Create a level playing field so it is easier to run a business, and students will stay here. Make it so we don’t have to navigate the system, get out of the way and we’ll do the work.
John West
At state level there is a very cool page on the Secretary of State website: in one place, you can see the huge morass of paperwork that is required to start a business. The city should do the same, for two reasons: 1. To make it easier to start a business in the city, and 2. so that everyone can see how much rigamarole is involved in setting up business.
[Unknown]:
Neighborhoods are most diverse and most pleasant, but it is sad that kids from Southside have never been to LaSalle or Federal Hill, kids from Smith Hill have never been to the Children’s Museum or the Jewelry District. There used to be a holiday bus that went to mini-main streets around the city, and brought customers to destinations all over the city. That should be done on a monthly basis, and highlight different communities. The spoke and wheel bus system is great for regular transit, but not intra-community connections. They could highlight food gardens, libraries, and we could come together and highlight the city more.
Kimberly Nelson:
Parking is an issue. I worked for a small business, and our customers never could find place to park and so they would go somewhere else because they didn’t want to pay. I am not giving up my car, I am not a biker, but it would be nice to adjust the transit system so runs more frequently and would be easy to figure out.
Steve Durkee
I was recently appointed to the RIPTA board and it is a very exciting place to be. Regarding the comments about transit, we are making changes to that system. We cannot have city or state growth without and incredibly vibrant transit system. This is critical moment, we have a very tenuous funding formula based on gas tax, so funding is going down because gas consumption going down. There are good ideas about different way to fund RIPTA, but if we don’t get them to happen, we are not going to enhance system, and it is a lynchpin for a successful economy.
QUESTION: How do we create jobs?
Leo Pollack:
One of the reasons I love Privdence is that for its size it has an incredible culinary landscape in terms of the food system. A lot of cities realize that if you promote local food, you create jobs with farmers, and distributors and so on. Providence already has this in place but is not promoting it in way that is economic, with health benefits, and amazing training for culinary arts. The foundations are there, the city should connect the dots and make Providence even more of a culinary destination, with more jobs around food system in providence and in Rhode Island.
Allan Tear
Regarding community gardens, there are some communities that are piloting taking over school kitchen rather than Sysco trucking in food. If you think of RI as a closed economy, where whatever you bring in from outside you pay for and lose money from the state, when we let people take over the kitchens where we feed our kids then ship money out, it is bad for economy and bad for their health. It seems like this is place to take over our school kitchens. We should grow an agro-economy right here.
[Unknown]:
Places like the Genesis Center deserve a lot of credit for developing a skilled and educated workforce. A lot of adults in Providence don’t have adequate education, they have an average 6th grade literacy. Adult education centers don’t get enough attention. We should focus on getting adults trained and ready, the jobs will be there. The mayor should look at adult education centers and promote them.
[Unknown]:
Economic development is not about big corporations. Independent workers do not have a company structure to rely on; every freelancer is a job that doesn’t have to come from out of state. New York City did study and found that 20% of their workforce is freelance. If they can base an economy on that there, we can do it here. Someone do a survey!
Kimberly Nelson:
Providence does a great job of hosting festivals, but as a resident I don’t know what’s going on. The city should share information on these events with residents so they can take in these activities, get downtown and participate, and spend money. It would be nice to have someone filter information, either government or a private outfit, by getting the word out on what is happening around the city.
John Jacobson:
I respect Thom Deller, but I don’t think you can be the city planner and also run the EDC. When the state tries to pick winners, it equals corporate welfare, and is not a wise investment. For example Blue Cross is a non-profit and doesn’t pay taxes, their workers don’t live here, so we are giving away assets. The city should work to increase its tax base because that’s where the money comes from.
THEME: EDUCATION
QUESTION: What role can the city play to engage parents and student in improving education?
Sam Zurier
I have three kids in the public schools. We need more time and space to get the community involved in public schools. I went to the same high school that my daughter goes to now and back then it had a newspaper. Now it doesn’t, because it can no longer afford to pay an advisor. It is two blocks from great newspaper, so what if this great newspaper could help the kids? There are a number of ways the community could help the kids for free, but contract provisions with the teachers’ union prevents this. We need to find a way to get more people to help our schools on a volunteer basis, and do it without raising taxes.
Chris Young (departing):
This is what democracy looks like.
[Unknown]:
Good luck with your campaign.
(Applause)
[Unknown]:
We should change the pension system so money could be raised without raising taxes. We need more money and should make kids the first priority.
John Jacobson:
Schools are a factor in why people move away from Providence. UNFI moved here, and I’ll go out to lunch with them, and many want to move to the city but they don’t believe in private schools, and Providence schools are not good enough, so they are looking into Barrington and other communities.
Why education shortchanging is us is that it is a fundamental part of economy and driver, we can no longer turn away from the school. What is great is the new Hanley Tech. It is a 90 million school and it is unbelieiveable, also Nathan Bishop. These are two examples of great things happening with the schools and if could do that with all of them, we’d revolutionize the city.
Don Nguyen
I second JJ. With the new technical school, the whole community needs to look at other hill and blend the two. One of my ideas is if you are getting a Pell grant you should take a semester and teach at the technical school. It brings traffic through downtown, and people on the west side can head to the university on the hill. We have three of the best schools of their categories – liberal studies, arts, and culinary, but no integration. I got a Pell grant, and putting good things back into the community should be part of the program. If you tie it together, you tie together both sides of the highway. Federal Hill should be known as Pre-College Hill. You have a new facility and if you don’t fill it with the best undergrads, you are wasting it. With undergrads the age is so close, there is lots to be done and the city hasn’t looked at it enough.
Melissa Withers:
Put students in charge. In all the conversations, the students are absent (with exception of Chace Baptista here tonight). It opens horizons, instead of sitting here with fat heads, we should find true meaningful ways to engage with meaningful workgroups to design solutions that are going to change their lives.
Dan Lawlor:
I am with the After School Alliance. We need to look at our young people as assets. There is lots of work to be done to have start having adults in different departments talk to one another. If they are working with same student, they are often treating them differently; they should share information and data and talk to one another about the students. We should believe in students, and not have schools that are falling down, with lead paint, sewage problems, and asbestos. While some are renovated some are disgusting, substandard facilities that we don’t talk about. Really basic things like lighting, and providing good food are needed. We need to tell the students we believe in you and your prospects. If students are going to go to college, we need to have high standards.
Greg Vaccaro:
The graduation rates in Providence public schools are not acceptable. If you ask a teacher to teach 150 kids a day, 180 days a year, we are saying that what we are teaching is more important than who they’re teaching. If the teachers know students personally, later on the graduation rates will climb. Student succeed when adults know and care about them. We need to rethink the way education is formatted. 9th grade math is more important than kids: that’s message they get.
Frank Pace:
We need to have evidence based practice in our schools. Faculty and students need to develop their own school rules. You need to have consistent expectations across settings. When social expectations are taught and re-taught as academics, students will succeed.
Chace Baptista:
First - to those who come in new - do not come in and blow it up. Good work has been started by the previous regime. Just because you’re new, it doesn’t mean you have to destroy what came before.
Second: un-politicize public education, whether it is the city council or the school administration or whoever. The teachers union is ridiculous; we need to look at their contracts and figure out what we need to do to give teachers what they need to educate successfully and also enable students to learn, instead of BS with contracts created politically and not with the students’ best interests in mind.
Next, empower the superintendent and school director to do their work.
Finally, we need to have the mindset not of a K-12 education, but instead have a K-16 mindset in our society. People need bachelor’s degrees to be successful, and we should set expectations there.
OPEN COMMENTS
Lisa Carnevale:
In terms of strengths, our strength is our creativity. This city breeds that and always has,it is an asset that we need to feed and seed. What the city can do to strengthen itself is to tap into people in this room with their creative entrepreneurial spirit, in government, in positions on boards and commissions, and filter them through events like this and technology. There are a lot of people in this room with creative solutions from the arts and creative community. I will point out that the speakers tonight all have creative backgrounds.
[Unknown]:
I have lived in many countries, in Asia, Africa, South America and Europe of course where I am from. I want to impress on people in this room that Providence is a great city. Quite often I hear that we are not as good as this city is, and this is something we should take away from here tonight: Providence is a great city!
