The Uncaucus: A Citizen-led Movement for Providence's Future

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. Read more »

At the 4.01 Listening Party, we put out a box with cards so people who didn't get a chance to speak could write in their responses. Here are some from that night:

1. [The Mayor should] walk or take the bus to work at least once a month. The best way to stay connected to the city is to be out and about in public.

2. The city should require developers to post a demolition bond for any buildings torn down in dowtown or the historic districts, payable to the city if proposed new construction didn't happen.

3. Harness transformative cooperative volunteerism - for example between RIPTA.com and Rhodeb.us: local "hackers" made a work-around to fixt the usability flow on the RIPTA website. RIPTA added a link on their home page, problem solved, cost $0.00

4. Clean up the appearance of areas like Broad Street, Elmwood Ave., Prarie Ave.

5. More yachting! [ed. note: seriously, the Community Boating Center in India Point Park adds a lot to our community, check them out] Read more »

Many thanks to the 150+ people who turned out for the Uncaucus event on Thursday at Waterplace Cafe. It was a great night, complete with a little crowd management drama. All of the mayoral candidates were present and stayed for the entirety of the event (except Chris Young, who was escorted out by police about half way through the program for being disruptive and disrespectful to the audience.)

We audio/video taped the event...transcripts and follow-up will be posted soon. Some great ideas were shared and we are glad we have them on record!

Here are the candidates questions in full (as a reminder, candidates were asked to pose questions to the audience and the audience answered some of these questions on Thursday night). The questions are useful in that they 1) tell you something about the candidate's perspective and 2) offer us direction on problems where the candidates need citizen help in devising a solution. Read more »

This Thursday, citizens of Providence will have a unique opportunity: for 90 minutes, candidates for the City’s top job—Mayor—will sit quietly and listen to your ideas.  Why? Because they all agree that it’s important to have more citizens involved in the conversation about the future of our city. Read more »

Republican Daniel Harrop III makes it official and throws his hat in the ring for Mayor of Providence. Read more about his announcement and his positions in article by Providence Journal reporter Phil Marcelo.
http://bit.ly/bHxEvN

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to describe the Uncaucus to craigslist founder Craig Newmark, a strong advocate of using technology to transform government and civic engagement.

Our correspondance began with a few emails (thanks to Josh Catone at Mashable for the introduction).  It was a meaningful experience for me to try and explain, in short, plain speak, what we were doing and why. Craig was brutal in reminding me that you shouldn't need more than a sentence or two to describe a great idea.

In recounting what we were able to accomplish in such a short period of time, I was again reminded of how important it is that citizens see themselves as more active agents on the political stage. Read more »

Providence Business News has published an interview with the founders. Read about why we started it and what we hope to accomplish:

http://www.pbn.com/detail.html?sub_id=a98ac5889e

The change of venue for the April 1 Uncaucus event is now official!!!! The event will now take place at Waterplace Restaurant located at One Finance Way, Providence, 401-272-1040 www.waterplaceri.com

April 1, 6:30 pm - 10:00 pm

FREE Valet parking is available. There is limited on-street parking as well... as parking available at the Providence Place Mall across the street.

If you have not yet RSVP'd to our Facebook invitation (see http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10150096476385635&ref=ts) please do so by Friday, March 19 so we have an idea of the number of attendees/participants and Waterplace Restaurant can staff accordingly. The April event is FREE and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served alongside a cash bar. Look forward to seeing you there!

On Friday, March 5, Andy Cutler, Christine West and Melissa Withers sat down for coffee with former mayor Joseph Paolino to talk about his brewing interest in the upcoming Mayoral election.  The Uncaucus founding members have offered all candidates who express interest the same opportunity: 30 minutes of face time in a neutral spot for an on-the-record conversation.  Here is a summary of the conversation we had with Mr. Paolino on March 5, 2010.  

1.    Mr. Paolino contacted The Uncaucus shortly after the group went public with its mayoral attraction campaign. In his initial email he stated he was facing several important decisions in light of the election dynamics this year and that he thought a conversation with the Uncaucus might be useful as he contemplates the future.
2.    We met with Mr. Paolino at 7:30am at Seven Stars Bakery on Broadway. Read more »

Recent WBRU interview: “For all of us, the election
is just this thing that’s going to happen this fall. What’s far more
important to all of us is that we see our little city as having the
opportunity to create a new model for civic engagement. If anyone can
do it, we can.”  Here's the article:

The Brief, 03/08/2010: DIY Democracy with the UnCaucus

Read more »