Updated Providence Budget Mess: Most Blame Cicilline
Friday, March 25, 2011
A new Brown University poll shows that 77 percent of Rhode Islanders blame Congressman and former Mayor David Cicilline for the budget crisis facing the City of Providence.
It may come as small consolation to Cicilline, but even more Rhode Islanders—80 percent—blame the Providence City Council for the fiscal mess.
Also, Cicilline’s approval rating came in at 17 percent. Congressman Jim Langevin, by contrast, garnered the support of 48 percent of voters.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTCicilline: ‘Doing everything I can’
In a statement released to GoLocalProv, Cicilline said he was working as hard as he could to improve the job outlook for Rhode Island. He said he was more focused on that, than on politics.
“I was sworn into Congress only 12 weeks ago, and I firmly believe that in these difficult economic times, my job is not to worry about politics, but how to get Rhode Islanders back to work and that’s why I’m doing everything I can to get our economy back on track, including focusing on my ‘Make it in America Block Grant’ legislation to retool our manufacturers and retrain our workers to get our economy moving again,” Cicilline said.
“These are incredibly hard times for Rhode Islanders and I intend to continue to focus on fighting for them.”
Most approve of Taveras, teacher firings
On the other hand, Cicilline’s successor as mayor, Angel Taveras, fared better than every other elected official:
■ 51 percent approved of the decision to fire all the teachers, 45 percent opposed it.
■ 52 percent approve of the job Taveras is doing as mayor—the highest of any elected official in the survey.
■ 76 percent of respondents said they “strongly agree” or “agree” with the plan to close schools to fix the budget.
“We’ve faced some serious challenges in our first two months in office,” said Taveras spokeswoman Melissa Withers. “The Taveras team is working hard to be honest about where we are and about what lies ahead. I think that the public respects that.”
The survey was based on a statewide random sample of statewide random sample of 425 registered voters It had a margin of error of about plus or minus 4.7 percentage points. The survey was conducted between March 11 to 13.
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