GoLocal Blasts Alviti on Repeated False Public Statements
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
On Monday night, GoLocal reported that an engineer for a bid on the Westbound Washington Bridge project in 2020 warned the Rhode Island Department of Transportation about a potential design flaw relating to the failure of pin joints in the project.
The warning was ignored by RIDOT officials.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTOn Tuesday morning, on an appearance on WPRO, Peter Alviti, the Director of RIDOT, claimed that GoLocal’s report was false.
He claimed GoLocal “identified the wrong bridge.”
GoLocal had cited the report by the engineering expert but did not report on a specific portion of 195.
On Monday, RIDOT announced that a failure in bridge joints forced the shutdown of half of one of Rhode Island's most important highways. The expert's report was part of the Cardi Corporation's bid to do repair work in 2020.
“Alviti is incompetent. He has proven it by his management of 6/10 and the overall condition of Rhode Island’s infrastructure, which continues to be ranked at the bottom of the state rankings. What GoLocal reported was exactly what was submitted to RIDOT regarding the Washington Bridge construction project, that there was a potential failure,” said GoLocalProv CEO and co-founder Josh Fenton.
“Alviti lied about 6/10 and tried to shift the blame when we broke the story, and he is trying to do the same again,” said Fenton. “He even lied on the same radio show. He lied again when GoLocal unveiled cost overruns on 146."
"Rhode Island has amongst the worst roads and bridges in the United States, and every time Alviti's incompetence is unveiled, he blames someone else," added Fenton.
Alviti was appointed by Governor Gina Raimondo in 2015 and was reappointed by Governor Dan McKee.
RIDOT claims the closure directly impacts 90,000 vehicles a day.
Alviti on WPRO on September 2020
Months after RIDOT was warned about the material being dumped in Olneyville in a residential neighborhood, Alviti went on the same talk show and misled listeners in September of 2020.
“So basically we've proven that the fill that was brought in is OK, but we're concerned and I think the investigation is going to continue, because we're concerned that another agenda is going on here. We don't know what it is,” said Alviti on the Gene Valicenti radio show, two days after the first GoLocal investigative story — a series that sparked both state and federal investigations.
Alviti's claim on another agenda was to blame James White, the whistleblower.
However, just days after Alviti’s denial on the radio, new tests conducted by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) deemed the site contaminated. RIDEM ordered RIDOT and Barletta to remove the soil. The Resource Recovery Facility and another landfill in Rhode Island refused to accept the material.
Alviti’s statements on Gene Valicenti were proven to be lies.
In October of 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice signed a non-prosecution agreement with Barletta Heavy Machine in October of 2022 and the project manager on the 6/10 project Dennis Ferreira pled guilty to multiple charges.
Then, in January, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha indicted Barletta (the company) and the same employee.
Ferreira has pled innocent to state charges.
146 Cost Overruns, Alviti Claimed Illegal Documents
Ten days after a GoLocal investigation in 2022 unveiled that RIDOT awarded a $167 million bid to Skanska and JH Lynch — a bid that was $34 million than the lowest bid and $47 million more than RIDOT staff had estimated — Alviti took to talk radio and claimed that the information about the bids was "illegally" secured.
On the same WPRO talk radio show hosted by Valicenti, Alviti said regarding RIDOT documents being publicly disclosed, "Well, people who either are obtaining information illegally or obtaining information through back channels [but] it's wrong."
But when Alviti’s office was asked to explain what public documents were “obtained illegally” the agency did not respond.
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