EDITORIAL: Frustrated Mayor Lashes Out (Over His Failures)
Friday, July 30, 2021
The Mayor of Providence is frustrated.
On Wednesday, he wanted to physically challenge 70-year-old Governor Dan McKee of Rhode Island.
McKee is about a foot taller than Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTBoth men only travel with police protection.
The challenge seemed staged and was embarrassing — consistent with Elorza's 7-year tenure as mayor.
The frustration is boiling over for the Mayor of Providence.
They took his schools away from him.
They took the oversight of 195 lands away from him.
He can’t manage the police, the public works, fire or parks departments.
He is very frustrated.
The city is coated with graffiti, crime is rampant, streets are not safe and parks are in deplorable condition.
At one neighborhood park in the Mount Hope neighborhood on Providence’s East Side, there have been two separate shootings in recent weeks.
Nearly every day it seems there is a melee, a murder, a 14-year old girl shot and on and on.
The city is becoming immune to the ATVs, the pedestrians run over, and the complete lack of respect in the city or enforcement.
Now, the petulant mayor acted out at a press conference for one of the little pieces of good news in the city — the return of WaterFire.
He made sure his theater of the absurd overshadowed the comeback of not just one of the most important cultural events on the East Coast, but a critical economic driver for Providence's suffering downtown hospitality industry.
At the event, the frustrated Elorza tried to physically challenge McKee.
The entire incident was another bleak milestone in an administration that will be best known as one big missed opportunity.
After seven years of ineptitude, there is now a daily press briefing trying to paint over one mishandled city problem after another — including just setting up a "working group" for the known-for-years unfunded pension liability problem, an emphasis on “safe streets” and other ridiculous Elorza failures.
The good news is that the mayor has just 17 months in office. Maybe Providence residents can hold on and maybe, just maybe a candidate will emerge who can leave the white papers, buzzwords, and working groups to the side and just get stuff done.
Maybe?
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