EDITORIAL: Jorge Elorza — The Missed Opportunity of the Past Seven Years
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza was elected with a great back story, rising from a poor immigrant family in Providence and working his way to the height of academic achievement — attending Harvard.
He swept to victory with a smart political message — “One Providence” — the idea of making the city a better place to live for all residents.
In his inaugural address, Elorza said, “We stand at a crucial moment; I will not shrink because I know you will not shrink. We will build the New Providence – a city that works, a city of great strengths, a city of great pride. And we will build this city together! We will rise and succeed, the only way we know-how, as One Providence.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“And, we need neighborhood schools that engage parents and bring together entire communities. We need a culture of excellence at every school and we need to invest in school infrastructure so that every child sits in a classroom that inspires her to learn. We need to prepare our students for life after high school. And one thing I am convinced of is that we cannot quit on each other. We need mentorship and workforce development whether you have a clean record or you’re trying to get your life back together,” he added.
The verbiage and the reality have never intersected.
The Providence schools under Elorza -- and his predecessors -- were and continue to be anemic. Elorza visited the schools regularly and gave the system a grade of "C+" but experts from Johns Hopkins University rated the schools to be among the worst in the country.
Elorza lacked real governing experience and to make it worse he surrounded himself with a staff that was young, inexperienced, and often sycophants. He refused to bring in experienced professionals.
Big Ideas, Inability to Achieve Simple Tasks
His seven years in office have been big ideas and an inability to complete even the most simple tasks. And during this period, he failed to provide a sense of safety, community, and competency.
Immediately after being elected, he ran into trouble. He bungled responses to snowstorms, he stumbled in addressing a near non-stop break-in problem on the East Side.
There was a high-profile trip to visit the President of Guatemala to meet with the discredited President -- a president who was tied to mass murders, drug dealing and today remains in a military prison.
ATVs became an issue more than four years ago — a problem that undermined the sense of safety in every neighborhood in the city. Mad Max, Providence-style, became a reality.
Murders have exploded -- 35 in the past 15 months. He slashed police staffing to its lowest level in 50 years.
He made promises about addressing the problem of panhandling and helping those with mental health issues and he only produced “Giving Meters.”
Elorza has been a big thinker (or maybe a dreamer). but has not been a doer.
His inability to address crime, vandalism, graffiti, homelessness and the looming pension crisis was a disconnect for residents.
The schools and 195 Districts were taken away from him -- an unprecedented loss of local control for the capital city.
To some degree, because of the non-stop increase in housing prices, Providence was blessed during Elorza’s administration of having increased revenues due to ever-increasing home values.
Elorza wants to be a human think tank while city residents would rather have a sense of security and quality of life.
The past seven years have been a missed opportunity. The city is not better off now than it was seven years ago.
In his final year, we hope that the mayor can focus on the known. Work to address issues of failed schools, crime, clean up a city that is lathered in graffiti. Providence has endless potential but never seems able to take advantage of it.
Maybe Elorza can in his final year plus can focus on services, safety, and a sense of quality of life, to give his successor the opportunity to build on some level of stability.
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- EDITORIAL: Jorge Elorza — The Missed Opportunity of the Past Seven Years
