EDITORIAL: Time For Providence Public Safety Director Pare to Go
Sunday, April 30, 2017
The purpose of the position of the Director of Public Safety is to manage and coordinate the city's Police and Fire Departments to ensure proper management and the highest degree of public safety.
But in Providence, public safety functions are in chaos.
The Fire Department has not had a chief for 18 months. Prior to that, the Department was flipping chiefs as quickly as burgers at McDonalds. The Fire Department has been saddled with management and union conflict under the Pare/Mayor Jorge Elorza administration.
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Now, in an unprecedented move, the division between community activists and and the police in Providence has now sank into a gleaming cavernous gap.
In unprecedented dysfunction, Elorza claimed to support passage of the Community Safety Act, but in a surprise move the City Council caved under pressure of the Providence FOP and Chief Huey Clement.
In his statement to the press just hours before the rancorous City Council meeting on Thursday, which saw rows of off-duty police officers turning out in a show of opposition to the CSA, Elorza claimed that "public safety officials" were fully on board.
“This version of the Community Safety Act is a product of the hard work of the Administration, the City Council, Public Safety officials, and most importantly, community members and advocates. This is one of the most comprehensive pieces of community-police relations legislation in the country," said Elorza in a statement, before the second vote was postponed.
It is unimaginable a Mayor’s Chief of Police would publicly oppose the sitting Mayor on a major policy question.
Guess whose job it is to hire Fire Chiefs and coordinate public safety public policy?
The responsibility is Steven Pare and he is clearly incapable of doing it — it is time to go.
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