Candidate for City Council Ward 2: David Caldwell
GoLocalProv Political Team
Candidate for City Council Ward 2: David Caldwell
GoLocal asked him the following question this past week. Learn more about him at his website HERE.
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GoLocal: Where did you grow up?
Caldwell: North Kingstown
GoLocal: When did you move into the Ward?
Caldwell: 2017
GoLocal: What is the city of Providence’s budget?
Caldwell: $626 million (Editor’s Note: It is $624 million; Caldwell was the only candidate to answer this question nearly correctly.)
GoLocal: How would you describe your politics?
Caldwell: I'm a pretty pragmatic guy who likes to identify problems and get things done. So you could say it a different way. Sometimes I'm a liberal conservative, sometimes I'm a conservative liberal, but I'm never a conservative conservative or a liberal liberal. I just like that. It's Walter Bagehot from The Economist.
GoLocal: Are you a Smiley or a Morales supporter?
Caldwell: Smiley
GoLocal: Why does this election — the Second Ward — matter?
Caldwell: At the moment, it's a bit of a referendum on whether the city continues to move in a more leftward direction, or more central direction, or a referendum on the council leadership, or the leadership of the mayor.
How are you different from your opponents?
Caldwell: I am pragmatic.
GoLocal: Do you think the City Council has gone too far left — Palestinian Flag, attending American Democratic Socialist events?
Caldwell: Yes.
GoLocal: Providence has among the highest rents in the country (and the fastest increasing ones too), clearly indicating that the market is not providing enough inventory — should the city implement rent control?
Caldwell: We should not, and I would ask that we look at some of the data that's being promulgated behind some of those assumptions [by the City Council]...in my opinion, the report promulgated by the city council policy staff, for example, was designed to meet a foregone conclusion. If you look elsewhere in the country, where you see rents are dropping, and if you Google that, you'll see they're dropping in Minneapolis, in Nashville, in Louisville, in Atlanta, North Carolina, Austin, Texas, Vegas, where they build more.
You're actually seeing rents plateau in Providence right now, and actually dropping a little bit on the east side, just marginally...the capital that we need that's coming to Providence now, because we've been friendly, or at least receptive in trying to work with developers and be able to build things, that's going to freeze. That's just going to pull out of the landlords that are here that are making less money after we just raised their taxes in some cases 25, 30 percent. They're gonna sell, cash out. We'll get a lower quality of landlord, often it might be some Wall Street money coming in here …