Side of the Rhode: Who’s Hot and Who’s Not - June 5, 2015
Friday, June 05, 2015
Russell J. Moore, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™
Every Friday, GoLocalProv's Russ Moore breaks down who is rising and who is falling in RI politics, business, and sports. Moore has worked on both sides of the desk in Rhode Island media, both for newspapers and on political campaigns. Send him email at
[email protected] and follow him on Twitter @russmoore713.
Related Slideshow: Side of the Rhode: Who’s Hot and Who’s Not - June 5, 2015
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HOT
Lincoln Chafee
It's official! Lincoln Chafee, the former mayor, governor, and US Senator has entered the race for President of the United States. Chafee is considered a longshot by nearly every single pundit, but he does bring some interesting ideas to the debate, such as clemency for NSA leaker Edward Snowden, adopting the metric system, and a much less aggressive foreign policy.
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HOT
Gina Raimondo
The Governor's office announced this week that they've received more than 500 calls and emails concerning the proposal to build a taxpayer financed stadium in Providence for the Pawtucket Red Sox, and about 98 percent of them were opposed to it. To Raimondo's credit, it does look like the Governor is getting the message that the people of Rhode Island are sick and tired of being mistaken for easy targets.
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HOT
Christopher Maher
The Providence School Board has unanimously selected Maher to become the district's interim superintendent. Maher already has experience working with the Providence School District, as he served as Mass Insight Education's--a public education consultancy firm--Vice President, which has worked with Providence. Here's hoping Maher helps improve the district.
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HOT
Nicholas Mattiello
House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello's spokesman, Larry Berman, has told several media outlets that the House won't have enough time to make an informed decision on whether or not to build a shiny, new stadium in Providence for the wealthy owners of the Pawtucket Red Sox with taxpayer dollars. Mattiello deserves credit for refusing to rush into a potential deal and the longer it takes for the situation to play out means that we'll get more, not less transparency.
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HOT
Wes Welker
The former New England Patriots superstar wide receiver tells Golocal this week that the air pressure in a football has very little, if anything to do with the outcome of a game. Nice to hear some truth telling from one of the best pass catchers in the league over the last 10 years.
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NOT
Sheldon Whitehouse
The Junior Senator from Rhode Island suggested in a Washington Post Op-Ed that climate change deniers from the fossil fuel industry could possibly be prosecuted under federal RICO statutes, otherwise known as racketeering, and he compared them to the tobacco companies that deceived the general public about the cancer risks of smoking. That's a far stretch considering even the science community has a wide range of opinions on the effects of climate change.
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NOT
Larry Lucchino
Lucchino, the President of the Boston Red Sox, and the face of the ownership group of the Pawtucket Red Sox, needs to explain why the team in Boston pays millions of dollars in property taxes to the Massachusetts capital, but insist on getting a free ride from the City of Providence. Does anyone else get the feeling that Curt Schilling told Lucchino that we Rhode Islanders are easy marks?
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NOT
RI Tourism Icons
Three of Rhode Island's biggest tourism spots are currently mired in legal battles. Ocean Mist, the popular oceanfront bar located in South Kingstown is fighting the construction of a seawall; the Vanderbilt family is fighting the construction of a "welcome center" at the Breakers (despite the family has been stingy in donating to the non-profit in recent years); and the Touro Synagogue is amidst a dispute over who exactly owns some of the property at the building. Let's hope these three tourism hot spots can get past their issues and continue to bolster RI's economy.
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NOT
Economic Development Director Search Committee
Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza has apparently irritated several members of the search committee put in place to select the new Providence Economic Development Director, when he selected Mark Huang, who once founded a clean-tech venture capital fund, against their advice. First of all, Huang seems qualified for the job. And secondly, the search committee needs to realize that Elorza, not the search committee, will be judged on the performance of the city economy--so he was wise to pick someone he feels comfortable with.
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NOT
High Paid Union Bosses
They work for private employers and if their employers, the union members they serve, want to pay them more than 6 figures a year, that's completely up to them. However, not that everyone who advocates for low-income folks has to be Mother Teresa, but when you're making more than $100,000 per year, you don't have the street cred to lead the fight to hike the minimum wage.
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NOT
41 degrees
When I checked my smartphone and checked the temperature on Tuesday evening, it was a chilly 41 degrees outside my humble abode. And then I remembered that it was June 2. Thank God we no longer call "climate change" "global warming" any more, otherwise people would not believe in it. We'd have no chance to prosecute them under RICO statutes!
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