HOT

Women's Rugby Going to Nationals

The Providence Women’s Rugby Football Club is heading to the USA Club Rugby National Championships in Atlanta, Georgia this weekend. 

This is their first appearance on the national stage, after recently winning the Club Atlantic Super Regional Playoffs. 

The team has an extra fire under them to win nationals in tribute to the team's late coach, Kathy Flores, who passed away from colon cancer last October. 

"The theme for this season is: For Kathy," says Providence co-captain, Ashley Hanson.

A member of the U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame, Flores had played on Florida State University’s rugby team, winning four national championships, and in 2013 accepted Brown University’s head coaching position, where the Kathy Flores Head Coaching Chair for Women's Rugby was established in her honor. 

“Kathy was with us starting in 2014,” said Myrta Ventura, the current team coach. “She found her way to us, and we were fortunate to have her here. She was such an advocate for the game — and she had friends on all continents.”

Read more here. 

HOT

Good Journalism Making a Difference

A series of stories by GoLocal's News Editor Kate Nagle about the decision by RIPTA to cut the summer beach bus for kids and families forced change.

On Wednesday, Governor Dan McKee instructed RIPTA to reinstate the program.

A win for city kids.

HOT

Brilliance on Display

Michael Rose's outstanding review of the newest local hot exhibit is a must-read of a great show:

Rhode Island artist Peter Campbell makes paintings that are defined by outward qualities of inventiveness and even whimsical, but which often explore serious subjects. For Campbell, images of children’s books or toys double as history studies. Paintings that share a format with a comic book probe issues like climate change. A solo exhibition of Campbell’s work on view through June 24 at Gallery 175 in Pawtucket offers viewers a chance to explore his distinctive style across multiple bodies of work.

Campbell trained at the former Vesper George School of Art in Boston and enjoyed a career as an associate creative director and senior graphic designer for a number of local corporations. In 1989 he was selected for NASA’s Space Art Program, an opportunity that provided him with unique access. During the program, Campbell saw the launch of the shuttle Atlantis and created the painting Voyage to Venus, which is now held in NASA’s permanent collection. He has also created three children’s books on the topics of space exploration and baseball. His skills as a documenter and illustrator come through in his recent works on view in Pawtucket.

HOT

Whitcomb is Sunday's Best

Former Wall Street Journal reporter and Providence Journal editor has written a Sunday column for GoLocal for eight years.

Last weekend he took readers on a trip looking at the scandals of Newport, the smells of New England and the latest developments in renewables -- only Whitcomb can tour-guide such a quintessential journey. 

READ HERE

HOT and NOT

If You Are a Homeowner HOT.

If You Are a Buyer NOT.

Despite rising interest rates, the median sale price of single-family homes sold in Rhode Island in April was $420,000, a 20.3% gain from 12 months earlier and the first time the median sales price has risen to $400,000 or above.

The new record is devastating for first-time homebuyers and middle-income families and this trend may continue despite rising interest rates that have jumped from about 3% a year ago to now more than 5%.

The increased prices, along with rising interest rates, has slowed sales for the third consecutive month. Sales data from the Rhode Island Association of Realtors pointed to a 12.5% decline in sales compared to April 2021.

Homes put under contract in April -- but not closed by month’s end -- were also down by 20.2%, an indication that continued restraint in sales activity in the months ahead is likely.

Read more here.

NOT

Providence’s Pension Bond Plan -- "Risky and Reckless"

Ken Block raises important concerns about the Elorza effort to push through a $500 million bond.

Block writes:

Providence's (PVD) proposal to float a half a billion-dollar "pension obligation bond" is fraught with risk, reckless, and another massive example of elected officials "kicking the can down the road."

PVD elected leaders, for decades, have failed to save enough money to properly pay for what in many instances, have been outrageous pensions. PVD leaders have failed to truly reform the city's pension abuses.

The idea behind a pension obligation bond is that a government borrows money, invests the money, earns more per year on those investments than must be paid out in interest on the loan, and then uses the profit to pay down pension liabilities.

For starters, interest rates across the board have risen dramatically, which will impact PVD's cost to borrow. The rise in the loan's cost lowers the net profit PVD can expect from investing the loan monies. It is a terrible time to borrow money for this purpose.

Worse, the stock market is extremely volatile right now, with a lot of negative pressures in the form of inflation, rising interest rates, global geopolitical issues and in general, corporate valuations that are still quite high. Terrible time to invest.

Since pension obligation bonds are taxable, governments must pay higher interest rates than their normal borrowing, which is, for the most part, done with tax-free bonds.

What will Providence do if the markets have one or more years where market returns are negative? The city will be on the hook for at least $25 million in interest payments on the loan with no investment gains from which to pay it.

In a bad scenario, let's say the markets tank 20% after PVD has fully invested the $500,000,000. That would be a $100,000,000 paper loss, plus selling underwater investments to the tune of between $25 million and $40 million to pay the interest. #Nightmare

READ MORE

NOT

Michael Solomon - The Candidate That Never Was

Michael Solomon claimed he was running for Mayor of Providence and then...kept saying he was going to run for mayor and then...did nothing.

Solomon finally closed down his campaign that never was.

NOT

Cash Got Your Tongue?

Seth Magaziner loaned his campaign account $800,000 for his first campaign — running for Rhode Island General Treasurer in 2014.

Since then, GoLocalProv and other Rhode Island media companies have repeatedly asked Magaziner what was the source of those funds. Opponents have asked and raised the question if those funds were legally transferred,  and yet Magaziner continues to give a range of explanations — always vague.

He has never told Rhode Islanders nor the media who gave him the money. His campaign did pay him back $100,000. According to campaign finance reports show his account still owes Magaziner $701,500.

Magaziner, at the time of the loans, had only had two jobs after graduating from college.

Directly after graduating from Brown University, Magaziner became an elementary school teacher for two years and later joined Trillium Asset Management. He worked at Trillium for two years and three months and according to disclosure forms filed by Magaziner with the Rhode Island Ethics Commission, he’d earned less than $100,000 at Trillium.

READ MORE

NOT

Just What We Don't Need -- Monkeypox

Massachusetts health officials reported Wednesday the first case of the rare monkeypox in a man who recently traveled to Canada.

Presently, there is a small outbreak of the virus in Europe.

According to the CDC, "Monkeypox was first discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in colonies of monkeys kept for research, hence the name ‘monkeypox.’ The first human case of monkeypox was recorded in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a period of intensified effort to eliminate smallpox. Since then monkeypox has been reported in humans in other central and western African countries."