State Senators and Challengers Argue Newport County Economy

Incumbent State Senators and challengers looking to take their Newport County seats at the next Election Nov. 2 answered some tough questions Wednesday night, mostly on the economy as well as closely related issues such as casino gambling and shared municipal services, or regionalization.

The public forum was held before about 35 people in the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) auditorium and taped for airings on local cable television access Channel 18, sponsored by Citizens Concerned About Casino Gambling and moderated by Retired Navy Admiral and former Newport City Councilor Dennis McCoy. The forum was the second in a two-part General Assembly series that began last week with Newport County state Representatives.

Candidates who took part included: District 10 Senator Walter Felag (D) and challenger Virginia Butterworth (R), who seek to represent Tiverton and Warren; District 11 Senator Charles Levesque (D) and longtime rival Christopher Ottiano (R), seeking representation of Portsmouth and Bristol; and District 13 Senator M. Teresa Paiva-Weed (D) and opponent Geoffrey Cook (R), who seek to represent Newport and Jamestown. 

District 12 Sen. Louis P. DiPalma, who represents Middletown and Little Compton, was in Washington, D.C at the time of the forum on official state business. Since DiPalma is running unopposed this Election year, forum organizers had invited him to yield his time at the forum so that candidates running opposed would have more time to debate the issues.

The organization behind the forum, Citizens Concerned About Casino Gambling, was organized in 1977 to fight the establishment of casino gambling in Newport and today the group opposes the expansion of casino gambling in Rhode Island. So it came as little surprise that topping the list of 10 questions for the night was the issue of gambling, and where candidates stand as it relates to supporting the state and local economies.

Most candidates acknowledged a sort of uneasy alliance between the state and the gaming industry, with it ranking fourth in the state as a revenue generator. The three Democratic incumbents said they supported the issue going before voters to decide, but opinions varied on further expansion. The three Republican opponents differed on their stances and nearly all candidates seemed to agree that they wanted to see further economic development continued throughout the state so that the economy would no longer be dependent on casino gambling, lottery or gaming revenues.

"If I had my druthers I'd limit it to Twin Rivers [in Lincoln]," said District 10 Senator Felag. "They seem to want it and Newport people don't seem to want it."

Butterworth, his opponent, said she is "totally opposed to casino gambling" and that the transition from Jai Alai gaming to modern-day casino gambling was unfairly settled years ago by the courts.

District 11 three-time challenger Ottiano agreed that further economic development was needed to make the state less dependent on gaming revenue and said he foresaw a "collision course" between what the state and Newport voters want. "The people [of Newport] should have control over what happens to their town," he said.

Cook, the District 13 challenger, said he supports the current gaming industry, given its current support of the economy. "There's no new industry banging on the doors to come here. We need to preserve that revenue and I'd support a way of doing that."

The larger issue of a persistent sluggish economy and how candidates' philosophies would guide them on matters of fiscal responsibility and economic development prompted a varied discussion on taxes, jobs creation, education, and government spending.

Cook touted a more competitive sales tax structure that would lure businesses and customers away from Massachusetts and other New England states.

Butterworth pledged she would not vote for new taxes and called for spending to cease. She believes it's the responsibility of private industry to expand jobs, not the government. She does not support government-run jobs programs because they tend to be affiliated with "union people" with political connections, she said.

Ottiano agreed that private industry should lead the way on creating jobs, not the government, and also worried that raising sales taxes would decrease consumer spending and hurt the small business owners who need to create the jobs.

Levesque said he supported the advancement of educational opportunities and blasted the Republican opponents at the forum for not recognizing what he perceived as the root-causes for the current state of the down economy. "The [state] legislators have been working on economic development. People are sitting here talking as if the George Bush Administration didn't exist," said Levesque, who went on to attribute the "massive collapses in our economy, the worst in our modern history" to the previous Bush Administration and Republican hold on Congress between 2000-2008.

Senate President Paiva-Weed cited work already done in the state Senate on "cutting red tape" that enabled the state to promote small business development in Rhode Island and referred voters to the website www.makingbusinesseasyri.com for more information. She also noted state programs that provided about $250,000 in additional funding to CCRI to promote "career pathways," and other programs that focused on educating the workforce.

Felag commended the previous work of Paiva-Weed on providing opportunities and supporting initiatives for small business development and called for more programs like that.

Asked about particular challenges that residents of Newport County face with regards to the economy, most candidates emphasized Aquidneck Island and the surrounding communities' dependence on the tourism, boating, and defense industries, and agreed that economic policies should encourage those businesses to thrive.

Cook also suggested that Jamestown identify vacant buildings that might be converted and put to better use as "business centers," while Felag emphasized the ongoing fight to keep a proposed LNG terminal from Mount Hope Bay, which relies heavily on tourism dollars.

On the issue of "jobs, jobs, jobs," as Moderator McCoy put it, candidates had similar takes on the best ways to go about creating new jobs in Rhode Island, particularly Newport County.

Four of the six candidates linked education to jobs creation, although from different ends.

Felag, Paiva-Weed and Cook all noted the vicious cycle that currently exists between Rhode Island's high unemployment rate and inadequate workforce: Due to a lack of businesses and available jobs in Rhode Island, many qualified college graduates are leaving the state after graduating, thereby reducing the available qualified work pool and discouraging companies from doing business in Rhode Island, which in turn, discourages qualified grads from staying.

Butterworth blamed Rhode Island schools for creating an unprepared workforce. "The quality of education [in Rhode Island] is abysmal," said Butterworth, who said she grew up in an "outstanding public school system in Pennsylvania," and wished Rhode Island schools did a better job of educating the future workforce.

Levesque, a URI graduate, took direct offense to Butterworth's comments, as well as her earlier assertions that unemployment insurance programs were encouraging lower-income workers from taking service industry jobs and further contributing to the problem of Rhode Island having unqualified pools of skilled workers.

"I assure you that people are not happy about it and don't want [to be on unemployment]. That riles me to no end," said Levesque. He added, "And I am a graduate of public education in this state…including from URI and we did a very good job and we still are."

Both Felag and Ottiano cited taxes as an issue in jobs creation. Felag said there should be "no increases in broad-based taxes," while Ottiano said Rhode Island must help small businesses to create more jobs, by cutting business taxes and "painful regulations and fees."

Paiva-Weed also noted work done with CCRI to emphasize science and technology courses in hopes of preparing the local workforce and also saw opportunities for Rhode Island to become a leader in the renewable energy industry.

"We can become leaders in the Green Revolution much like we were in the Industrial revolution," she said.

Several questions also dealt with the process of governance. In three separate questions, McCoy questioned how candidates might improve the budget process, if they support term limits for the General Assembly, and if they supported "transparency in government" efforts to make legislators' votes instantly accessible to constituents online.

Regarding the state budget process, nearly all candidates pointed to the Bill approval process as the greatest obstacle and most time-consuming portion of the process. Felag noted that about 2,000 Bills come up for votes each session and called for a "stoppage of time" or deadline for when final bills could be submitted so legislators could spend more time reviewing and researching Bills before voting, while Butterworth proposed a 10:30 p.m. cut-off time for lawmakers to stop working in the General Assembly to prevent Bills from being voted on "at 4 a.m."

When term limits came up, not surprising, the challengers generally favored term limits, while incumbents defended elected lawmakers' right to serve until voters decided otherwise.

Butterworth said she thought elected lawmakers were allowed to start "too young," at age 18 for some public offices, which fostered career politicians.

Ottiano favored a five-term or 10-year term limit. He argued that "a decade is more than enough time to accomplish what you set out to accomplish."

Cook, a native to England who moved to the United States about 20 years ago and became a U.S. citizen in 2009, likened the issue to previous controversies in the U.K. over the length of service by Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordan Brown. "Maybe it's time someone else was in there with new ideas, fresh ideas…I think three to five terms (6 to 10 years) is about right. If you haven't done your work by then, I don't think it's going to be achieved."

Felag and Levesque both noted that voters have the right to Elect who they want to serve as well as vote someone out they no longer want.

Both Levesque and Paiva-Weed emphasized that longer serving elected officials have built up relationships, a practical working knowledge of addressing problems and concerns from voters, and an "institutional knowledge" that's beneficial to voters who choose to re-elect them.

Paiva also noted studies at the national level where voters had regretted imposing term limits on some Congressional offices, because lobbyists and "outsiders" gained the upper hand of "institutional knowledge" of how to get things done in Washington over elected officials.

All six candidates were in agreement that votes should be made available online instantly after a General Assembly vote or as soon as possible, as technology would allow.

The final question of whether the candidates supported "regionalization," or "shared municipal services," was posed in two parts—as it relates to municipal services and as it relates to public schools and education.

With regards to regionalizing either schools or sharing municipal services, no one disagreed that saving money by consolidating services between towns and increasing efficiency could benefit all towns involved. Others also noted that each town would also likely stand to gain greater leverage in bargaining salaries and contracts, as well as gain greater "purchasing power."

Felag noted how Bristol and Warren have already successfully consolidated services for the water authority, animal control, and more, and how the Newport County coastal communities are considering sharing a wind turbine energy farm with Tiverton.

However, some candidates raised specific concerns they wanted investigated further if regionalization moved forward, while others said voters should ultimately decide.

Levesque said he'd support what voters would want but cited concerns that consolidating policing services might be a disservice to a smaller town like Portsmouth if a "busier" summer night in Newport, for example, might demand more police department resources and Portsmouth is left unprotected.

On the municipal side of the argument, Paiva-Weed noted efforts already underway in the Senate led by with studies that, for example, suggest first sharing such municipal services as tax assessor among others. She also noted the potential for savings when it comes to more shared utilities.

On the school side of the argument, she recommended caution before proceeding, citing other early studies that showed little in savings resulted because just as many "bureaucrats" were ultimately needed to run a regionalized school system. Paiva-Weed said she's also waiting to see studies on how regionalization affects the "quality of the education" as another important bottom-line deciding factor.

Ottiano said that regionalizing Portsmouth's public schools with one or more neighboring communities might help ease current financial problems experienced there. "Portsmouth? We have a fantastic education there, but look at what's going on there now with the state funding [cuts] and the recent referendum. It's tearing our town apart and a lot of it can be eliminated with consolidation."

Felag, who advocates regionalizing all of Aquidneck Island schools, said the most difficult part in regionalizing the Bristol-Warren school system was getting the students onboard to embrace their new school pride.

Cook said that back in England, he lived in a community similar to Rhode Island, which had one governing authority over schools that covered a larger area, while area neighborhoods and schools clearly maintained their own identity.

Butterworth concluded, "Rhode Island, being the smallest state, we tend to think small, because we cherish our smaller towns. Should we undertake it? We certainly should be discussing it."

To view the entire forum, please check local Cox cable television access station Channel 18 for upcoming showtimes.