Jim Hummel’s got a good report out, today, that we can file in the category of People Who Have Political Connections and Then Get Government Jobs.  In this case the connection is former State Representative and current Mayor of Woonsocket Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, and the beneficiaries are her son (and his baseball team) and a campaign contributor’s wife:

It’s part of Rhode Island’s illness that the politicians and too many of the people who elect them see no problem whatsoever.  Hummel asks the mayor how the city went about alerting young adults about the opportunity for a jobs program.  The response?  Oh, I happened to be talking to a group of athletes who just happened to be my son’s baseball team.  Without a transcript of the conversation, it’s impossible to know, but that explanation is potentially no different from the mayor’s chatting with some parents at a baseball practice and then declaring, Don’t worry.  I can take care of you all.  How’d you like $10 an hour for cleaning up city streets?

Perhaps Rhode Islanders can take some small comfort in the politicians’ promise that they only give jobs to their political friends and family if they’re qualified for them.  Of course, since everybody’s qualified to do something, making the match need only be a matter of creating the jobs that fit.

We need to fix this, and a navel-gazing Ethics Commission isn’t up to the job, mostly giving everything up to an illegal line the seal of “ethical.”  But first, we need to somehow make Rhode Islanders aware that, no, things aren’t supposed to work this way.