Entries by Monique Chartier

Why is Attorney General Kilmartin Attending a Conference on Fracking?

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Is fracking an option for Rhode Island? If it is, let me be one of the first to say hey! let’s check into it.

If it is not, why has Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin signed up to attend a fracking conference in Colorado?

The attorneys general of several states will be in Colorado April 16 for a conference on legal and regulatory issues surrounding the oil and gas industry’s use of hydraulic fracturing.

The Colorado Energy Summit is organized by the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG). It will take place at the Denver Marriott City Center. Regististration information is here.

AGs from several western states including Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah are expected to attend. The attorneys general from Rhode Island and Arkansas also are planning to attend …

HealthSource RI’s Million Dollar Media Buy

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HealthSource RI has spent $1,115,666 on advertising for the five-month period from October 13, 2013, to March 14, 2014.

“Fox On The Run”

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Yesterday, the U.S. Attorney, the R.I. State Police, the FBI and the IRS executed search warrants on the State House office and home of Speaker Gordon Fox. From a picture tweeted out yesterday by the Providence Journal, it appears that part of the door to his professional office on Custom House was boarded up. It’s […]

So Exactly How Much Money Has Rhode Island Housing Received from State Taxpayers Over the Last Four Fiscal Years?

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… and where you can go to find out!

Rhode Island’s “Landmark” Pension Reform Still Leaves State Pension System in “Critical Status” By State’s Own Standard

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The proposed “settlement” of Rhode Island’s 2011 pension reform law (has anyone explained yet how a law can be mediated?) is currently in the hands of rank and file union members. If they give the green light (has anyone explained yet how a non-ballot can equal a “yes” vote?), it goes to the General Assembly for consideration.

But let’s go back to the 2011 pension reform itself. First, look at this three page PDF, compiled by the state of Rhode Island, which lists “Locally Administered Pension Plans in Critical Status”; i.e., municipal pension systems. See the note in the box on the bottom left of each page?

Mayor Angel Taveras’ Office Neither Confirms Nor Denies that He is Contemplating Giving a City Building to a Private Organization

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Ocean State Current-Anchor Rising contacted the office of Providence Mayor Angel Taveras with regard to the prospect of the City of Providence giving a city building (246 Prairie Avenue) to a private organization …

Mayor Taveras, Please Do Not Give Away a City Building to a Non-Profit

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Big H/T to John Loughlin for spotting and vigorously denouncing this yesterday on WPRO.

Climate Change??? YES! … Oh, Wait, Wrong Climate, Gov

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Yesterday, Governor Chafee signed an Executive Order creating a state Climate Change Council.

Pension Reform “Reform”: The Telltale Smile; Whither “Truth In Numbers”; Deliberately Deceptive Timing

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Preamble Be sure to check out some of the very good coverage and analysis of the proposed pension reform “settlement” in the press. The ProJo story here. The WPRI story here. Arlene Violet’s column in Thursday’s Valley Breeze, “Stop the pension reform ‘reform’”, went to press before Friday’s slyly timed press conference but it is […]

Minimum Wage Bidding War By Raimondo & Taveras Swiftly Rebuked By Latest Unemployment Rate

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On Thursday, citing his mother’s employment history (how could you say no to his mother, you hard-hearted person???) , gubernatorial candidate Mayor Angel Taveras announced at a press conference that a hike to $10.10/hour of the state’s minimum wage should be phased in by 2018. A couple of hours later, General Treasurer Gina Raimondo, who, […]

RI Center For Freedom & Prosperity: “State Cannot Afford Operation of HealthSourceRI”

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As readers may know, ObamaCare RI, a.k.a., HealthSourceRI (funny that they had to give it a different name), was created via Executive Order by Governor Chafee with federal funds that disappear next year. HealthSourceRI has turned into the consummate bloated, expensive and unnecessary governmental bureaucracy without even accomplishing one of its important claims of increasing […]

Suggested Announcement for DePetro’s Show Tomorrow

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John Depetro returns to his show on WPRO tomorrow morning. Pop some popcorn (… er, pour some coffee?) and tune in; it’s bound to be interesting.

Personally, I hope he opens with an announcement of an eight figure defamation lawsuit against the group (though perhaps “beard” would be a more accurate term) For Our Daughters RI for their statement that DePetro

was accused of sexually assaulting a female co-worker

an accusation so rancid that PolitiFactRI (yes! PolitiFactRI!) rated it a “Pants-On-Fire” in today’s Providence Journal.

When Pesky Facts Get In the Way of Building a Certain Consensus

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To second and amplify everything Justin has said: for seventeen years, there has been no global warming trend, despite an inexorable rise of man-generated CO2. This is a development that was not predicted by global warming scientists, whose mantra has been: man-generated greenhouse gases will cause the planet to warm. This seventeen year pause has […]

UPDATE – Third Icebreaker (and Cracking Ice) Will Hopefully Be the Charm for the Global Warming “Explorer” Ship Trapped in Antarctic Ice

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As you may have heard, an explorer ship has been trapped in ice in the Antarctic since December 24. Everyone on board, scientists, tourists and crew, is fine at this point. In addition to commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the expedition to the Antarctic led by Australian explorer Douglas Mawson, one of the goals […]

Katz in Today’s ProJo: Participation In Boycott of WPRO Is Evidence That the Person Is Not Fit to Hold Office

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Ed Fitzpatrick’s column in today’s Providence Journal is about the public union led attempt to boycott WPRO until they fire John Depetro. As preamble, I repeat my own take on this brouhaha: I don’t agree with Depetro’s use of those epithets. They were nasty and unnecessary. However, if Depetro had made his comments about the […]

Two Years Paid Leave: Off the Radar But Not the Public Payroll In Cranston

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Filling in for Gene Valicenti this morning (and all week) on the WPRO Morning News, John Loughlin described how, when he returned from his 2011 deployment to Iraq, the equipment and supplies he turned back to the Army – to the Quartermaster? – were carefully checked and inventoried, to the point that he was charged for the small uniform flag that he wanted to keep.

Shall we put this department in charge of keeping track of public employees around the state? On Monday, NBC 10’s I-Team pointed them to their newest assignment.

Small question: how exactly does this happen?

A Cranston police captain making nearly $100,000 per year has been on administrative leave with pay for the past two years only because a hearing on a complaint against the captain hasn’t been scheduled NBC 10’s I-Team learned Monday.

On Feb. 11, 2011, a disciplinary complaint was filed by the city of Cranston against police Capt. Todd Patalano. The complaint, according to a court document, involved Patalano’s handling of civilian complaints made against the department.

After the complaint was filed, Patalano demanded a hearing under the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights.

Subsequently, 13 days of evidentiary hearings were held, but for some unknown reason, the hearings were recessed and never rescheduled. …

Kudos to Quiroa For Getting the Critical Point About the DePetro Flap

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In the last hour, the Providence Journal put on line a letter from David Quiroa, the president of the Alliance for Guatemala. What did he “get”? Not that John DePetro voices the thoughts of “the right”; sometimes he does, sometimes not. Nor is it true, as Quiroa implies, that the thoughts of conservatives are dominated […]

One More Data Point, Please: RI State Workers 5th Highest Paid

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Let’s have all relevant data points on the table as the negotiation of a new contract with Rhode Island’s state workers proceeds.

RIGOP Joins Boycott of WPRO

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It’s not at all clear how large the boycott of WPRO actually is. However large or small it is, the RIGOP announced via e-mailed press release just now that it is joining. RHODE ISLAND REPUBLICAN PARTY TO BOYCOTT WPRO PROVIDENCE: Mark Smiley the Chair of RIGOP issued a statement today regarding a boycott of WPRO. […]

Was It Appropriate For The Governor To Sign a Petition Pushing for a Talk Show Host To Be Fired?

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GoLocalProv reports this morning that

Governor Chafee’s Spokesperson Christine Hunsinger told GoLocalProv.com, “Chafee signed the petition (to remove DePetro) because he has daughters.”

This is the wording of the petition:

The pledge says, “We have asked Rhode Island elected officials and candidates running for office not to go on any WPRO talk show until WPRO ends their relationship with John DePetro.”

Was it appropriate for Governor Chafee to sign this petition?

Nice Work, Tiverton: “Tiverton served with whistle-blower lawsuit”

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You may remember the latest candidate for Public Employee of the Month, Tiverton’s Maintenance Foreman, busted on camera by Turn To Ten’s I-Team allegedly managing his own properties on town time. The Town of Tiverton, in an inexplicable and notably dumb maneuver, reacted by firing his subordinate, Larry Faulkner. Late this afternoon, Turn to Ten broke the latest development.

A lawsuit filed in Newport County Superior Court by Larry Faulkner spells out a complaint under Rhode Island’s Whistle-blower Protection Act.

A not unreasonable reaction and one that was, in fact, foreshadowed by Current-Anchor’s Justin Katz. The problem, of course, is that the price for this mishandling will be paid by taxpayers – almost certainly taxpayers from several towns because the suit has been forwarded to the Rhode Island Interlocal Risk Management Trust – and not by the Tiverton official(s) involved, as would be rightful.

That Tears It: “New report shows wind power doesn’t reduce CO2 emissions”

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Paging the energy Quixotes in the R.I. General Assembly and the Governor’s office. Now there is literally NO reason to continue tilting at wind by foisting on state rate payers the highly expensive energy generated by the proposed, boutique Deepwater Wind project.

From Roger Helmer at The Hockey Schtick. (Emphasis added.)

I’ve just come across a report by energy consultant Duncan Seddon in the Australasian Power Technologies publication. The title is “Do wind farms/gas turbines save carbon?”. (Of course he means “CO2 emissions”, not carbon – but I’m delighted to see the explicit link of turbines plus back-up).

Find the report here, page 25: Hat-tip to Benny Peiser of GWPF for drawing my attention to it.

The answer to the question, in brief, is “on average, no”.

So the “Dual Role” Has Become An Excuse to Give the President of CCRI A Hearty Raise?

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This week, GoLocalProv‘s Kate Nagle shined a multi-part spotlight on various spending items at CCRI, the Community College of Rhode Island, one of three state colleges/universities and, accordingly, annual recipient of many millions of state tax dollars. We have yet to hear why, for example, it is prudent and appropriate that college funds are used […]

Leidecker Appeal of Cyberstalking Conviction – What Will the A.G.’s Office Do?

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NEA RI representative John Leidecker has appealed his conviction for cyberstalking of former state Representative Douglas Gablinske, raising concerns that the courts may set a dangerous precedent.

Question for All Gubernatorial Candidates: Would You Release and Implement the Block Waste & Fraud Report?

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Yesterday on WPRO‘s John Depetro Show, John Loughlin, filling in, interviewed gov candidate Ken Block. A caller asked Block to release the waste and fraud report that his company had prepared for the state earlier this year. Quick background. Governor Chafee did not release the whole report, only what amounted to a tantalizing summary. The […]

The Highly Injury Prone, Unbelievably Piggy North Providence “Firefighter”; or, Giving Thanks for a Nosy Press

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… “firefighter” in quotes because, not only would most firefighters almost certainly disown Stephen Campbell but, more to the point, it appears that he spent almost as much time on paid injury leave on the North Providence fire department as he did actually fighting fires. As it’s not usually helpful to either describe or improve […]

Contrary to a Certain “Fact”-Checking Service, Rhode Island Does, Indeed, Have the Highest Number of Health Insurance Mandates

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One of the reasons that Rhode Islanders may seem to suffer slightly less than other states under the mandate-heavy ObamaCare law is because … well, we’ve already been suffering: the Rhode Island General Assembly has heaped the most number of health insurance mandates on us. “On us” because, contrary to the muddled thinking of too […]

Great Catch, John Loughlin. How Did We Forget, “Reduce Premiums for the Typical Family By $2,500”?

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To date, most of the attention, understandably so as healthcare plans have been blowing up right and left, has been focused on the promise that, under ObamaCare, everyone would be able to keep their coverage if they wanted to. Major H/T to WPRO‘s John Loughlin for reminding us on the air this morning about another […]

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