In the Oct. 18, 2024, episode of “A Lively Experiment,” moderator Jim Hummel and his panelists discussed the ramifications of pushing back the timetable on the Washington Bridge. Panelists also discussed the friction between Providence city officials and the state over school funding.
Hummel was joined by Allan Fung, the former mayor of Cranston; Nancy Lavin, a senior reporter for the Rhode Island Current; and Bill Lynch, the former chairperson of the Rhode Island Democratic Party.
This discussion has been condensed and edited for clarity. Watch the full episode of “A Lively Experiment” here.
Officials did ‘decent job’ in second meeting
Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee and state Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti held a news conference on Oct. 14. The pair apologized for a previous botched community meeting and then outlined a revised plan for the demolition and construction of the Washington Bridge’s westbound lanes.
Hummel said the bottom line about the bridge was not to “get your hopes up” for it being completely fixed in 2025, which was the original projection.
During a second community meeting, officials spent more than two-and-a-half hours answering questions. The first meeting lasted just nine minutes, Lavin said. This time, the response was more substantive.
“I think they did a decent job in my vantage point covering it, of answering questions,” Lavin said. “A lot of people had similar questions and they could have said, ‘Oh, we already answered that.’
“They didn’t. They kind of said, ‘Oh, we answered that, but we’ll answer it again.’ McKee was trying to get offline people’s phone numbers and addresses to come out to the homes of residents who are complaining about dust and vibration and noise pollution,” she added. “So at least in terms of the gesture, they’re putting in the effort now, that was clearly not there a week ago.
“Is it too late though?”
Fung added that a big key for Rhode Island residents was the timeline for the demolition and construction of the bridge.
“Let’s rewind six months ago when I was sitting in this chair, and remember Lou Pulner was here too, and we were joking about that original timeline,” Fung said. “Well, it’s probably gonna be more in line with what Lou and I were talking about, anywhere between three to five years, because the construction timeframe, now, the impacts on many of the residents, not only just those driving over the bridge, but living in the surrounding areas.
“There are a lot of questions, but from Gov. McKee’s perspective, let’s face it, he’s got an election coming up. He wants this done as quickly as possible, or at least some progress being made before that primary that’s gonna be likely to happen.”
Lynch joked that the two-and-a-half hours “is about as long as it’s taken me to get over the bridge a few times.”
“Look, there’s no good news, I don’t think even about the bridge situation,” he said. “I think they’re doing their best with a bad situation.
“The second meeting was much better than the first one, which seemed rushed and not really put together well.”
Lynch agreed with Fung that fixing the bridge is going to take longer than originally projected, but said that was not “a huge surprise.”
“And politics being what it is, obviously the people who were there now want to see this thing moving, but it’s not an easy thing to fix obviously,” he said. “It was decades of decay and decline and now we’re paying the price.”
State aid to schools remains a hot topic
The panelists then turned their attention to the situation in Providence, where Rhode Island officials have taken over the city’s schools for at least the next three years.
Fung said that Providence officials are facing “even more dire circumstances.”
“(It) just came out that they have been late, consistently late, on their pension payments,” he said. “After all those reforms that happened, one of the promises that cities and towns and schools had made is that we’re gonna make those payments, because if you don’t, they’re gonna withhold your state aid.
“And that’s what we’re seeing going on right now.”
Fung, an attorney who said he has represented “a lot” of communities that are having issues with schools, said the drying up of federal COVID-19 funds to schools is the “canary in the coal mine.”
“You’re (not) seeing the progress that a lot of the leaders wanna see out of that educational system, where the reading, math … are still way behind the pre-Covid pandemic levels,” he said. “So it’s gotta be the right balance. You’re gonna see a lot more fights like Providence is.
“And you’re seeing it have an impact on the total finances of many cities and towns, because look, cities and towns are the funding source for the schools as well, it’s a question of how much is the right balance of funds that the local taxpayers should foot versus what the state is.”
Lynch said the tussle between Providence and the state has been “such a longstanding issue.”
“Allan knows better than anybody, having served as the mayor, but I can remember, and I’m sure it precedes this, when my dad was the mayor of Pawtucket back in the ’70s, it was an issue back then, because you always have this dynamic between school committees and municipalities and … If you are the mayor, and you know better than anybody, you get the responsibility of setting a budget,” he said. “And if taxes go up in a city, the mayor sort of has to take responsibility.
“And there’s constantly this tug of war, because school committees, and you’re seeing it again in Providence, where money gets spent, and yet the mayor or the administration takes the responsibility of the constituents in terms of what your taxes are in order to fund that,” Lynch added. “So that’s why this has been decades and probably longer with mayors saying, ‘We need more control over school department spending.’
“And the school department comes back and says, ‘No this has gotta be separate and apart from what you do as a city.’ And it’s never been resolved and it’s still not resolved.”
Lavin, who has covered state government for the Current, said that state aid to schools is “a hot topic.”
“The much-maligned education funding formula, which determines how much state aid goes to every school district, there were some improvements made, according to most lawmakers in this most recent legislative session, but it’s still not enough,” she said. “And I think the school districts are being squeezed from the state, potentially also from the municipalities.
“So it’s kind of a tough situation for everyone. I think in Providence, probably the most worrying thing, is just that we know that the students’ performances, the staff turnover and retention rates are not good,” Lavin added. “And so if we’re also having these fights between the city council and the superintendent, where the superintendent is almost holding the city hostage for money and putting out social media videos, it doesn’t seem like that’s the way to solve any of the systemic issues with education in Providence.”
