Beginning on June 1st, 2015, the bridge that spans the Blackstone River on the Cumberland/ Lincoln /Woonsocket border will have a new name. After a nearly 10-year study, the Rhode Island Dept. of Transportation has decided to rename what is now known as the Woonsocket Industrial Highway.

"We felt that it was time for the road to have a name that made sense, both geographically and descriptively," said some failed journalist who now does PR for the DOT, "we had over 5 ideas when we started out 10 years ago, and we've finally picked a winner."

The 27 intrepid souls on the naming commission weathered the storms of adversity, and in a mere decade, finally ferreted out a winner. Soon, Rhode Islanders will be telling folks to take exit 9b off of 295 to Route 99, now known as 'CVS Escape Route.' 
 
"In the end, it was a pretty easy decision," noted one commission member, "The other submissions seemed to be written in by 8-year old boys. Names like 'The Hershey Highway', and 'Route 69- Heh,heh, heh...'

For the thousands of you that follow me on the blog here at The Coalition, you might have noticed that my writing is taking a somewhat satirical bent. It has occurred to me over the last few years that if anyplace in the world deserves a bit of skewering, it is Rhode Island, and in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the need for pointed political satire seemed even more prescient. I have published satirical pieces on this page before (See: Here, here, and here), and even set up a test website for said pieces. (See: Here)

Yesterday, I posted a piece about a luxury chicken coop available in Woonsocket. The story was meant to be a good-natured jab at the bureaucracy in Woonsocket, and the fact that the city has adopted the strictest, most expensive backyard chicken ordinance in the U.S. When I posted the story link on facebook, I referred to the Woonsocket Zoning Board of Review as "thugs."

The reason, I went with that particular word choice is because it is accurate. 

Here's some background. Roughly two years ago, a family in Woonsocket was cited for having chickens in their backyard. Under then existing city statutes "no farm animal" of any kind was permissible with the city limits. The family raised the chickens for eggs for their daughter who has gastro-intestinal issues. Store bought eggs made her sick. Their son then took it upon himself to start a city wide petition to allow backyard chickens within the city, and after collecting several hundred signatures, brought his plea to the City Council. Initially, the council gave him a flat-out, "no," using what seemed like an endless stream of faulty logic, opinion disguised as fact, and willful ignorance, which all boiled down to the following argument:

"We can't allow this in the city because some people may not follow the rules."

By that token, we'd have to ban guns, cars, chemicals, medicine, investment banking, board games, pub trivia nights, dry clean only shirts, etc.

As a chef and foodie, one of the more disturbing aspects of the City Council battle was the seeming inability for some members to understand that some people would prefer to not buy eggs from abused chickens. In most factory farms, chickens have their beaks, claws, and wings clipped, are pumped full of antibiotics, and live out a short, miserable life in a cage that is so small that they can't even turn around or spread their wings. If you treated a dog or cat the way most egg-laying chickens are raised in this country, you'd be brought up on animal cruelty charges.

After the initial response, the young man was not daunted, and set about actually crafting a city ordinance that would allow anyone with a single family home and $374 to spare can have the privilege of owning up to four hens within the city. And of course there is the red tape of setback and coop construction and maintenance standards. This ordinance all-but literally restricts access to a food source from the very people who would stand to benefit most from low-cost eggs: the poor.

Now the law is in effect, and the family is applying for their - I can't believe I'm writing this - chicken keeping permit. At their first hearing before the Zoning Board, again the inane questioning continued, and the permit was tabled until the next meeting. I was not at the meeting, but I was told that the board was dismissive  and rude to the young man and his family.

I guess I really shouldn't expect much from a body where one member openly posts things on facebook like this:

This "Great Lesson" in irony, which is neither a great lesson, nor ironic, and equates a third of Woonsocket's population to wild animals: 

And in a post that even I found too offensive to repint on this blog, Mr. Fagnant suggests that he would "... slap the crooked pig teeth out of (the) mouth" of anyone that didn't agree with him. This all reads as pretty "thuggish" to me, unless "slap(ping) the crooked pig teeth out of my mouth" is the new "fist bump."

As was reported by Jim Baron in The Woonsocket Call, newly elected House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello visited Woonsocket recently. While I only became aware of his visit after the fact, and was disappointingly not invited to the Rotary Club luncheon that he addressed, I should like to address the Speaker through this most public of forums, the interwebs.

Mattiello, with House Majority Leader John DeSimone in tow, was given a tour of the city by Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, and our delegation to the House of Representatives Reps. Stephen Casey, Bob Phillips, and Mike Morin. Stops on the tour included WWII Memorial Park – the only state park in the city – our barely breathing Diamond Hill retail district, Landmark Medical Center, The Plastics Group, and a visit to an Advanced Placement Government class at Woonsocket High School. After the tour, Baron reports that the Speaker said, “I got a good  view of Woonsocket today. You’ve got some great things going on, but there is also blight in certain areas.”

That comment makes me wonder if the tour wasn’t a bit sugar-coated by the Mayor and our Representatives because, frankly, the entire city is suffering from blight.

Even the city’s swankiest neighborhoods – the North End and East Woonsocket – are rife with homes that have been abandoned due to the foreclosure crisis and skyrocketing property taxes. The two largest commercial plots in the Fairmount neighborhood -which happen to be directly opposite one another on the banks of the Blackstone – look like a warzone. The spectre of non-resident tenement and corporate development owners looms large on streets like 3rd Ave., Pond St., Chester St., and many others. The decline of the city is no more evident than on Main St., where one of the most historic buildings in the city, the Commercial Block, is slated for condemnation.

While addressing the Rotary Club, Mattiello stressed the importance of infrastructure and education saying, “We have to stop having an infrastructure that our citizens complain about,” and that, “A well trained, well-educated workforce produces more and makes us better citizens.” I agree with Mattiello on these points, but have to ask, isn’t the lack of state funding in both of these areas a major driver of the decline of Woonsocket’s roads, bridges, and education system?

Baron admits in the story that the crowd at the luncheon was, “heavy with businessmen and women,” and toward the end of the article writes that when Mattiello was questioned on taxes, he responded, “I’m looking at the corporate tax. I want to get rid of the inheritance tax cliff.”

This ranks among the top three most tone-deaf things I’ve heard fall from the lips of any politician. The top two are Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comment, and George W. Bush’s, “Mission accomplished.”

First, most folks in Woonsocket, even businessmen and women, don’t give a damn about the corporate income tax. What Woonsocket businesses need – and I’d argue most businesses in any of Rhode Island’s four core cities –  is property tax relief. Besides, if you look at the corporate tax returns in Rhode Island, the majority of businesses in Rhode Island aren’t paying anywhere near the 9 percent that is written into our tax structure.

Second, does anyone out there think that the inheritance tax “cliff” of $921,655 matters at all to people in a city where the median income is $39,000/year?

Mattiello also said that Woonsocket is, “…a city that needs our attention right now.” Let’s file this one under, “No shit, Sherlock.”

Woonsocket has needed attention, not only from the state, but from our own elected officials for the last 30 years. We needed attention way back in 1991, when a young Dave Fisher had to protest outside of Woonsocket High School to keep our sports, music, and arts programs funded. We needed attention when – then city councilor, now council President – Albert Brien, sold a tract of land on the Woonsocket/N. Smithfield border to developer who then poached Wal-Mart and Lowe’s from our Diamond Hill retail district. We needed attention when we crossed the threshold of state mandated affordable housing, putting an onerous strain on our city’s education and human services budgets. We needed attention when our only state park was falling into disrepair, yet the budget for DEM continued to be slashed. Where was the state support in these instances?

What makes Woonsocket’s situation even more maddening is the fact that, for 150 years, Woonsocket was a key economic and social driver in Rhode Island. It was a place where blue-collar folks could go to make a decent living, and maybe afford that little beach house in Matunuck. Unfortunately, since the decline of the manufacturing economy in the state, it seems that our state government has written Woonsocket off as not salvageable; talk about adding insult to injury.

Please forgive my cynicism and compound metaphor, but the state has all too often pulled the rug out from under Woonsocket while simultaneously shoving us under the bus. For as little faith as I have in our newly elected mayor, I have even less faith that our state government will – or even can – help to save the once vibrant city of Woonsocket.