A new Senator Chafee
It was not surprising that Gov. Lincoln Almond appointed Warwick Mayor Lincoln Chafee to fill the 14 months remaining on the U.S. Senate term of Chafee’s father, John Chafee, who recently died. During Chafee’s tenure as Warwick mayor he appeared to be adept at forming coalitions, championed the environment, and has been among the prime movers behind Warwick Station, a proposed inter-modal transportation center that would link an Amtrak station to T.F. Green Airport, while also creating a business district.
But while Chafee has had a certain amount of success in Warwick, it is a long step from being mayor of a city of less than 100,000 to the U.S. Senate. We will know early on whether Chafee is up for the task, as his opponents in next November’s election quickly try to assess his vulnerabilities and use them to their political advantage.
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By the same token Chafee will be able to go into next year’s election as the incumbent, will have an opportunity to establish a track record, and will find fund-raising easier as a sitting senator.
It would be unfair for Rhode Islanders to expect Chafee to easily assume the role that his father held, long a senator and public servant who over four decades had become a champion for the environment, for business, for children, and who had gained so much respect that half the Senate and the President of the United States attended his funeral here.
And it would be equally foolish for Lincoln Chafee to try to become his father. He needs to develop and demonstrate his own strengths, to choose those issues to champion for which he feels the most passion, and to realize it will take time to grow into the position.
We wish Lincoln Chafee well as he assumes this most important role, and will watch carefully, along with many others, as he attempts over this next year to prove that he is not only up to the task, but worthy of being returned to the position.
EDC credit cards
At the Economic Development Corporation, a quasi-public body, questions have arisen over the private use of EDC credit cards.
We believe the situation not only gives rise to concern about the issue, but also about the lack of control at agencies that are removed from direct public oversight.
The credit card situation did not come to light until The Providence Journal, under the Access to Public Records Act, demanded that information and more, raising questions about what material the agency had sought to shield from the public scrutiny.
We’re concerned because since the credit cards were initiated at the agency only two years ago, 7.18 percent of the charges were found to be for personal use (all have been reimbursed), representing 7.21 percent of the $85,867.03 charged from November 1997 to Sept. 30, 1999.
We’re concerned because, while the EDC immediately implemented stricter procedures for credit card use, those procedures were not in place from the day the cards were first issued.
We’re concerned that in the director’s written comments on the issue, disseminated to the press, John Swen was moved first to remind readers that EDC was created “as a quasi-public agency” so it would be free to “aggressively” pursue “business expansion, attraction and tourism,” burdened with the responsibility for “day-to-day hospitality that is critical for tourism development.” It is not the aggressiveness or the entertaining that raises questions, but the personal use of the credit cards.
Swen also said in his conclusions that “to improve performance” new policies were being put in place to avoid “future problems” and noted that the “public records request” helped “EDC refine its standard for expense-reporting procedures.”
We’re concerned because it took a request for public records to uncover credit card use that should have been monitored regularly to avoid such abuses.
We’re concerned because it would appear that since EDC is a quasi-public agency there were those who thought it escaped the same kind of oversight that is required of regular government departments.
