Brett Smiley is no stranger to Providence City Hall. In 2015 and 2016, he was chief operating officer for Mayor Jorge O. Elorza. On the campaign trail, Smiley touted his government experience, which also included serving as a top aide for former Gov. Gina M. Raimondo from 2016 to 2021.
He told Providence Business News he’ll have a “back to basics” strategy as mayor focused on improving city services and efficiency. That practical approach earned him 42% of the vote in a three-way Democratic primary and he was unopposed in the general election.
The extra time gave him a head start on preparing for tough decisions he’ll have to begin making come January on programs such as the network of bike lanes started by Elorza, tax agreements with hospitals and universities and the crippling pension crisis.
You ran a campaign on improving basic city services and quality of life. What’s not working now, and how would you improve it? You ask any resident of the city, and they can tell you five pet peeves about the city. Certainly, snow removal in the winter is a persistent problem. We see disrepair in our streets and sidewalks. We see utilities that cut into streets that have just been paved and have damaged that brand-new investment we made. People say they’ve been on the sidewalk list for a decade or two to get their sidewalk repaired. These are the kinds of city services that people pay taxes for and don’t feel like they’re getting something in return.
How do you prioritize and pay for services? In many cases, if not most, we pay, we just don’t get. Snow removal, for example, every person, myself included, has a story of a third-party plow vendor driving down the street with the plow blade up. That plow is getting paid. It’s not like the city is cutting corners and trying to save money on snow removal. We’re just not getting good services in return. It just requires better management of city vendors and city employees. … As part of the transition, we’re going to do a full review of the budget to see what programs the city shouldn’t be doing anymore.
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SERVICE-MINDED: Providence Mayor-elect Brett Smiley said he will have a “back to basics” strategy as mayor focused on improving city services, such as snow removal and sidewalk repairs, and efficiency.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
One of the programs funded by the American Rescue Plan Act was the city reparations program, but advocates say that the $10 million allocation is not enough. How committed are you to investing more? From what I have followed, they were clear [that] whatever comes next is likely going to need to come from philanthropy and state or federal government and maybe the corporate community. I don’t expect and certainly am not committing any additional city funds to that effort.
Would you want to make the reparations commission permanent? I haven’t made a commitment to that. I want to hear from the committee and the community on how they see this evolving.
Another project started by Mayor Elorza is the Great Streets plan, which includes bike lanes. How committed are you to seeing the plan through? Are bike lanes a business benefit or hindrance? I am very focused on safety on our streets and pedestrian safety is a real priority for me and is a part of the Great Streets plan. The bike lanes stuff is complicated, and, for me, it is a priority to make sure we listen to the voices of the impacted entities, both residents and businesses, and be willing to not go forward if that’s not what they want. I have serious concerns – which I have heard from cyclists also – that we have these little segments that start out of nowhere and end abruptly. I think we need to take a hard look at those and if they work. Certainly, before we begin a permanent installation like Hope Street, I want to hear … from the impacted parties to see what their thoughts are.
What if there’s conflicting feedback? Then we have to make a judgment call. I think about South Water Street. There is a strip of parkland on the other side of the sidewalk that’s unused. Could the bike path be there? Quite possibly. On Hope Street, there are four or five parallel streets that might be a much more reasonable place – that doesn’t impact businesses – to have a bike lane. Real cities have bike lanes, and Providence can too. But we’re not going to do them in a way that harms one of the most thriving commercial districts in the city.
Downtown Providence has struggled to come back from the pandemic. Do you still see downtown as the anchor for the city? I do still see it as the anchor to the city, but we need to let it evolve. In this post-pandemic, blended-work environment, a housing strategy and housing development is also economic growth and some of that will happen downtown. We’re starting to see the center of gravity shift from the financial district to the I-195 [Redevelopment] District. And it remains true that we have an opportunity in the life sciences and biomed space. There [are] finally a few exciting announcements: the new state health lab facility that’s got private lab space in that building, the CIC building, the additional opportunities in the [former Interstate] 195 land are still going to be heavily, if not entirely, commercial, job-generating spaces. A healthy and vibrant downtown is going to be critical to the city’s growth.
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One tool the city uses to promote development is tax treaties such as what was recently approved for the “Superman” building. How do you think the rules governing these treaties should be changed? I do think the tax stabilization agreements are a critical tool in the toolbox. What we’ve learned that works, and what I am committed to going forward, is that the proposed development never pays less than it paid the day before they got the tax break. Regardless of the terms of the tax incentive, it has to step up, so at the end of the tax deal, it’s paying its full freight. Finally, we’ve gotten really good and responsible about taxpayer protections: if it gets sold to a nonprofit, if there are cost overruns, about the final benefit not being paid until the project actually gets finished. If we do it the right way, I think these are very effective and responsible ways to make projects happen. We still have a high commercial tax rate, and we are not in a financial position to do a dramatic lowering of our commercial tax rate, so the way we are going to be able to provide long-term relief is through a broadened and expanded tax base. And the only way we expand the tax base is to have new developments and new businesses.
What about the request from the owners of the Providence Place mall for an extra 20-year tax discount, which does not have the gradual increase you mention? I haven’t had a chance to review the details of the deal, but I have serious concerns about an agreement that is that long, that doesn’t ramp up [in payments], and probably most importantly, I have yet to hear what the plan is for the future of the mall.
You’ve brought up the tax deals that the city strikes with nonprofits, such as hospitals and universities. Quite a few of these payment-in-lieu-of-taxes deals have or are about to expire, which presents an opportunity to renegotiate. It will be one of the most important things that my administration does next year.
First, we need to clarify what happens when these institutions buy commercial property. I don’t begrudge them wanting to control their destiny and buy additional property because one day they think they might need it, but while they’re still using it for commercial purposes, it needs to pay [full] commercial taxes. I also want to renegotiate the tax deals for the buildings they are using for educational and medical purposes. I’ve already had some preliminary conversations and I am confident we can negotiate a fair deal that understands the tax-exempt status but also that they consume city services and that it’s a burden on the city. I would really like to work together with them so we can be incentivized to help them grow jobs. In some communities around the country, the host community gets a piece of the payroll tax for the jobs created in that city. I am interested in starting a conversation where the institutions and I together can go to the Statehouse and say, “Help us align incentives here” because everybody benefits from job growth.
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Is it clear on these tax deals that they need to pay significantly more? I don’t have any doubt that the colleges expect to pay more. I am certainly going to go in hoping for a significant increase. … The negotiations with the hospitals are a little bit more challenging. They are in a difficult position right now, and I understand that. Whether or not they are making money, if there was ever an incident, we still send a police car, we still send a fire truck, we still plow their streets, and they still consume city services. So, I am sympathetic to their financial position, but I am still committed to getting an agreement irrespective of their financial position.
Another quality-of-life issue is lack of affordable housing. What more do you think the city can do to combat this? The most important driver of our affordability crisis is a lack of supply. We just need to build more houses. This isn’t Manhattan. We have vacant land; we have blighted and abandoned properties; we have places where more housing can be built, and we need to aggressively do so. I hope to access every single pot of [state and federal] money to subsidize and stimulate the development of affordable housing. I want to move aggressively toward the expansion of what is referred to as accessory dwelling units … where we can add a unit here or there, which, in the aggregate, can add up to a meaningful amount of additional units. At the same time, we have a pretty significant number of illegal or semi-legal apartments in our city and I want to help people bring those apartments into compliance and make sure they’re safe.
What about changes to the city tax structure as a way to address housing costs, including for renters? I think it’s incumbent upon public leaders that when we look at the tax structure and propose rates in next year’s budget, that we are not demonizing certain classes of taxpayers [such as landlords] because there is always going to be someone at the end of the line paying that bill, and in those cases, it’s the renter.
Does that mean removing the city’s homestead exemption to not demonize landlords? The way we should always start the question is, where are we competitive and where are we not. Right now, in Providence with the homestead exemption, owner-occupied rates are amongst the lowest in Rhode Island. I would say we are more than competitive at that rate. Where we are not competitive is on the nonowner-occupied rate, on the commercial rate and on the tangible rate. I haven’t gotten into next year’s budget, but as I look at the budget and if we were in a place to lower rates, I would start with the question of where are we the least competitive, and let’s try to become more competitive there.
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What would you like to see in Kennedy Plaza? I am hesitant to spend more infrastructure dollars to redesign Kennedy Plaza again until we can coordinate the work with hopefully a big, bold construction project at [the] Superman building. I think we should wait for [the Superman building] project to conclude before we make any permanent changes because the construction impact of that project is going to be
significant.
What about the bus hub relocation? Fully support it. I want to be a partner with the [R.I. Public Transit Authority] and [R.I. Department of Transportation] to see if there is a way to make that happen even faster.
The city cannot issue the pension obligation bond right now because of rising interest rates. How do you propose dealing with escalating annual payments and unfunded liability? I want to start a conversation with our union leaders and state leaders about transitioning the city to the state retirement system. It doesn’t solve all our problems, but there are quite a few key benefits. The pension bond is still possible; none of us knows what’s going to happen with interest rates. It was a five-year authorization. It’s entirely possible, in my view, that rates will come down in the next five years. So maybe it’s a blend of the two, but the next right step is to fully explore getting into [the state pension system].
How would you sum up Providence’s financial situation today? We have two major underlying challenges: one is a shrinking tax base because of the growth of large institutions, and a looming unfunded pension and post-retiree health care liability that cause us to have underlying financial challenges. That said, we should not aspire to bankruptcy. We’re not insolvent and we do pay our bills.
Best of luck, Brett. PVD taxpayers are counting on you.