Go-Port
Go-Port, the business-labor coalition promoting a port at Quonset Point/Davisville, has released survey results showing that Rhode Islanders strongly support a port facility at the Quonset/Davisville location. We too support the port proposal, if environmental concerns are met assuring that we maintain our state’s superior quality of life, so related to Narragansett Bay.
Go-Port officials said that after the release of the poll results, they would await the conclusion of the Stakeholders process to determine what would be the most appropriate role for the organization.
We might suggest that Go-Port become pro-active in finding some of the answers that will be most important for Rhode Islanders, if they are to continue their support of the project. We wonder:
What will the impact of a Quonset Port be on the Providence Port? If it means, as Mayor Vincent Cianci suggests, that the Providence Port eventually might close, what plan is there – short and long term – for the Providence Port area?
When the port, and other development at Quonset/Davisville was first promoted by the administration of Gov. Lincoln Almond, we were told by the Economic Development Corporation (under different leadership) that we could expect the development to yield some 30,000 direct and indirect jobs. Now we’re told the number is closer to 5,000. That is a huge gap, and we would hope to have greater detail outlining the actual economic and employment impact of the entire project.
We have been warned about shipping contracts expiring in ports in New York and Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, and the need to negotiate during this particular window of opportunity. Then we read of the efforts of ports like Baltimore to lure these shippers to their facilities. We would welcome concrete information on exactly what contracts may be expiring when and where and how that might impact a port at Quonset/Davisville.
Of environmental concerns, we are confident that the Sierra Club and Save the Bay, both Stakeholders, will give us an accounting of the project’s environmental impact.
This is a huge project for Rhode Island – maybe not the mega port that was once envisioned, but a substantial container port that will have a considerable environmental (positive or negative) and economic impact on the state.
Go-Port can be instrumental in researching and providing information to Rhode Islanders from a business-labor coalition that is neither an arm of government nor the direct voice of those who have the most to gain from completion of a port at Quonset Point/Davisville.
Residency requirements
It’s probably high time that we review seriously the requirements in Pawtucket and Providence that teachers who work in the systems live in the cities – residency requirements. Gov. Lincoln Almond is promoting legislation that would overturn residence requirements in both cities.
The philosophy behind the requirements is noble, encouraging teachers and other public employees to pay taxes in the cities in which they work, and to be able to remain in closer touch with the communities they serve.
But reality is that we are a small state and a mobile and versatile society. And the residency laws themselves may, in fact, be a deterrent for some very qualified individuals who would prefer to work in Providence or Pawtucket, but live elsewhere.
We are a long way in our society from the days when mill or factory owners would also own the houses in which their workers lived. And doing away with residency requirements would also end a 19th century notion that is no longer applicable in today’s workforce.
