A new port proposal
Last week Gov. Lincoln Almond – or his staff – was making what Almond’s press spokesperson said were courtesy calls to a number of individuals in preparation for this week’s unveiling of a new consultant’s report on the viability of port development at Quonset Point. In short, preliminary reports suggest the consultant – R.K. Johns & Associates of New York – says a container port is viable at Quonset. Other reports, including the master development plan, are yet to be completed, and may be a year away.
A port at Quonset – and Quonset development overall – has been a painful process. The port issue, and the stakeholders process that emerged last year, were contentious and divisive, a nine-month ordeal that yielded few positive results.
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What failed in that process was the governor’s leadership, his inability to put on the table a concrete proposal for debate, something that individuals could accept, reject or modify.
In this new process, we hope the governor and his staff have learned from the last debacle and that when they conclude these “private” meetings, they begin crafting something definitive for Rhode Islanders to review. Lay out the process, one that will not take an eternity. With each passing day, shippers are making decisions on where to do business – in Halifax or Boston, New York or Baltimore.
We need to have a course set that will get us to a decision – yea or nay – and one that will get us there in relatively short order.
Meanwhile, let’s also get on with the rest of Quonset’s development. We’ve been excited about the prospects of a third rail and road that would link this incredibly valuable property with major highways. But the third rail trains have yet to arrive, and the roadway seems be well into the distance.
That is not to denigrate the great strides made in developing the industrial park at Quonset, and the number of companies that are calling Quonset home. But imagine how much more of a treasure this property will become once all the pieces are in place.
Lifespan/Care New England
Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse in last week’s Providence Business News and then in the Providence Journal is suggesting that a Lifespan-Care New England marriage may never take place.
Better the union should dissolve before the marriage ever occurs, than the parties decide later to go through a painful divorce.
But we’re not sure whether it is the parties or the process that’s at fault here. We wonder how many millions of dollars have been spent by Lifespan and Care New England and the Attorney General’s Office in reports, consultants, experts, and, maybe most of all, legal fees, under a cumbersome process established by the legislature to ward off the proliferation of for-profit health care institutions.
It seems this process, like so many others in Rhode Island, may never have an end. Parties may decide to walk away in frustration, rather than have the opportunity to respond to an expedited process that delivers an answer – one way or the other – in a reasonable amount of time.
We’re not suggesting any diminution in the information required, but a time frame that requires that the information be gathered and delivered in a matter of a few months, rather than well over a year.
Wars are fought and won or lost in less time. Governments are created and toppled in less time. Presidential candidates are selected, elections held and a president sworn in, in less time.
If we’ve learned anything from this process, it is that it needs to be reviewed, revised and streamlined to make sure that all the essentials are in place, but within a reasonable time frame.
A major concern of business has always been the cumbersome regulatory processes at a variety of levels in Rhode Island – from fire code and environmental regulations to individual town building code enforcement. It seems our new hospital regulatory act now rates among them.
