PROVIDENCE – Don’t get them wrong: Sen. John J. Tassoni Jr. and Smithfield officials are excited about the idea of more jobs coming to the Fidelity Investment complex.
They’re just concerned about how the increase in traffic might affect an area already straining from recent development.
Tassoni, D-Smithfield, is asking executives from Fidelity, the Boston-based mutual fund giant, to meet with town officials. He wants representatives from the R.I. Economic Development Corporation to attend, too.
“A growth of jobs in Rhode Island is good,” said Tassoni. “But town officials and I would like to hear from Fidelity and EDC officials that they have considered – and are working to address – any possible problems that may result from a larger volume of traffic in the area.”
Fidelity recently announced it would close its Marlboro, Mass., facility over the next two years and transfer some of its 1,100 jobs to the company’s campus on Route 7 in Smithfield.
“The development in the area – along Route 116 and along Route 7 from the Bryant University campus to the Interstate 295 interchange – has been incredible in recent years and road and traffic improvements have struggled to keep up with it,” Tassoni said. “We need to make sure this new round of growth will not over-tax the existing infrastructure and cause any disruption to existing businesses or keep potential new businesses from locating there,” he said.
There are currently about 2,700 employees at the Fidelity Smithfield campus.
Is this Senator Tassoni for real? Of course Fidelity could care less about traffic issues. As far as EDC is concerned, I am sure EDC officials can’t wait to meet with Fidelity to apportion additional tax incentives and additional Fidelity requested subsidies. The Ocean State has enacted so many tax breaks for this Company that for every $5 it collects in corporate income taxes, it foregoes $4 more in tax breaks. The Ocean State has also enacted a raft of personal income tax cuts as well to a corporation that plays states and cities against each other to win hefty taxpayer subsidies that routinely exceed $100,000 per job. If the infrastructure is overtaxed, should RI taxpayers pick up the cost for traffic improvements as Tassoni insinuates? Why not, we are used to being pants!
Local & state officials should be reviewing the optimum traffic pattern system, continually evaluating and monitoring a Master or Compregensive Plan for those communities and a soilid industrial/commercial matrix that can apply to tax policie (assessments,receipts,treaties/incentives) as well as infrastructure dynamics and circulation enhancement plans.