5Q: Sabina Matos | President, Providence City Council
1. How will you encourage more widespread economic development across Providence neighborhoods? Successful economic development depends a lot on the people involved. … We have to put people first. If we are serious about economic development, we have to be equally serious about improving the education system that prepares our workforce to be competitive. We have to be serious about making it easier for existing small businesses and startups to prosper in our neighborhoods.
2. You are a first-generation immigrant. How can the city make sure immigrants have an opportunity to move up economically? Whether they arrived from Ireland or Italy a century ago, or more recently from the Dominican Republic, as was my case, access to a quality education has always been the determining factor in upward mobility for generations of immigrants. However, we continue to fail a lot of our children, particularly in households where English is the second language. It’s time to put everything on the table, start an honest dialog with all stakeholders to support those things that work and reform those that don’t.
3. What can the City Council do to encourage more development of affordable housing? In Providence, we are working on a comprehensive plan to maximize resources and create more affordable-housing units in mixed-income neighborhoods. This includes leveraging federal funds and ensuring that commercial and high-end residential developers who receive generous tax breaks from the city contribute to solving our affordable-housing shortage.
4. Does the city need a standardized, citywide tax-stabilization process? While it’s important to have clearly defined guidelines for TSAs, we should not be in the business of handing out subsidies like candy. … They are not a rebate program for developers to increase their bottom lines. Taxpayers have the right to weigh in on any decision where their money is being used.
5. Given the large nonprofit presence in Providence, how can the city improve its tax base? First, we need to continue attracting new economic-development investments that will expand our tax base. Second, we need to create a sustainable, long-term plan to work with our nonprofit property owners. ... With every new property that nonprofit institutions take off the tax rolls, this becomes increasingly difficult and, in the long term, will simply become unsustainable.
Mary MacDonald is a staff writer for the PBN. Contact her at Macdonald@PBN.com.
