Term-limited Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza doesn’t let criticism stop him. That’s been especially true in the past year, as he’s raced not toward reelection but to push forward a host of big ideas and personal priorities, regardless of political headwinds. After financial experts dismissed his plan to borrow money to shore up the city’s
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A FUTURE PATH: Brett Smiley, a candidate for mayor, says better communication with residents and businesses about the city’s plans for bike lanes is needed.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
All three mayoral candidates – Democrats Gonzalo Cuervo, Nirva LaFortune and Brett Smiley – say they’re interested in continuing at least some of the projects that could define Elorza’s legacy, such as the Great Streets Initiative and the racial reparations program. But there’s a difference between words and actions, and even the best intentions can often languish in circular committee discussions and dusty piles of paper.
And in a city crippled by pension debt and unnerved by a perceived increase in crime, practicality may trump ideology when it comes to priorities, says Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University.
“The obstacles to completing Elorza’s agenda when it comes to any kind of welfare program right now are that the climate in Providence is one that desires safety, stability and economic growth,” Schiller said. “People want to see streets fixed and not worry about getting shot. They’re not thinking about bike lanes.”
Others disagree. Liza Burkin, organizer for the Providence Streets Coalition, says street safety and alternative transportation – such as cycling and public transit – are more important than ever, thanks to elevated gas prices and a heightened desire to combat climate change. Meanwhile, $10 million in federal stimulus dollars earmarked by city leaders for racial reparations ensure that the initiative will outlast Elorza, at least for a few years, says Rodney Davis, chairman of the Providence Municipal Reparations Commission.
Elorza insists he isn’t worried about leaving his unfinished business in the hands of a new mayor. Most of the projects and programs are far enough along – even if not totally finished – that it’s too late to reverse course, he says.
“It would be incredibly difficult to turn back the clock,” he said.
[caption id="attachment_413667" align="alignleft" width="300"]
COST SENSITIVE: Mayoral candidate Gonzalo Cuervo says he needs to see the potential costs to city taxpayers before he decides whether to back any recommendations for racial reparations.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
BIKE DETOUR?
Proponents hope that's true for the Great Streets Initiative, parts of which have been vocally opposed by some in the business community. While the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the work outlined in Elorza’s 100-page master plan, the vision for 78 miles of interconnected “urban trails” regained its momentum with 20 miles of protected bike lanes added in 2021. There’s a goal of finishing another 20 miles by the time Elorza leaves office at the end of 2022.
Even though there’s still more than one-third of the entire trail network yet to be built – or, in many cases, designed or funded – Burkin considers the pending completion all but guaranteed.
“I don’t see it as a loose end,” she said.
To Burkin, the proof lies with the sentiment of voters, a majority of whom backed the plan in a June 2021 poll by national nonprofit People for Bikes.
“The cat is out of the bag on this,” she said. “People are going to continue demanding safety on our streets.”
The three mayoral candidates who will face off in the primary on Sept. 13 have also expressed support for the plan, albeit to varying degrees.
LaFortune is perhaps the most vocal proponent. As a cyclist and a runner, the Ward 3 city councilwoman says she has benefited from safer routes to ride her bike to work, City Hall and Vartan Gregorian Elementary in Fox Point, where her daughter was enrolled when she was younger.
But LaFortune’s interests go beyond her own or that of the cycling community.
“The point of Great Streets is for Providence to be safe, clean, healthy, inclusive and vibrant,” she said.
She insists that creating that safe and vibrant city requires a complete network – perhaps even more extensive than what Elorza outlined in his master plan – with LaFortune eyeing additional areas for improvement such as North Main Street.
While bike lanes have garnered the most attention, the plan also aims to make roads safer for motorists and pedestrians. These general “traffic calming” measures are the primary focus for Smiley, a former top aide to Gov. Gina M. Raimondo.
In contrast to Smiley’s enthusiastic support for other safety elements of the plan, his stance on the bike lanes is measured. He hasn’t committed either way to keeping or removing the lanes already built, saying more information is needed about how many cyclists were using them and how they affected parking and car traffic.
“We need more information,” Smiley said. “I don’t want to be arguing over opinions.”
Smiley also stresses the need for better communication with the residents and businesses whose neighborhoods would be affected by changes, indirectly alluding to the backlash over lanes such as the one on South Water Street that was opposed by business owners, universities and RIDOT.
That opposition has hardened in the nine months since the bike lane was installed, says Sharon Steele, president of the Jewelry District Association.
“Some businesses there are contemplating whether or not to move,” she said.
That’s because traffic and parking problems businesses feared have come true, according to Marc Streisand, whose South Main Street boutique Marc Allen Inc. is a block away from the lane.
“Every time there’s a delivery truck or someone tries to parallel park, there’s this huge backup of cars,” Streisand said.
Cuervo, who helped launch the car-free “Cyclovia Providence” event while working for former Mayor Angel Taveras, bringing the international phenomenon to the city from 2012 to 2014, praises the Great Streets plan as “an ambitious and important proposal.” But when it comes to shelling out the money to continue the bike network, the former deputy secretary of state and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Nellie M. Gorbea is noncommittal.
“Budgets are about priority,” Cuervo said. “I can’t speak to what I am going to allocate money for next year.”
He added, “If the money existed for this, it would have been done by now.”
Cuervo describes his campaign as one focused on financial growth and economic opportunity for the city’s disappearing middle-class families. That financial lens also shapes his interest in how to continue several of Elorza’s other social programs, chief among them racial reparations.
Cuervo needs to see the price tag before he decides whether to buy in on continuing reparations.
“Programs cost money,” Cuervo said. “First, we need to go through the process, and work within the parameters of what our resources are.”
REPARATIONS
Since his racial reparations initiative was unveiled in July 2020, Elorza has kept its description vague. In a recent interview, he said he was glad the community conversation has moved beyond the “simple idea” of direct payments to a “more nuanced and complicated discussion about the different shapes that reparations can take.”
That discussion is playing out now among a 13-member city commission tasked with offering recommendations on how to proceed. Now in the final stages of its work, which will culminate in a report of proposed changes, the focus has expanded beyond one-time payments to systemic changes that address disparities in homeownership, health care and the criminal justice system, according to Davis.
“Reparations [are] not just about money,” Davis said. “Money is definitely the fuel for that, but it’s also about the process and the systems in place.”
The commission also plans to ask the city to issue a formal apology for its role in slavery and discriminatory land redevelopment.
Schiller doubts any of the mayoral hopefuls would denounce efforts to combat racial inequity, but she says the open-ended nature of the racial-reparations idea gives them free rein to take it in a new direction.
And with so many financial demands facing the city, direct payments may not be the most politically popular option.
“Each of them will probably pivot to say, ‘We understand the need for recognition, but let’s channel that money into improving schools and housing in predominantly black neighborhoods,’” Schiller said.
To that end, Cuervo suggests financial assistance to first-time homeowners as one option.
LaFortune also called for improvements to the city rules for contracting with minority and women-owned businesses.
But like Davis, her focus was on the bigger picture. The only Black candidate in the race, LaFortune also highlighted the importance of first acknowledging the city’s systems and actions of discrimination before considering how to change them.
“If we want to address the root causes of the systemic issues that currently exist in our city, in our state, we need to do a full assessment of what isn’t working now for marginalized communities,” LaFortune said.
Smiley says he needs to see the commission’s recommendations before making any definitive statements.
“It’s really important that the community, and not me, or really any of us running for office, prescribe what the proposed next steps are,” he said.
Davis isn’t worried.
Using part of Providence’s American Rescue Plan Act allotment, city leaders set aside $10 million for the racial reparations program, although the spending plan doesn’t say what specifically that money will fund.
It’s hardly enough money to create the kind of systemic overhaul that Davis and other advocates are hoping for, but the multiyear federal timeline tied to the stimulus aid ensures the conversation isn’t ending when Elorza leaves office, Davis says.
“Whether or not the next mayor wants to embrace this as one of their chief goals, this is going to be an issue that’s not going to disappear,” Davis said.
[caption id="attachment_413669" align="alignleft" width="230"]
PASSING THE TORCH: Mayor Jorge O. Elorza, who is term-limited, hopes his successor continues the work he started to transform Kennedy Plaza into a community gathering place.
PBN FILE PHOTO/PAMELA BHATIA[/caption]
NO GUARANTEES
A temporary program that gives direct, monthly payments to select low-income city families won’t enjoy that same future financial guarantee.
The $1 million Providence Guaranteed Income Pilot Program reaches the end of its one-year pilot in December.
Without more money to continue the initiative, which was initially funded by philanthropy, there appears to be little appetite among the three candidates to keep it going.
“As a concept and a policy, it has merit,” Cuervo said. “But it’s difficult for cities like Providence with severe financial challenges to launch a program that’s sustainable in any long-term way.”
The price tag also looks like a potential roadblock in advancing Elorza’s sweeping vision to transform the Greater Kennedy Plaza area into a downtown centerpiece. The plan so far has only secured $15 million of an estimated $140 million cost for safer walkways, climate resiliency and interactive community spaces, according to the city.
Elorza hopes the array of upcoming real estate projects in and around the plaza – filling the iconic Superman building, adding a food hall at Union Station and moving the central bus depot out of Kennedy Plaza – could spur a transformation of the city center into a community gathering space.
Still, he isn’t banking on the next mayor moving forward the Kennedy Plaza redesign – or any of his projects or programs – in the exact way he would have done it if he had another term.
“I don’t expect their ideas to be 100% in line with mine,” Elorza said. “I am excited to see the different ways new mayors [who follow him] will add their own vision.”
While new leaders naturally come with their own ideas, Elorza is unique among recent mayors in his focus on the philosophical and ideological in his policymaking, Schiller says.
Taveras, who served one term as mayor preceding Elorza, agrees that Elorza’s approach has been much more abstract than his own, which favored brick-and-mortar projects such as turning the South Street Power Station into a nursing education center.
“I don’t know that I really had that philosophical approach,” Taveras said.
Neither Taveras nor his immediate predecessor, U.S. Rep. David N. Cicilline, can measure up to the legend of former Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci Jr., who made a dramatic impact on Providence. Indeed, the longest-serving mayor transformed a derelict downtown into a “renaissance city.” That the road to revival was paved with bribery and a mob-boss mentality only makes Cianci more memorable, according to Schiller.
Schiller doubts Elorza’s legacy will ever generate the same kind of awe, if only because he has not had as strong a “personal presence.” But his influence may nonetheless shape the city’s future for generations.
“People may get impatient with him … but if you want to be able to position this city to be competitive and able to survive, you have to think like the competitors think,” Schiller said. “Elorza was always thinking ahead.”
Elorza, though, resists such legacy talk and says he views the practical changes as his biggest achievements: an annual city capital improvements plan, a 24-hour hotline for city services, and a $5 kids summer camp program.
At the same time, his approach has set the stage for his successor to turn those ideological programs into concrete signs of a transformed city, says Schiller.
“This is an opportunity for a new mayor to really sell the 21st-century Providence that Elorza always thought it could be,” Schiller said.