Everyone seems to have a take on Providence Mayor Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci, Jr.
Mine is this: This whole Plunder Dome saga was just so sadly unnecessary.
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Cianci brought Providence so far. He always dreamed big – and often backed up those dreams. Moving the rivers and the train station and all of the other developments were to be the beginning.
A bold “New Cities” proposal, unveiled by Cianci two years ago, promised to trump all that came before it. This would be much bigger than the mammoth mall and Waterplace Park. It would capitalize on the impending relocation of Route 195 and transform stretches of urban decay into bright new corners of the Renaissance City.
But the “New Cities” project and all its potential beauty has been pushed aside by towing contracts and hiring scandals and allegations of nickel and diming people who wanted to do business in the capital city.
Plunder Dome – the federal government’s multi-year probe into corruption at City Hall — brought us a goofy set of characters who do not deserve to operate in a city that cleans up as nice as this one does.
Cianci told us last week that it had been a great ride. But the saddest part of all is that it could have been so much greater.
As conductor, Cianci simply picked up too many passengers along the way who didn’t belong. They got him into trouble, if you ask him. Or vice versa, if you ask them. Does it really matter?
One can only scratch his head now and wonder why? Why would a man with such vision allow for such an unnecessary string of events to take place? What is truly maddening is that he never really needed to curry favor – to bring the city down to the lowest of common denominators.
The people loved him. They still do. At least enough of them to elect him by a landslide every election cycle. Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci, Jr. could campaign in an orange jumpsuit this November and probably be re-elected. Or why do you think the possible successors to his throne did not begin lining up in earnest until after Cianci, himself, decided against running again.
It is sad that someone who could even conceive of such a bold “New Cities” development, will now have to rely on others to see it through.
His detractors suggest that he is everything that is wrong with politics, a tyrant who exacted a heavy toll from those who wanted to do business within the city limits. He’s brash, arrogant – simply a bad guy, they contend.
Supporters point to the progress the capital city has seen over two decades and place the credit for that progress almost solely at his feet. His transgressions, they suggest, are dwarfed by his accomplishments.
As a journalist, I don’t fall in either camp. Over the past few years, I’ve met with Cianci on a handful of occasions and interviewed him by telephone maybe half-a-dozen times. I have been at several of his City Hall press conferences.
His June 26 press conference, in which the mayor announced that he would not be running for re-election, was indeed historic.
The mayor somehow managed to include every possible human emotion into an hour-long address. With eyes reddened, he was obviously pained at times, but at other times he was funny, joyous, angry, boastful and even remarkably humble.
He used the stage of his office to do what he does best, which is rattle off all of the wonderful things that have happened in Providence under his watch. He mentioned 400 miles of newly paved streets, and the fact that the city is home to “one of the finest zoos in America.”
“My greatest satisfaction as mayor comes from the realization that the dreams we dared to dream a generation ago have become the magnificent realities of today,” said Cianci.
That’s the line that resonated with me as I walked back to my office on the other side of the city. It reminded me of how much Cianci had indeed accomplished in two decades and how truly visionary he was in believing that Providence could be so much more than it was.
But in reflecting on how much Buddy Cianci did accomplish, I was also left with a recurring thought. This whole Plunder Dome mess the mayor got himself involved in was so sadly unnecessary. And he’s got no one to blame but himself.
