Several days ago the Economic Development Corporation, after great consternation, released the so-called “white paper” on the development of a port at Quonset Point.
The controversy that developed over the release of the document created far greater suspense and suspicion than the document itself when it was finally released.
In fact, this type of document should have been circulated long long ago — even before the start of the stakeholders’ process. It would have provided a framework for discussion, instead of sending a group as diverse as the stakeholders into open waters without even the suggestion of a course to follow.
Surely, elements of this “white paper” are controversial, the tone pro-port, but with suggestions that various studies be completed, and criteria met before a container port is authorized.
Probably most controversial was the proposed $3.8 million budget – not even that actually, but the fact that $2.6 million of that budget was for travel for the Economic Impact Study and negotiations with terminal operators, domestic and foreign. That’s a lot of miles, and a lot of meals.
Nevertheless, the problem isn’t in the substance but in the circumstances that surrounded the release of this document. It has now done more to damage the prospects of port development than virtually anything has over the last few years. What it has damaged, maybe destroyed is…
Trust.
We were left believing that there was something nefarious in this document, something to hide. In the end we found it contained nothing so inflammatory, except that it makes us suspicious about what else the department has not released publicly that would bear on state economic policy, and what else might exist even in port discussions that go beyond this white paper.
The basis of any project this size is faith that the information disseminated to the public is fair and accurate, providing a framework for reasonable discussion and debate that leads to a conclusion based upon facts, rather than conjecture.
Rhode Island, economists suggest, still suffers from a negative political image. That image can only be reinforced when issues of public disclosure become a matter of debate, rather than open and honest discussion of the merits of important proposals.
I can recollect when the state Airport Corporation, another quasi-public agency like the Economic Development Corporation, was embroiled in the planning and then construction of first a temporary terminal building and then a new terminal. A project of some controversy – although you would be hard pressed today to find the critics, given the terminal’s success– but one in which I can only recall a level of candor when it came to various parts of the project, even in its planning.
We hope this incident with the so-called “white paper” serves only as a strong reminder that fully open and honest government — even at quasi-public agencies — is the foundation upon which government builds trust. Trust, after all, is the foundation upon which this state can embrace and support sometimes even the most controversial of projects.
The proposal for a port deserves better than this.
It is an important proposal that in the end may or may not be a good fit for this state, but we have spent so much time ruminating over reports and processes, rather than economic viability, the bay and the environment that it seems that we may never find out whether this is a viable project.
