My take on the News

Let’s focus on the dollars and cents

Lonnie Barham
Posted 9/24/14

REFINANCING WARWICK BONDS A NO-BRAINER:  Three Warwick city councilors, seemingly led by ward four councilor Joe Solomon, have raised objections and voted to stall Mayor Scott Avedisian’s plan to …

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My take on the News

Let’s focus on the dollars and cents

Posted

REFINANCING WARWICK BONDS A NO-BRAINER:  Three Warwick city councilors, seemingly led by ward four councilor Joe Solomon, have raised objections and voted to stall Mayor Scott Avedisian’s plan to refinance $26 million in city bonds that finance director Ernest Zmyslinski says would save the city $2 million in interest charges.

The refinancing plan certainly seems reasonable; indeed it would be a gross breach of their fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers for the mayor and council not to refinance. It’s no different than refinancing a home mortgage. When the interest rate dips a few points below a homeowner original mortgage rate, the homeowner is wise to refinance and reduce the monthly mortgage interest payment. It returns money to the homeowner’s pocket to use for other purposes - in the city’s case, for road repairs.

The City Council has pushed for more money for road repairs. The bond interest savings will make more money available for that very purpose.

There are some valid arguments the mayor must address, such as providing an amortization schedule and a guarantee that the mayor will not extend the bonds’ repayment schedule. That can be easily done.

The objecting councilors say they are trying to protect the taxpayers. Let’s hope that’s true and that election year politics and animosity toward the mayor have not influenced the councilors’ objections. Regardless, taxpayers need to get vocal and tell the council and the mayor that they must work together to refinance these bonds quickly.

IT’S TIME TO REJECT BORROWING: There will be four questions on the November  ballot that ask voters to approve the state’s selling of bonds to borrow money for infrastructure construction, almost all in Providence and at URI.

The bonds will cost taxpayers $365 million in principal and interest. But the cost is not the primary issue. What the additional borrowing will do to our state’s budget deficit is of greater concern.

The projected state deficit for 2015 is $122 million. If voters approve this new borrowing, in just three years the budget deficit will balloon to $390 million.

Why in the world should voters approve borrowing that will put us deeper and deeper in debt, will increase our budget deficit tremendously, and will force an increase in taxes? It would be tantamount to a person who is underwater in credit card debt taking out another credit card so he can get even deeper in debt.

A new learning center at URI and a new transportation hub at the Garrahy Courthouse in Providence aren’t worth pushing our dismal economy over the edge into a Detroit-like abyss. Until our elected officials learn to control their appetite for public spending and taxing, voters need to vote NO to any additional bond borrowing.

NO GOOD CANDIDATE IN PROVIDENCE:  The citizens of Providence face a daunting choice at the polls in November. They have no good choice for mayor. They will have to select the “least bad” of three very poor candidates.

There’s the twice convicted felon, Buddy Cianci, who did some good things for the city but who also gave police and firefighters huge compounded COLAs that have pushed the city’s pension liability into the atmosphere. And he’s the candidate who wrote in his memoir that the first thing a mayor should do on being elected is to raise taxes and blame it on his predecessor. He bragged that he became very good at raising taxes. Additionally, Cianci is rude, mean-spirited and, though very sly and crafty, not very bright.

Then there’s the Republican Dan Harrop who wants to solve the city’s enormous pension and retiree health care debt by pushing the city into bankruptcy. He admits it will cause property values to plummet in the short term but claims they will return to current values in 4 to 5 years. Of course, there will be a massive exodus from the city in the meantime.

Finally, there’s Jorge Elorza, the leftist professor who is enamored of municipal income taxes. He loves city income taxes but says he won’t impose them on Providence. How many times have we heard a politician say he won’t do something and then do it anyway? And Elorza is the candidate who doesn’t believe in a theist God and says it would be constitutional to teach public school students that there is no God, though he says he would not advocate it. Even Atheists think that such teaching does not belong in public schools. And Elorza is clearly lying when he says that he did not seek Cianci’s support before Buddy announced his own candidacy for mayor. Elorza admits he took Cianci to lunch at Cappriccio’s but says it was to “force him out of the race.” Come on! Get real, Jorge! (And get honest, please!)

It is truly unfortunate that Angel Taveras let his unbridled ambition cause him to seek higher office after only one term as mayor. The city would be far better off had he chosen to do what he said he wanted to do when he was first elected - fix the city. One term, however, does not a city fix.

After David Cicilline left the city in such terrible financial shape and lied about it to win his congressional seat, Taveras was a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, that fresh air just blew out of town.

GOODELL MUST RESIGN: If National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell truly cares about the league, he must resign. That’s the only way the public might regain some confidence that the NFL players are being held to a minimal standard of conduct when it comes to domestic relations.

There have been five instances of domestic violence and abuse in the last few weeks involving NFL players. Three of the five continue to play football and four of the five continue to be paid. Only Ray Rice, the Baltimore Ravens star who was seen on security video knocking his future wife unconscious in an elevator, has been suspended indefinitely without pay - that only after the public uproar when Goodell initially suspended Rice for only two games. It seems clear that Goodell, who makes all player discipline decisions, has shown he doesn’t seem interested in handing down penalties equal to the offenses.

With retired NFL player brain damage in the news and the plethora of domestic abuse by NFL players, the NFL’s image has taken a beating. The NFL team owners must know that continued loss of respect will surely lead to loss of profitability, and that sacking Goodell is the only way to get the league back on the road to respectability.

FRENCH SUPPORT U.S. IN IRAQ EVEN AFTER OBAMA LET THEM DOWN: French President Francois Hollande has consistently shown that he is willing to fight terrorism wherever it threatens France. From Libya to Mali to the Central African Republic, he has sent French fighters who have been successful. Now he is helping the U.S. fight the Islamic State group of terrorists in Iraq.

France was willing to assist the U.S. with air strikes against Syria’s evil dictator Bashar Assad a year ago, but President Obama halted the effort at the last minute. French authorities have stated that Obama’s timidity in failing to strike Syria in 2013 when Assad crossed Obama’s “red line” is what allowed the Islamic State to grow and take over much of Syria and Iraq. So it isn’t just Obama’s critics at home who fault his timidity and vacillating indecision, our international partners think likewise.

EBOLA PATIENTS COULD DOUBLE EVERY THREE WEEKS: The World Health Organization says the Ebola virus that is running rampant in West Africa may spread so fast that the number infected could double every three weeks. Such an exponential increase in the number of people infected is frightening.

With over 5,000 people already infected, a doubling of that number every three weeks would lead to 80,000 infected in only 12 weeks. That exponential rate of spread would lead to a whopping 700 million people infected in one year - one tenth of the world’s population! And, without a cure, the world’s 7 billion people would all be infected only three months later.

Admirably, President Obama has committed the U.S. to help. He has directed the deployment of 3,000 U.S. troops to the area to provide support and training to medical workers, to include providing 17 one hundred patient treatment centers.

Other countries must also get involved to the same extent. Otherwise, our planet could be faced with a deadly outbreak of contagious disease of such mammoth proportions that those portrayed in pandemic thrillers like Contagion, The Hot Zone, Outbreak, and The Coming Plague will pale in comparison.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Outgoing Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, speaking of Republican mayoral candidate Dr. Daniel Harrop, the psychiatrist who wants to put the city into bankruptcy to solve its financial problems, had this to say about Harrop: “I think he should get a referral to a good doctor, because it sounds like he’s his own patient.”

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