To the Editor:
Last week, Edgewood resident Frank Justin submitted a letter entitled “A lack of response.” Mr. Justin falsely accused the mayor’s office of failing to respond to his concerns about paving of Narragansett Boulevard. This is just not true. In fact, I personally responded to Mr. Justin’s concerns in a face-to-face meeting last month. At the end of that meeting, Mr. Justin thanked me for my “reasonable” response and requested an update when there was more information.
More disturbing, is that Mr. Justin misrepresented statements I made during that meeting. He claims that I told him a large portion of the highway bond fund “was used to pay off past city debt.” That too is absolutely false. Voters approved a $20 million bond referendum to provide equipment for public works and to pay for future road paving and that’s how the money will be spent. I made that information very clear to Mr. Justin. In reality, we are able to rely on additional bond money because we have already paid off old debts.
The City of Cranston is responsible for maintaining more than three hundred miles of roads. Paving decisions are made based on engineering reports and take into consideration plans for utility work and other road improvements. Mr. Justin demanded the city focus its efforts on a stretch of road two-tenths of a mile long and leave the rest of Narragansett Boulevard for later. This is a very impractical and inefficient approach to paving.
Most troubling in his accusation that the mayor has shown a lack of “interest, concern and leadership.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. Mayor Fung has shown tremendous interest, concern, and leadership by actively promoting and campaigning in favor of a bond referendum to fund school, public safety and road improvements. With voter approval of the bond referendum, Mayor Fung has proposed a budget that would invest more than 10 million dollars to improve school safety, provide police and fire equipment, and double our street paving budget over the next two years.
Approval of this budget will be the first step toward modernizing and improving our schools and infrastructure. I urge all Cranston residents to call their Councilmen and ask them to support Mayor Fung’s budget.

Robert Coupe
Director of Administration