To the Citizens of Cranston-District 15:

I strongly urge the voters in District 15 to return Speaker Nicholas Mattiello to the RI House of Representatives in this year’s election. While I am not a voter in your district, I am an unaffiliated voter, not a partisan of one party or the other.

I am a long time Small Business advocate on a State and National level and I have worked with most of the legislative leaders at the statehouse over many years. I can honestly say that Nick has been one of the best Speakers we have had in RI. I view him as leading the House with a clear vision of trying to improve the business climate in RI and a practical approach to dealing with the problems we have faced as a state. He is willing to make the hard decisions that need to be made while leading forward with his vision. He is also capable of saying that we cannot do everything right now.

The position of Speaker of the House is a difficult position that requires strong leadership skills. You become the target of partisan bickering and your job is not to make friends but to get things done. Controlling 75 uncontrollable representatives is a challenge with everyone having their own pet projects and agendas. It requires letting their voices being heard but getting them to focus on the important issues facing the State. Negotiating with the Senate and the executive departments can also be challenging. Speaker Mattiello has done a good job of managing the process.

If you step back and look at his record, it is a record of good accomplishments for the State of RI. On the Good Government front he has passed the elimination of the master lever, and passed ethics reform by reinstating the authority of the Ethics Commission over the General Assembly. He did establish a commission to look at the line item veto issue, which decided not to recommend action. He has balanced the state budgets with no increases in broad based taxes, has reduced the corporate income taxes, the estate taxes, the taxes on electricity for businesses, reduced taxes for lower income taxpayers on social security and some retirement income. He kept his promise in his last election to the taxpayers to start phasing out the dreaded car tax that was the highest in the country. When was the last time that you have heard of a politician actually keeping a promise he made to get elected? His leadership has improved the business climate in RI, recognizing that he has more work to do. Just this month the prestigious Tax Foundation which monitors tax policy in all of the states gave Speaker Mattiello a national award for Outstanding Achievement in State Tax Reform. They stated that “he not only saved money for RI taxpayers but also made the state’s tax code more efficient. These reforms are indicative of a thoughtful approach to enact policies that benefit businesses and individuals in Rhode Island”.

There is a strong national trend of Progressive issues sweeping across the country and because of its size RI has become a target for a lot of their experimentations. Much of this effort is being funded from outside of Rhode Island. A lot of these proposals sound nice and may seem worthy but there is a lack of basic understanding of economics and reality associated with much of the proposals. No one seems to be able to answer the simple question of “how do we pay for this and what are the unintended consequences?” To the Speaker’s credit he does ask these questions and demands answers from all stakeholders at the table. He is not afraid to make the difficult decisions to keep the state moving forward not backward. If he is not there in his position I fear that no one will ask the questions that must be asked. He is the backstop for sound decisions on Smith Hill.

He has been criticized recently for letting the PawSox minor league baseball team leave for Worcester but he listened to what people in his district told him and his primary concern was to protect the taxpayers of RI. As it turns out Worcester stands to invest in excess of $100 million dollars to lure the PawSox to their city, considerably more taxpayer funds than they probably should invest and certainly much more than RI ever should have considered. Also couple that with recent news that was not put forth during the negotiations of the declining attendance of the PawSox and of minor league baseball across the country. The State may have been at risk if it had undertaken the original proposal. The Speaker has also come under attack for things that people around him have done. I do not fault him for the actions of others of which he has little control, but I have always found Nick to be honorable and forthright.

His opponent in this rematch race may be a nice person but he is not the right choice to represent Cranston’s District 15. If elected he would be one of a very small handful of Republicans that probably can meet in a closet at the Statehouse and still not agree among themselves. It is highly unlikely that he could get anything done for District 15 or for the State of Rhode Island. You have an exceptional proven leader in Nicholas Mattiello and you should send him back to the General Assembly on November 6th so that he can continue to improve Rhode Island for its taxpayers and for its economy.

Grafton H. Willey, IV, CPA

Portsmouth