The COVID crisis has separated the real leaders from the rest of the pack. In times when the unknown is the new normal, we need those in government to be on their toes instead of on their heels. Unfortunately, COVID has proven to Rhode Island that the Speaker is a “leader” in name only.

As our first responders, healthcare workers, grocery store clerks, environmental service professionals, and other essential employees ran into the proverbial fire, living out scenes from Armageddon earlier this spring, Mattiello’s General Assembly has been missing in action. He even had the audacity to say he was “a little more bored" than usual on a video conference with the Greater Providence Chamber earlier this year. While Rome was burning around him, while healthcare workers were sweating in near garbage bags used as makeshift gowns, this guy was sipping a cool beverage on his back porch finding every excuse in the world not to meet or step up to the plate.

Earlier this summer, even his own Democrats on the Cranston City Council called on Mattiello’s GA to pass a budget expeditiously that ensures the state will meet its obligations to the education funding formula. In Cranston, this leaves a question mark on over four million dollars promised through the formula alone. This is even before any additional COVID related costs are considered. Yet, the GA sits on their hands and waits with barely a shoulder shrug.

The lack of a uniform, comprehensive approach to the new school year has left parents, teachers, and school officials scrambling with limited resources. Who knows if they’ll have the money to support the creative plans these professionals have derived under difficult circumstances? Mark the Speaker and his team absent when it comes to supporting them during the most technically difficult school opening in history.

It’s not leadership. It’s pathetic.

COVID has fast-forwarded many issues facing the future of our state to becoming immediate priorities. Let’s take for instance the need to rapidly upgrade our internet infrastructure to make 5G accessible in every corner of this state to support our distance learning and remote working needs. Let’s look at increasing our capacity for telemedicine services to support our vulnerable adults with disabilities or severe comorbidities. And let’s be leaders in caring for our seniors, whether by passing bills languishing in the GA that would help to reduce the price of prescription drugs, by making military pensions tax-exempt, or by increasing funding to our nursing homes that have been decimated by years of cuts.

COVID is an all-hands-on-deck situation. We need experts and thought leaders who not just see the challenges of the future, but also rise to meet them. I wholeheartedly feel that this will begin once the current Speaker’s reign of backroom deals and shady operations comes to an end. It’s time that the change makers take the reins and chart a new path forward for Rhode Island.

Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung of Cranston is a Republican candidate for the District 15 seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives.