The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Rhode Island…Feb. 14, 2020

THE GOOD

Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day – the day for love. Couples, parents, children, teachers, co-workers, students, pets! All those who hold our heart deserve a little candy today, some flowers, a special card with a note, dinner out, an email greeting, a phone call, a text message…a kiss. So, stop, put your phone down. Look up from your computer. Do something to tell those you love that they are special to you. And to our readers, we love you!  There – we said it. 

Wild Zebra

The Wild Zebra was no “gentleman’s club”. This week the Providence Board of Licenses voted unanimously to pull all their licenses and to permanently close the strip club on Allens Avenue. This stems back to an incident in May where undercover police were offered sex for money. Attorneys will appeal, with a hearing already set for today, but we might predict that this time the decision will hold. May it be the first in a #CleanUpAllensAve campaign – now, on to the scrapheaps.

THE BAD

Do you know?

The News. Where do you get your news? Do you watch it on television, listen to it on the radio, read it in on your phone, or hold a newspaper in your hands? Do you depend on some curating service to decide for you what’s important for you to know, and feed it to you on your phone or email? 19% of US households are now streaming. We don’t sit and wait for our favorite program to come on anymore – and watch the news. We have our playlists on our phone – and in our cars – so the radio isn’t telling us the events of the day, unless we choose to tune in. Even in those captive moments, we are listening, watching and reading a whole lot less. We admit that we are news junkies (or we wouldn’t be doing RINewsToday), but how many times do we ask the question – did you hear?  And we hear, “no, I didn’t”.

Toll-a-palooza

Tolls are going to double – but there will be fewer toll stations. That’s what we’re hearing. Just as there has been no written agreement that Rhode Island will never toll cars, it has not been put in writing that the number of gantries won’t be increased – while keeping the doubled tolls. Call us a doubting Thomas, but why would we just trust ‘em? So many times loose promises are broken in terms of budget, overruns, and quality.

THE UGLY

Firefighting in the Region

This week we saw a photo on Twitter of rescues from Portsmouth, Newport, the Navy, and Middletown, all responding to an emergency from Middletown at Newport Hospital. Mutual Aid is a beautiful thing and lives are being saved, albeit in geographies that are grossly understaffed. March 1st will see dispatch for Pawtucket Fire done out of North Providence – and we cross our fingers that all will go well in this regionalization attempt! New Bedford has announced it will end its rolling black out policy. And that was good news. However, they back handedly announced they would decommission Engine 11 in order to do that. Not good. The community is already demonstrating this action – right at the firehouse. Where is the commitment to our fire departments? We don’t know what’s up with fire engines losing tires in Providence, either. But it’s time every community put fire and EMS protection in the bright light of review.

A 2nd UGLY

Thanks to the stalwart shining of the media light first by WPRO’s Tara Granahan, and continuing with WPRI’s Tim White, insufficiencies boggle the mind at the Veterans Home in Rhode Island. The issues started with a policy to end providing food to family visitors. Then it was an outsourcing of PT and OT services. Now we have brown water in therapeutic whirlpools. And doors that are too narrow for patients’ wide wheelchairs (quite common for larger people in almost all nursing homes) – thereby literally trapping them in their room. Yesterday, Governor Raimondo responded, after forbidding any official from speaking directly all this time. Unacceptable. The Governor should use her best resources – and that begins with the Director, Kasim Yarn. Let him do what he does best.