Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

Alicia Pantoja, of Providence,and other DARE members protest the U.S. Conference of Mayors conference Friday in front of Providence City Hall.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- With signs declaring "Take Back the city" and "Mayor Cicilline, We will not be silenced," a noisy crowd of nearly 300 activists marched from Broad Street to the center of Kennedy Plaza Friday night, calling on the nation's mayors to enact measures to make sure federal stimulus dollars go into projects that will benefit the poor -- instead of the pockets of corporations with political connections.

The activists, working under the umbrella of Right to the City, a national network of grassroots organizations, drew supporters from all over the country, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami and New Orleans, and organized locally by Olneyville Neighborhood Association and Direct Action for Rights and Equality.

Although the city had originally planned to steer the demonstrators to a separate fenced in area, the group took over the turf directly opposite City Hall, and in an area just across from the Bank of America City Center, where the mayors had come to enjoy a seafood dinner.

The emcee for the night -- the Olneyville Neighborhood Association's Shannah Kurland -- said Mayor Cicilline would like visitors to see only one side of Providence, but "in our Providence children graduate from high school without knowing how to read. In our Providence, corporations get millions of dollars in tax breaks to build condominiums while some wealthy people are given assistance to buy homes that poor people lost."

Gilda Haas, a member of Right to the City in Los Angeles, said she and other activists were hoping to bring the message to the mayors that the way back to prosperity is not to send more money to "people at the top: but to the poor at the bottom...If you put the emphasis on the bottom the market will take care of itself."

Reginald Munnings, a member of Power U in Miami, said the concern of most of the grassroots groups is that there has been too little accountability as to how stimulus money is being spent. More, he said, need to be directed toward building up small businesses and creating "quality housing" for people of poor and modest means. "Right now," he said, "we have a country run by wolves, governed by pigs and full of sheep."

Marisa Franco, a national leader of Right to the City, said the problem is that federal, state and city have prioritized the "the interests of big business for far too long" and that it's time for more accountability. "We need that money tracked because it's our money. Wall Street will not rescue us. It has bankrupted us."

Though the activists came from all over the country Kurland said the group was standing in solidarity with the Providence Fire Fighters in its battle with the mayor for a new contract. Paul A. Doughty, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 799, accepted the group's words, adding that "We were given promises by Mayor Cicilline that were broken.... All we ask is a seat at the table."

There is no question that sounds from at least part of the noisy demonstration filtered into the white tent where the nation's mayors were gathered, though drums from a regimental band drowned out some of the sounds.

One mayor, from outside Chicago, said he hadn't expected "any of this" and called a cab to take his family to a restaurant somewhere else.

But Kip Holden, mayor of Baton Rouge, took it all in stride. "It's America. People have the freedom to speak out. It is part of what our country was founded on."

 Tags  mayors providence ri right to the city activists

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