|
|
« December 5, 2006 | Today | December 7, 2006 » December 6, 2006Cranston mayor-elect orders independent auditCRANSTON -- Making good on a central campaign promise, Mayor-elect Michael T. Napolitano has ordered a complete, independent audit of all municipal finances. Ernest A. Almonte, the state auditor general, said today that he will review the status of the city budget, as well as all cash reserves and pension funds. Mayor Stephen P. Laffey also sought assistance from Almonte before he took office, in January 2003, during a worsening fiscal crisis. But Laffey now says Napolitano is inheriting a city in dramatically better shape, and he called the audit unnecessary. In campaign finance news, a new campaign finance report submitted to the state Board of Elections by Napolitano shows that he spent more than $300,000 in the race to succeed Laffey. His opponent, Allan W. Fung, did not meet Tuesday's deadline to file a report. But in an interview, Fung estimated that his campaign cost about $150,000, or half of what his opponent spent. Napolitano won the race by only 71 votes. -- Journal staff writer Benjamin N. Gedan Posted by Steve Peoples at 6:29 PM | Comment Talk-show icon Arlene Violet firedArlene Violet, a talk-radio icon in Rhode Island, has been let go by her station, WHJJ-AM (920) after more than 16 years on the air. Her last day on the air will be tomorrow. She will be replaced Monday in her 3 to 6 p.m. time slot by a syndicated program featuring conservative commentator Sean Hannity. Violet, a former Catholic nun and Rhode Island attorney general from 1985 to 1987, announced her departure to her audience on her show this afternoon. She described it as “a business decision” on the part of the station, part of the Clear Channel Communications, which is in the process of being sold to two private equity groups. “It’s a fact of life when there’s a change. . . it’s a business decision, they cut to the bottom line,” she said. -- Journal staff writer Andy Smith Posted by Steve Peoples at 6:13 PM | Comment Derderian moved into prison's intake centerStation nightclub co-owner Michael Derderian has been removed from a minimum-security facility at the Adult Correctional Institutions and placed in the intake center, where officials can keep a closer eye on him, according to the state's top corrections official. Derderian was moved last night because he was exhibiting behaviors that showed he was having difficulty adjusting to confinement, said A.T. Wall II, director of the Department of Corrections. On Monday, Derderian had been moved to the intake center for the same reason, but was returned to minimum security on Tuesday. Wall declined to discuss what behavior prompted the move. Derderian's difficulties started after he was found guilty in a disciplinary hearing on Friday of violating prison rules and was ordered removed from his work-release assignment at a Warwick auto body shop. A prison spokesman said Derderian was found guilty of receiving chicken soup from an undisclosed family member while at work, violating rules prohibiting work-release inmates from having food other than what is given to them by the prison. He also was found guilty of having an unauthorized visit from a friend and of lying to investigators looking into those allegations. As an example, he told investigators the friend was actually a customer at Allendale Auto Body and Sales, where Derderian was doing bookkeeping. Derderian has appealed his guilty findings to the warden of the minimum-security unit. His punishment, which is on hold pending his appeal, would be to spend 15 days in medium security at the ACI. Derderian, 45, was sentenced in September to four years in prison after pleading no contest to involuntary manslaughter charges after the Feb. 20, 2003, fire at his West Warwick nightclub, which killed 100 people.
His brother, Jeffrey A. Derderian, 40, the nightclub's other owner, also pleaded no contest and was ordered to perform 500 hours of community service. Daniel M. Biechele, 30, the rock band tour manager who triggered fireworks that started the blaze, pleaded guilty earlier in the year and was sentenced to four years in prison. He is currently in minimum security and, as part of work release, has a bookkeeping job at a Woonsocket social service agency. Posted by Steve Peoples at 5:59 PM | Comment Reports: Brown's Simmons on Harvard short listBrown University President Ruth Simmons is on a list of 30 candidates to head Harvard University, according to articles published in the Boston Globe and the student-run Harvard Crimson. The names were given to Harvard’s Board of Overseers, the second-most powerful group on campus, at a meeting on Sunday in Cambridge, Mass., according to the reports. Sixteen of the 30 names were leaked to the media. A Brown University spokeswoman refused late this afternoon to comment on the reports. In addition to Simmons, there are several distinguished university leaders on the list leaked to the media: -- With Bloomberg reports Posted by Steve Peoples at 5:52 PM | Comment Plan to remedy RI homelessness announcedPROVIDENCE -- Governor Carcieri announced an ambitious new plan today that mirrors a national initiative to radically change how local communities have dealt with chronic homelessness for decades. Rather than attempting to manage the problem by placing homeless people in nightly shelters, it calls for ending homelessness by providing permanent housing, health care and social services with few strings attached. Those communities that have embraced the concept are finding it is not only more humane but cheaper than traditional, uncoordinated efforts, said Philip F. Mangano, who heads the federal initiative. Mangano, the director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, was one of the guest speakers today inside the basement of the Cathedral of SS. Peter & Paul where Governor Carcieri announced the plan for Rhode Island. More than 200 cities and other jurisdictions have started 10-year plans to eliminate "the moral disgrace of homelessness,’’ Mangano said. The plan works on the economic principle that it is cheaper to develop a well-coordinated offering of human services rather than rely on the current disjointed system that sees the homeless cycling through soup kitchens and emergency rooms at tremendous cost to taxpayers. Read more about the plan in tomorrow's Journal. -- Journal staff writer Tom Mooney Posted by Steve Peoples at 4:53 PM | Comment Wake tonight, funeral tomorrow for former PC presidentThe wake for former Providence College president the Rev. John F. Cunningham is this afternoon at St. Thomas Aquinas Priory Chapel on the Catholic college’s campus. The chapel is just to the left once you enter the campus via the River Avenue gate. Cunningham was a philosophy professor who spent almost 50 years at the institution and was the college’s 10th president, serving in that capacity from 1985 to 1994. He helped the college emerge into the well-regarded regional academic institution it is today from its roots as a commuter college serving Rhode Islanders. Cunningham died Monday at Rhode Island Hospital. He was 78. Today’s visitation, from 4 to 7, will be followed by a 7 o’clock chanting of the Office of the Dead by the Dominican Community. Cunningham’s funeral is tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. in St. Dominic Chapel at Providence College. Sign an online guestbook for Cunningham. Posted by Kate Bramson at 4:50 PM | Comment Update: Winning waterfront park design chosen / Photo
PROVIDENCE -- The wait is over. Ending a contest that began in April, city officials announced today that they have selected a winner in the competition to design a new waterfront park in space made available by the Route 195 relocation project. The winning design was submitted by the Boston-based landscape architectural firm of Brown, Richardson & Rowe, Inc. The design, chosen by an 11-member selection committee, will be submitted to the state Department of Transportation for construction. It's scheduled to be completed in 2012. The park features the Ember House – a transparent, free-standing structure along the riverwalk that could be used as a café or gathering space; a sculpture garden; a terraced amphitheatre; a centrally located granite disk that reflects the history of the Providence River; and the Fish Playground featuring artist-designed play equipment including wave slides, turtles, fish and shells found in the Providence River. Posted by Steve Peoples at 4:05 PM | Comment DOT saving energy, money with LED traffic lightsThe state Department of Transportation is saving energy one traffic light at a time – and has reached a milestone it promised back in February to reach by the end of the year. The DOT has finished converting 770 traffic signals it owns and maintains to a more energy-efficient system. Rather than continuing to use standard incandescent bulbs, the department is now using light-emitting diode (LED) lamps, the DOT announced today. The change should reduce the department’s electricity costs by about $530,000 a year, according to the department. -- projo.com staff writer Kate Bramson The DOT offset the $1 million project with more than $600,000 in rebates from National Grid as part of the company’s Energy Initiative Incentive Program. Given the expected savings in electricity costs, RIDOT Director James R. Capaldi said in a statement today the signal changes were done at “essentially a break-even cost while saving energy and reducing maintenance costs.” LEDs look like tiny light bulbs, but unlike conventional incandescent bulbs, they don't have a filament that will burn out. Instead, they are illuminated by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material. The old traffic lights had one incandescent bulb behind each red, green and yellow lens. The new ones have up to 122 LEDs spread across the light. The result is a more even, more intense light. The LED lamps require just 14 watts of energy compared with 116 watts per lamp for an incandescent bulb. The DOT says the savings at one intersection with eight signal heads can be dramatic – with an annual electric bill of just $99 for the LED lamps compared with a bill of $810 with the old incandescent bulbs. Also, LEDs last five to 10 years, compared with about one year for the old bulbs. Posted by Kate Bramson at 3:24 PM | Comment Update: Central Falls police search for shooting suspectCENTRAL FALLS -- The police today are searching for a suspect who shot a man in the chest inside an apartment building at 117 Clay St. last night. Central Falls Police would not say if they had identified the shooter. The police are still trying to determine the identity of the 31-year-old man who was shot at least once, Police Chief Joseph Moran said. The man is in critical condition at Rhode Island Hospital, according to Moran. -- With reports from Journal staff writer Tatiana Pina Posted by Steve Peoples at 2:56 PM | Comment Update: Reed, Chafee react to Iraq report / AudioU.S. Sen. Jack Reed says a high-profile report critical of President Bush's policy in Iraq makes "a significant contribution to the debate," and he predicts bipartisan support for the report's recommendations. “Now it is up to the president to use this report and these recommendations to forge a new policy, a new way forward that will help stabilize Iraq, and help us, as quickly as possible, redeploy our forces from Iraq," Reed said of the report by the Iraq Study Group. The report, which was released today, says that President Bush's Iraq policy "is not working" and that Bush should put aside misgivings and engage Syria, Iran and the leaders of insurgent forces in negotiations on Iraq's future, to begin by year's end. It urged him to revive efforts at a broader Middle East peace. Barring a significant change, it warned of a "slide toward chaos." Reed will host an afternoon press conference inside the U.S. Capitol today at 2:45 p.m. along with U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. Reed has traveled to Iraq nine times since the U.S. invasion in 2003 and enjoys rare access to top commanders of the war effort, some of whom were his contemporaries at the West Point military academy. He serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Fellow Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee today applauded the Iraq Study Group's call for a comprehensive diplomatic effort that would involve Iraq's neighbors - including Iran and Syria - and would also seek peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. But Chafee, the only Republican senator who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, said the challenge of improving the situation in the war-torn nation is "daunting.'' "The big question,'' according to Chafee, is this: "Is the administration going to pay any heed'' to the commission's recommendations, "or is this just an irritation for them?'' Check back with projo.com for more congressional reaction and an update from Reed's press conference. -- projo.com staff writer Steve Peoples and Journal staff writer John Mulligan, with reports from the Associated Press Posted by Steve Peoples at 2:25 PM | Comment Judge asks R.I.'s highest court to rule on gay divorce
Chief Family Court Judge Jeremiah Jeremiah has agreed to ask the Rhode Island Supreme Court if he has jurisdiction in the case of a lesbian couple who married in Massachusetts and are seeking a divorce in Rhode Island. Jeremiah said it is the first such case, and current Rhode Island law does not say how such cases should be handled. Margaret Chambers and Cassandra Ormiston of Providence were married in Massachusetts after that state's Supreme Judicial Court legalized same-sex unions in late 2003. The couple filed for divorce in October, citing irreconcilable differences. -- Eric Tucker, Associated Press Writer Louis Pulner, a lawyer for Chambers, said the couple could be left with a void divorce decree if the Rhode Island Supreme Court - sometime in the future - decided he did not have jurisdiction in the case, and asked Jeremiah to ask the Supreme Court to settle the issue now. Nancy Palmisciano, an attorney for Ormiston, argued the judge had jurisdiction and the right to rule immediately on the divorce. Chambers did not attend the hearing. Posted by Jack Perry at 12:19 PM | Comment E. Providence fire displaces residents / Photo
EAST PROVIDENCE -- The Red Cross is helping to find housing for 10 to 20 people who live in apartments damaged by fire this morning. It appears as if none of the residents in the 31-unit apartment building – the Mansion House Apartments – will be allowed back into the building today, according to the initial report from the Red Cross disaster assistance team, Red Cross CEO John E. Holt said this morning. The agency is considering whether to put the displaced residents up in hotels or open a small shelter, according to Holt. He expects the people -- mostly couples and individuals and one family with children -- will need shelter at least for tonight. Fire officials have not been available to discuss this morning’s fire, which triggered a full-alarm response from the department. They have responded to another emergency call and are not yet back at the station, according to a dispatcher. The rear apartment house at the two-building complex – which is located at 2930 Pawtucket Ave. – caught fire around 7:30 a.m. today. The other apartment building, located at 2928 Pawtucket Ave., was not affected. -- projo.com staff writer Kate Bramson Posted by Kate Bramson at 12:00 PM | Comment Appeals court to consider Narragansett land issueThe 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to take up a case involving who controls 31 acres of Narragansett Indian land in Charlestown. The federal government had agreed to take the land into trust on behalf of the tribe, which would remove the land from state jurisdiction. Some local and state officials fear that could open the door for the tribe to build a casino on the land. A three-judge panel of the 1st Circuit Court ruled in September 2005 that the federal government could take the land into trust. The state of Rhode Island has now appealed that ruling by the three-judge panel, asking the full court of appeals to consider the matter. -- with reports from Journal staff writer Katie Mulvaney Back when the three judges issued their ruling, Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas hailed that decision as a “great day for the Narragansett Indian Tribe,” and Charlestown officials and the governor’s office blasted the ruling. Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said if the ruling stands it would give “low-level federal bureaucrats in Washington” the power to decide “what parts of the Ocean State should and shouldn’t be under control of Rhode Island citizens.” The full circuit court has set a hearing date of Jan. 9. The 31 acres are across King’s Factory Road from about 1,800 acres that were part of the 1978 settlement in which the tribe agreed that state and local laws would apply on those tribal lands. Posted by Kate Bramson at 11:12 AM | Comment Update: Iraq study, Gates on Sen. Reed's agendaU.S. Sen. Jack Reed, the Rhode Island legislator who has emerged as a leading Democratic voice on defense issues, is expected to be involved in two high-profile events today in the U.S. Capitol. Reed is expected today to make a statement on the Senate floor when the full Senate debates the confirmation of Robert M. Gates to succeed Donald Rumsfeld as the new secretary of defense, according to Reed's spokesman Chip Unruh. The nomination is expected to pass easily. Reed was among those on the Senate Armed Services Committee who voted unanimously last night to endorse Gates. Also this morning, the Baker-Hamilton Study Group released its highly-anticipated report from the Iraq Study Group, which studies the Bush administration's Iraq policy and makes several recommendations. Reed and other members of Congress were invited to a private briefing on the report this morning, Unruh said. Reed has also been asked to participate in a press conference later in the day to discuss the Iraq study, but given the timing of the Gates vote and the regular caucus luncheons (which take place Wednesdays while Congress is in session), Reed's staff isn't sure what he can fit in today. -- projo.com staff writer Steve Peoples Posted by Kate Bramson at 10:27 AM | Comment Three injured in Providence firePROVIDENCE -- Three people were injured in a fire early this morning on Detroit Avenue, according to the Providence Fire Department. Two occupants of the three-story, wood-frame house at 59 Detroit Ave. suffered smoke inhalation, according to James Taylor, chief of communications for the Providence Fire Department. A firefighter was injured slipping on the ice, Taylor said. They were all taken to the hospital with what Taylor described as minor injuries. The fire, reported shortly before 1 a.m., caused extensive damage to the second and third floors, Taylor said. Firefighters brought it under control by 1:41 a.m. The cause is under investigation. Posted by Jack Perry at 7:50 AM | Comment Download today's front pageJustice in Iraq, political spending and the Gates hearings lead today's Journal. Posted by Peter Phipps at 7:19 AM | Comment A cold start, but warming into the 40sPROVIDENCE -- It's just 18 degrees as the sun rises over Providence, but the temperature should climb to 44 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. Look for increasing clouds and southwest winds between 5 and 15 mph with gusts to 32 mph. For more weather and regular updates, see projo.com/weather. Posted by Jack Perry at 7:04 AM | Comment Traffic: A nice day for a motorycle ride?PROVIDENCE -- Is it still motorcycle weather? Driving on Route 25 in southeastern Massachusetts today with the other early morning commuters was a man on a motorcycle. He was wearing a black leather jacket, gloves and a helmet with a full face shield, but he still must have been cold. It's just 18 degrees. Here's hoping he and every other commuter has a short trip this morning. As of about 7 a.m., the Rhode Island Department of Transportation's Traffic Management Center had not issued any traffic alerts. For more information, check out their Web site. |
|
ADVERTISING |
|
|
|
|
| Su | Mo | Tu | We | Th | Fr | Sa |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | |||||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| 31 |
ProJo 9 to 5 News Blog
Oct 2005 - March 2006