[Summit] Mayor's talk

[John Landry]

I went.  It was well attended, maybe 100 people.  He focused on laying  
out the problem rather than going into detail about the solution.  His  
big point was that he needs everyone to be "part of the solution."   
Reading between the lines, that includes the unions, who will have to  
give up some of their generous pensions (not just current employees  
but maybe even retirees though hard to see this happening), non-profit  
institutions (colleges and hospitals), and citizens generally  
(property tax increases are almost certain, and services will likely  
go down too).  He's already working to give himself and all non-union  
employees a 10% pay cut, cut staff by 10%, and get department heads to  
propose budgets 10-15% below what they have now.
	Someone asked about conflicts between volunteer organizations (e.g.  
Friends organizations) and union rules, where volunteers are  
prohibited from working on certain projects, and he said he would work  
to overcome these since the city needs all the help it can get.
	I liked his rhetoric and his emphasis on being transparent and seeing  
this through, and I liked his emphasis on how we can make the city  
stronger in the long run.  He's also appealing to citizens to support  
him as he works for all the hard cuts and increases that will be  
necessary.  I didn't see anything practical about making the harder  
and bigger cuts happen.  You can go to www.strongerprovidence.com for  
more details.
	Nothing new about the teachers, and no one asked about the sudden  
resignation of the superintendent.  -John


On Apr 1, 2011, at 4:21 PM, George Schietinger wrote:

Did any go? Did you learn anything? How many where there? 4% tax  
increase
here in Cranston.
George



_______________________________________________
Summit mailing list
Summit at sna.providence.ri.us
http://mail.sna.providence.ri.us/mailman/listinfo/summit_sna.providence.ri.us
SNA Website: http://sna.providence.ri.us/