Back in 2010 we did Mayoral Candidate Surveys (Angel Taveras, John Lombardi); with 50 days left until the Primary, it is time for us to do it again.
As in 2010, this year we are seeking your input on those surveys. We will be sending surveys to the candidates for Providence Mayor by the end of the month; please use the comments section (or email us) the questions you’d like the candidates to answer. When the candidates return the surveys, we will be posting the results here on Greater City Providence.
[alert type=”muted”]We do need to make a note about comments on Election posts. We have a wonderful mix of people who comment here and are pleased that the comments are civil and intelligent. Elections and the discussions that surround them can be highly emotionally charged. We trust that the level of discourse here will remain high, but we will be editing and/or removing comments if the discourse degrades.As always, Greater City Providence will not be endorsing a candidate.
We thank you in advance for maintaining civil discourse.[/alert]
1. What is the city’s role in developing the I-195 Land and the surrounding area in the Jewelry District?
2. How should property tax stabilizations and exemptions be used, if at all? What criteria should be used to offer an exemption?
3. How can the city address the wide gap in our construction and business operation expenses (just like Boston) with rental values and revenue opportunities (not nearly like Boston)?
4. What is your vision for:
* Walking in Providence
* Biking in Providence
* Bus transit within Providence and the region.
* Light rail/street car transit within Providence and the region.
* Commuter rail and heavy passenger rail within Providence and the region.
* Motor vehicle transit within Providence and the region.
5. How can Providence design, build, and invest in ways to lower long term costs for maintaining the city?
6. What space do you envy in a city other than Providence? How could we recreate that space here?
7. What is your favorite space in the city? Why? How can we build more spaces like that?
8. What will you do to attract tourism and out of state resources to Providence?
9. The state of Providence Public School buildings has been a frequent topic of discussion. Should the city invest hundreds of millions of dollars building modernized versions of the existing buildings? Are there more creative things we can do with public buildings with that investment that both serves the educational needs of students and the needs of the city and its residents?
10. What resources will you be asking our federal congressional delegation to bring to Providence? For what projects?
Good suggestions Jason.
The Ripta Riders Alliance has scheduled meetings with Democratic primary candidates Elorza, Smiley and Solomon. Please consider posting here suggestions for additional transit related topics to bring up or ask about. We’ll report some of what we hear to the gcpvd community.
1. Please describe your private sector experience in detail, including dates, organizations, titles, and responsibilities.
2. Do you support restoring the State Ethics Commission jurisdiction over the General Assembly? What concrete reforms would you institute to ensure ethical and transparent operations in city government? Please include an example situation in your professional life where you encountered a moral/ethical/professional dilemma either personally or by a superior or subordinate, and describe how you resolved it.
3. Please describe in concrete detail your proposed selection process for city department heads and other key roles.
4. Please describe in detail your professional experience in creating, managing, and meeting budgets.
5. Please descirbe in detail how you have professionally led and managed large groups of subordinates where you were held accountable (where “the buck stopped with you”).
This is somewhat a state problem, and somewhat a city one, but I wanted to bring it up on this comment thread since there’s a candidate forum going along with it:
Waterfire, consdier:
1. On the state level, can we get late-night RIPTA service to moonlight on Waterfire nights, as an experiment? We can pick some main routes that carry high ridership within and out of Providence. I think the 60 might be a good long distance one, and maybe the 54, and for the ones during the school year, probably also the 66.
2. On the city level, can we get bus lanes during Waterfire? I’d like to have them in general, but they seem like they’re especially important during high-traffic times. This would also be a good time for them to be experimented with. We don’t have to go for really efficient perfect median-oriented bus lanes. We can just do curb bus lanes. Maybe some jersey barriers?
3. Road pricing. It seems like there are some good roads that need pricing, flexibly according to season. I took the 60 today, and was especially struck by how much worse than normal even the usually congested RI 114 is. I’d love to say dedicated ROWs would work for the 60, but unfortunately along much of the route you have two lanes of traffic only, and not enough room to expand outward at all, and although removing parking could maybe add bike access, it wouldn’t add enough space for bus lanes. So can we get some tolls or road pricing on routes that carry transit, and somehow redirect that into transit expansion on those routes? Or could we put the road pricing money from those routes into lower taxes for the businesses and residents on those routes? Or in some other way try to optimize this?