“Unfortunately, the council refuses to take the side of the Cranston Taxpayers and would rather play politics.” Quinlan continued.  “By not approving this contract the Cranston City Council opens the door to binding arbitration which takes the future of the City out of the City’s hands.  All concessions would likely be lost.   Yet again, the Council is burying their head in the sand hoping that the City’s financial woes will magically go away.”

“I find it ironic that over the past few years, the Council has only seemed to favor voting for contracts that give away the store,” Quinlan said.  “The taxpayers should not forget that a majority of this council were the ones that gave us the outrageous fire fighters contract which was full of giveaways rather than give backs.  Many of the members who voted to table the police contract also supported an expense line in this year’s budget with $1.5 Million in union concessions but never received them. Then, they approved the Laborer’s contract with no concessions in December. Many members of this Council are hypocritical and would rather stroke their political egos and play politics than save money for the taxpayers.”

Following in the footsteps of his mentor, former Mayor John O’Leary, Mayor Napolitano is shying away from a re-election campaign after helping to create a fiscal crisis in Cranston. Since Mayor Napolitano’s election the membership of the Cranston Republican party has been a relentless watchdog for the taxpayers through press releases, newspaper advertisements, internet websites, public comments at city council meetings and letters to the editor. From the early days of his administration when Mayor Napolitano decided to waste taxpayer money redecorating his office while using an allergy attack as an excuse, Cranston taxpayers have witnessed wasteful spending and financial incompetence from Mayor Napolitano.

Mayor Napolitano ran for office in 2006 on a series of false promises such as tax relief and more money for schools. Now, as he leaves elected office, he refuses to tell the truth as to the real reason why he is not seeking re-election. Mayor Napolitano is not seeking re-election due to the bad poll results he recently received. After spending millions to help his re-election bid by agreeing to an outrageous firefighters’ contract to spending millions to buy swamp land to concocting a phony tax freeze budget all while bragging that he is raising tens of thousands of dollars from political insiders, no one should believe that all of sudden Mayor Napolitano decided to drop his re-election bid because of personal reasons. Once again we see the Mayor’s dishonesty and his lack of courage. We already knew he did not have the courage to stand up to the special interests like the firefighters’ union. Now we know he does not have the courage to face the voters and justify his record. Mayor Napolitano’s internal poll must show that the voters of Cranston clearly reject his irresponsible fiscal policies. They will not be fooled again and that is why he is not running for re-election.

Regardless of whom the Democrats and Mayor Napolitano hand pick as their candidate for Mayor, there is only one candidate who has fiscally conservative policies, a proven track record, the courage to speak out over the last year and half against the current administration’s irresponsible policies, and the experience of dealing with a fiscal crisis in Cranston. That candidate is Allan Fung, and we believe the voters will not be fooled into making the same mistake again.

On the first page of the report, it indicates that the Cranston School Department is projecting a deficit of $4,252,297. Due to this deficit a Caruolo action by the Cranston School System against the City may begin in the near future. Meanwhile on page 15 of the same report, Cranston’s municipal budget is projecting that its spending is going over budget by $895,933 after only two months into the new fiscal year.

Under these circumstances, it is hard to see how Mayor Michael Napolitano will balance this year’s budget without a supplemental tax or dipping into the City’s Rainy Day fund.

Based on the monthly fiscal report, prepared by Mayor Napolitano’s Finance Department, it is clear that the Napolitano budget for fiscal year 2008 is headed for trouble even after implementing nearly the maximum tax increase allowed by state law.

In contrast, the 2007 budget for which Napolitano blamed for raising taxes ended in a surplus. (Cranston Herald 8/29/07, and the June 2007 fiscal report)

It is time for Mayor Napolitano to make the tough decisions to control his spending, even if it angers some of the special interests who support him, and to finally be honest with the taxpayers.

###

Volunteer to share our commitment of fiscal responsibility and good government!

Contribute to help us get our message out to everyone!

OUR MISSION

The Cranston Republican City Committee (The Committee) is a volunteer organization actively engaged in the process of ensuring that the City of Cranston’s government operates ethically, effectively and efficiently. The Committee is committed to recruiting and supporting local candidates who share in the Cranston Republican City Committee’s desire to do what is in the best interest of the City.

OUR PRINCIPLES

1. Cranston taxpayers pay high taxes at the local, state and federal level. Our goal is to lower taxes in order to grow the economy.

2. To control government spending, compensation and benefit packages for all public employees must be affordable to Cranston’s taxpayers both now and in the future as these employees retire. The taxpayers of Cranston cannot afford health and retirement packages for public employees that are not comparable to the private sector.

3. Management rights in the public sector must be strengthened and cannot be negotiated away as part of any labor negotiating process. Strengthening management rights allows government to operate more efficiently.

4. All federal and state mandates should be fully funded by the federal or state government that issued the mandate. Any federal or state mandate that is not fully funded must be rescinded.

5. To bring more accountability to our educational system, the Cranston School Committee must be subject to the control of the City’s taxing authority (the Cranston City Council) or the Cranston School Committee must have its own taxing authority.

Also, the City Council has at least $680,000 in a contingency fund; maybe some of this money could be used for bridge repair (ProJo 6/27/07). Maybe Mayor Napolitano and the City Council can identify some of those short-term savings from the firefighters contract, which was recently approved, to help repair the bridge. (ProJo 6/21/07). There are many areas in the city budget where savings could be found, which could be used to repair the bridge, such as: the city payment to the union pension for the No. 2 staff member in the Napolitano administration (ProJo 6/26/07); not increasing the mayor’s staff, as Mayor Napolitano originally promised (ProJo 6/20/07); the savings in legal costs, in particular from firing respected labor lawyer Vincent Ragosta (Projo 2/13/07); the hospitalization buybacks given to the mayor himself and his administrative staff as a bonus for not taking city health insurance; and lastly, the expenses for renovating the mayor’s office after his supposedly health-threatening allergy attack. (ProJo 1/9/07)

More importantly, if the city does not have the money to pay for simple bridge repair, where is it going to get the get the money to pay the schools millions of dollars if the schools are successful in their upcoming lawsuit for school aid after Mayor Napolitano proposed to level fund the schools (ProJo 4/12/07 and 7/18/07). Is Mayor Napolitano going to continue to underfund the police and fire pension by approximately $1 million? Is he going to raise taxes again? Will he dip into the rainy-day fund as he promised he would not do? (ProJo 1/3/07).

If Cranston taxpayers believe anything coming from the Napolitano administration these days, as the old saying goes, I got a bridge to sell you … and it’s in as bad a shape as the one on Natick Avenue!

Bruce P. Saccoccio

For example, it was so funny when Mr. Sepe was full of outrage over the cost of the vehicle Republican Mayor [Stephen P.] Laffey leased for official use when it was nearly half the cost of the showboat that Laffey’s Democratic predecessor, John O’Leary was driving around in. Now that Mayor Michael Napolitano has a fancy new car with an increased cost in this year’s budget of $1,900 over Mayor Laffey’s SUV, I have been waiting anxiously for Mr. Sepe’s angry letter. I’m sure I am not the only one who has noticed the conspicuous void in the Your Turn section.

So, I thought I’d compile a list of the top 10 things Mike Sepe should write angry letters about. Here they are:

10) Napolitano tells voters Mayor Laffey raised taxes too much, campaigns against raising taxes,

then raises taxes to the maximum allowed by law.

9) Napolitano campaign tells voters schools need more money. His proposed tax hike — the biggest since 2003 when the city was near bankruptcy — includes no increase in school spending!

8) A lot more work was getting done on the Park Cinema when Mike Sepe was writing angry letters.

7) Mayor and City Council want to negotiate with the crossing guards union and almost “forget” to appeal the labor board decision.

6) Mayor fires state’s best labor attorney, Vincent Ragosta, then signs a firefighters contract that includes a tax-free disability pension, free family health care until age 65, and work-related disability status for non-job-related cancer — reversing gains of the Laffey administration.

5) Napolitano says he is going to cut legal expenses, then increases the legal budget!

4) Mayor fires country’s best municipal finance director, Jerome Baron, then the new team cannot even put the monthly city financial reports online (until the story hits the newspapers).

3) Mayor proposes underfunding the police and fire pensions by about $1.7 million, imitating former Mayors O’Leary and Traficante.

2) No noise from State Auditor General Ernest Almonte regarding number 3.

1) The Mayor is allergic to his office?

Maybe Mike Sepe is allergic to telling the truth.

George Lavoie

Cranston

For more information email us - info@cranstongop.com

The act boils down to this: All that is needed to “unionize” is to present a petition signed by a majority of employees who aren’t represented by a union, and they’re unionized.

No election. No voting. No secret ballots. “Poof!” The employees of So & So unit are now members of Local XXX of Such & Such Union.

Rhode Island’s own “Congressmen for Life” Jim Langevin and Patrick Kennedy voted for this!

What’s next? I’m sure lifetime politicians such as Langevin and Kennedy savor the notion that they could do away with involving themselves in something as trivial as elections and secret ballots. Get a simple majority of voters to openly sign a petition for them to remain in Congress, skip the election, and they’re certified the victor. Why waste time and effort with elections and secret ballots?

The cornerstone of our democracy in the United States, up until now, has been the freedom to vote in an election on a secret ballot. Yet these self-styled “Democrats” voted against our democracy. They should change the name of their party to Despotcrats.

James Madison, the fears you and others wrote about in the Federalist Papers are coming true.

WILLIAM J. GREENAWAY

Cranston

]]> http://cranstongop.com/?feed=rss2&p=10 http://cranstongop.com/?p=12 http://cranstongop.com/?p=12#comments Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:54:09 +0000 Cranston GOP About the Cranston GOP http://cranstongop.com/?p=12 I was extremely disappointed to learn that Democratic Mayor Michael T. Napolitano has fired the city’s longtime labor lawyer, Vincent F. Ragosta Jr., under the guise of a financial saving.

Mr. Ragosta is the preeminent management side labor lawyer in the state and has negotiated labor contracts and litigated employment issues for numerous municipalities and even the state. In fact, he has been hired by Democrat and Republican administrations alike. One preeminent legal publication, Martindale Hubbell, has recognized his accomplishments by giving him its highest rating based upon his legal ability and high ethical standard.

While I was on the council, we negotiated several reasonable contracts (for the Teamsters, Laborers and police unions) and successfully challenged the costly crossing guard expense. We ended up with substantial savings for the taxpayers. All throughout, we received sound legal advice and OPTIONS from Mr. Ragosta.

Mr. Ragosta has a wealth of institutional knowledge about Cranston’s municipal contracts and its numerous provisions. His historical knowledge cannot be duplicated, particularly by someone who the Journal aptly noted was Mayor Napolitano’s campaign lawyer. Mr. Ragosta is correct in saying that the “unions are very sophisticated and intimately familiar with every word, vowel and semicolon in that contract.” With the firefighters’ contract still in limbo, we need Mr. Ragosta’s skills and institutional knowledge more than ever.

The city has received a lot of value from Mr. Ragosta’s legal services over the years. In an effort to allegedly “curtail spending on outside legal services,” Mayor Napolitano has been penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Allan Fung

Cranston

]]> http://cranstongop.com/?feed=rss2&p=12 http://cranstongop.com/?p=6 http://cranstongop.com/?p=6#comments Fri, 02 Mar 2007 02:09:09 +0000 Cranston GOP Press Releases http://cranstongop.com/?p=6 Mayor Michael T. Napolitano’s claim that former Mayor [Stephen P.] Laffey left him a “political budget” is his attempt to avoid responsibility for the possibility of having to raise taxes with his first budget.

The budget proposed by the [Stephen P. Laffey] Laffey administration that Mayor Napolitano finds troubling was approved unanimously by the Democrat-dominated City Council, many of whose members are still serving. More important, after the budget was passed, Cranston’s bond rating improved three notches (The Providence Journal, June 2).

Strangely, last year while the budget was being reviewed, mayoral candidate Napolitano attended none of the budget hearings and never said a word against this budget. Candidate Napolitano did not speak out against the budget then because the budget reduced various unnecessarily large reserve accounts by funding the city’s long-term retiree health care obligation, making Cranston the first community in Rhode Island to do so, and by returning money to the taxpayers through a tax cut.

Unfortunately, the Napolitano administration seems to be already playing games with budget numbers. While Mayor Napolitano complains about the snow-removal budget, he fails to mention that the city has a $300,000 reserve for snow removal in the event it is necessary. Regarding the $1.5 million from the sale of the soon-to-be-defunct police headquarters, the current budget provides for the sale proceeds to go into a stabilization account, which does not affect the city’s current operating budget but would only help pay for the city’s expenses in the future.

Candidate Napolitano ran against higher taxes. If he wants to follow through on his campaign promises and avoid a tax increase, Mayor Napolitano must take a hard line with the budget request made by the [Michael A.] Traficante-controlled School Committee and continue the process started by the Laffey administration of reining in the city’s unions.

Unfortunately, to do so, would require the mayor to confront many of those who helped him squeeze out a 79-vote victory last November.

David Exter, chairman

Republican City Committee

]]> http://cranstongop.com/?feed=rss2&p=6