While the Patriots’ improved play makes us happy for our pigskin-crazed associates, some of us prefer to pine for spring training. You can follow me through the week on Bluesky, threads and X. Here we go.
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: Former U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha’s extensive questioning of RIDOT Director Peter Alviti during an Oversight hearing on Thursday was revealing. It showed the extent to which RIDOT leans on private companies to check each other’s work for costly public projects — and how the state apparently lacks the capacity to do even a little bit of spot-checking. Alviti maintained that this is a good system, encouraged by the Federal Highway Administration, and better than relying on government employees with less expertise. If things go wrong, as they dramatically did with the Washington Bridge, the contractors on the project can be sued, Alviti noted. Cunha, though, seemed almost flabbergasted by the degree to which RIDOT puts its faith in companies earning many millions of dollars. “Does RIDOT do anything other than sign contracts and pay out money?” he asked at one point. “You have no ability to assess the adequacy of this work?” Alviti cited the Washington Bridge as the lone exception during an almost 10-year period in which the state has completed more than 350 bridge upgrades, to the tune of billions of dollars. That’s far better, he argued, than the process used before RhodeWorks, when a significant percentage of the state’s bridges fell into deficient status. But that’s a tough sell when large numbers of Rhode Islanders continue to deal with heightened travel times and more traffic due to the Washington Bridge saga. It’s worth remembering, as Alviti noted, that state lawmakers approved the RhodeWorks plan in 2016. Cunha said they now face a question of whether the state relies too much on outside contractors. And he said the case of the Washington Bridge raises the question of whether other shortcomings have gone undetected so far.
2. FALLOUT: As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. While lawmakers appeared generally irritated with Alviti, in part due to gripes that RIDOT did not share the Washington Bridge audit with them prior to its release, the hearing underscored the difference made by hiring the state’s former top federal prosecutor (at $600 an hour). Cunha’s line of questioning was an X-ray that cut to the core of the issue and cast a fresh light. In particular, Alviti was not able to name a key program manager at RIDOT and he could not say whether the agency had reviewed the initial plans for the westbound Washington Bridge since it was closed on an emergency basis in December 2023. It was very different from how Alviti has chosen to make himself available for interviews — or not — and answered questions up to now. The bridge has long been a subtext for the looming campaign year of 2026. That continues. And it’s not hard to imagine a super-cut of Alviti’s testimony being deployed in campaign messaging next year.
3. GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN: Speaking with reporters in a conference call via Zoom earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse raised the question of whether the seven Democrats and one independent who sided with Republicans to support ending the shutdown are poised for a moment right out of Charles Schultz. “If this is another Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown moment,” Whitehouse said, “I think all eight of them will be very, very angry and upset.” That sense of being duped looms large for many Democrats, considering their perception that the White House was on the defensive. All four members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation voted against the continuing resolution that ended the shutdown, expressing scorn in statements. While Democrats continue to highlight the issue of healthcare, “government shutdowns historically have not been effective tools for advancing a party’s policy goals,” reported NPR’s Barbara Sprunt. “The last six weeks proved that to be the rule, not an exception.”
4. GAMBLE THIS: Can anyone really claim to be surprised that two Cleveland Guardians pitchers were charged in a gambling case? After all, you can’t watch a baseball game these days without being bombarded with ads promoting sports betting. The ads spout a message that betting is fun, exciting and a good way to cash in, even though the reality is very different. For years, state-based lotteries have fostered wildly unrealistic dreams of hitting the jackpot, while taking a bigger bite from the people least able to afford it. Now, sports betting has become a prevalent part of popular culture, particularly for young adults. The bombardment of ads on television and the internet normalizes this stuff for kids. The juggernaut of sports betting has moved forward with few checks so far (Pete Rose wants a word from the great beyond) because so much money is being made. But a backlash is emerging, and perhaps the industry needs to do a better job of policing itself before government regulators step in.
5. LG RACE: The battle for lieutenant governor continues to percolate, with Providence Ward 3 City Councilor Sue AnderBois jumping in this week. AnderBois, 42, rolled out a polished video and she boasts the policy chops/progressive appeal that come with working as the state’s first director of food policy for the Nature Conservancy. For now, she needs to raise money to compete with two fellow Democrats, Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos and former state Sen. Cynthia Coyne, with Newport City Councilor Xaykham “Xay” Khamsavoravong hovering on the periphery of the race for now. Stay tuned this weekend for the emergence of a GOP candidate for LG.
6. VETERANS: Quil Lawrence, who covers veterans for NPR, has been interviewing Iraq war vet Dave Carlson for 10 years. Carlson’s journey from prison to redemption is the basis for a new podcast.
7. JUSTICE: U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf, a conservative Reagan appointee in 1985, has been a mainstay of the federal bench in Massachusetts for many years. He cracked the case of Whitey Bulger and presided over the 2011 corruption trial of former Bay State Speaker Salvatore DiMasi. Now, Wolf is stepping down after 40 years on the bench because he said he has a need to speak out. In an essay in The Atlantic, Wolf points to what he sees as a “deeply disturbing” attack on the rule of law by President Trump’s White House. In an interview with Amna Nawas of PBS NewsHour, he said in part, “I’m worried, in part, because I think all of the abuse that’s been showered on the courts and the judges is causing people to lose confidence in the integrity and the impartiality of the judicial process. When the Supreme Court ordered Richard Nixon to turn over the tapes he made secretly in the Oval Office that had incriminating information about him and his close colleagues, he understood that he had to obey that order because the American people would not tolerate disobedience and he would have been impeached and removed. I’m not sure, I’m not confident that that would occur today, because when judges like my colleagues rule against the president, he says that they’re corrupt and they should be impeached. And the judges are not in a position to respond, except by continuing to do their work with integrity and impartiality. But I’m afraid that that’s not a message that’s getting to the American people.”
8. BUSINESS: Providence students Adrian Bautista and Evan Perez founded Color Your Life, a subscription business that allows children to use AI to create personalized coloring books based on real-life photos. If you need some hope for the future of Rhode Island’s economy, you’ve got to listen to the audio of Luis Hernandez’ interview with these budding entrepreneurs.
9. HERITAGE TOURISM: Trudy Coxe, CEO/executive director of The Preservation Society of Newport County, uses an op-ed in the Rhode Island Current to elaborate on good news about the state’s tourism sector: almost 30 million visitors came to Rhode Island in 2024, a 3.5% increase over the previous year. “These visitors spent a whopping $6 billion, generating a total economic impact of $8.8 billion and supporting 88,509 jobs,” Coxe writes. “That’s not just resilience. It’s Rhode Island showing off. This kind of economic activity ripples through every corner of our state. It supports restaurants, hotels, B&Bs, boutiques, hair salons, retail shops, tour operators and kayak rentals down by the cove. It’s a rising tide that truly lifts all boats.” Thing is, as I reported in 2023, some observers believe Rhode Island could benefit even more with a greater emphasis on the state’s rich cultural heritage. They point to how beaches and Newport mansions get a lot more attention than Roger Williams’ role in creating the concept of religious freedom, the Ocean State’s central place in the Industrial Revolution and how Rhode Island was enmeshed in the Atlantic slave trade. As restaurateur and history enthusiast Bob Burke told me at the time, “We’re one of the only places that has the true historical assets, because our preservation movements have been so strong that we have assets that other places simply do not have,” Burke said. “They, like a historical theme park, are making up fakes. We have the real historical theme park here. The only thing Rhode Island hasn’t done is put up turnstiles and actually organized it.” As the U.S. gears up to celebrate its semiquincentennial — look it up! — Now would be a great time to lean in to local history.
10. ALT-POLITICS: With the statewide election year drawing closer, candidates from outside conventional politics are starting to emerge. Gregory Stevens, owner of Pat’s Italian Restaurants, has organized a campaign for governor, as the peripatetic Raymond Baccari reports. Elsewhere, Nish Kohli recently reported in the ProJo on Michael English, who calls himself a centrist Democrat for mayor of Providence with views between Brett Smiley and David Morales.
11. THE RHODE ISLAND ANGLE: You could do a lot worse than reading Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver’s gripping 2022 update on David Copperfield. Via Phil Eil, who keeps his ear to the ground on the opioid beat, we learned that the audio version of the book is read by Trinity Rep’s Charlie Thurston.
12. ONE ON ONE: With Ken Burns’ new documentary series on the American Revolution debuting locally on Ocean State Media on Monday, Nov. 17, we are rebroadcasting my recent interview with him on OSM TV tonight at 7:30 and Sunday at 10:30 am.
13: WEEKEND 401: Our weekend guide includes a well-observed Mareva Lindo review of Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune, among other tips.
14. KICKER: This headline offers proof positive of how climate events are increasingly bumping into the realm of #RISizedMeasuringUnits: “2021 heat dome left Rhode Island-sized damage in Oregon’s western forests”
