Politics

Angel Taveras

Mayor of Providence

Posted

It’s a question of which has cost Taveras his early lead in this three-person sprint to the primary: Pell’s huge advertising surge or the recent bad press about violent crime on the Hill. But at least some good news is coming. The potholes are going. Angel Taveras - the Mayor himself - bristles at the criticism that has been heaped on both him and the city for the sad situation. “We’re now into our second year of paving roads here in Providence and when we’re done, we will have done more new roads in two years than have been done in the previous ten years combined. And the difference is we are finally repaving them, not just patching them. And this time they’ll last.

So why does the Mayor think he’s the best candidate for the Governor’s seat? “After what we went through in Providence, I like to think I’ve proved I have the experience to do the same thing on the state level. I’m hoping voters will carefully compare my record and my abilities again my opponents.”

And if elected, what would a Taveras administration plan to tackle in its first hundred days? Job training would be the Mayor’s first priority. “According to a recent article in the Journal, the state reports that there are 10,000 job openings right now and yet we have 50,000 Rhode Islanders out of work. We need to insure that we are providing the necessary job training to insure those jobs can be filled right now. What a difference that would make in our state’s economy.”


Also high in a Taveras administration would be to expand tourism into our state. Citing the natural beauty and the professionalism of our tourist industry, he feels this too would add immediately to our state’s bottom line. A third leg of his solution is to continue the restructuring of the EDC to insure that the monies we loan out be targeted for many of our own local businesses that are good at what they do and are more likely to stay here if they are successful.

But of particular interest to the Mayor is education. Ask him a question in this area and you have his attention and his commitment. “I hate to see our educational system here labeled as K to 12. What it really needs to be is ‘cradle to career’.” Himself a case study of what education can do, the Classical graduate went on to excel in college locally and then went on to Harvard Law. He is committed to making sure Rhode Island is a state that allows others to follow the track he was able to take. For right now, he’d borrow $10 million in Providence schools and hopefully build on that as the economy strengthened.

politics, political, primaries, elections, voting, governor, gubernatorial, rhode island, mayor, providence, angel taveras, gina raimondo, clay pell, gubernatorial,

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