 - maxmanso
- Respected Neighbor
- USA
- 206 Posts
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| Cicilline turned problem to political benefit |
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on 06-14-2009 22:04 
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Politics as Usual by Jim Baron
I think I misjudged Providence Mayor David Cicilline in last week's column.
I was working under the assumption that he was really bummed about how the city firefighters union's decision to picket the U.S. Conference of Mayors powwow in Providence was keeping Vice President Joseph Biden and other Obama administration bigshots from coming because they didn't want to cross the union or its picket line. Nah.
By the time Cicilline held a news conference in his City Hall office Monday afternoon, the day the column ran, it had become clear that the mayor had decided he was going to make a little hay out of this whole imbroglio and turn it to his political benefit.
After all, what is more important to Cicilline, having a mayors' conference with Joe Biden in it, or getting re-elected?
The mayor wants the fight more than he wants a solution, no matter how raucously or how often the firefighters harass him. For a few conspiratorial minutes there, I even started wondering if maybe Cicilline had called the White House and said, "You know there's going to be a firefighters' protest, don't you? You wouldn't want to cross their picket line, would you?"
But no, I don't believe he would go that far, even if it might have crossed his mind.
Because this is where Cicilline is planting his flag. He is going to, in his words, stand up for the people and taxpayers of Providence and not cave in to the extortion of the fire union.
By the Monday afternoon of that press conference, Cicilline had already sent out a fundraising letter playing up his feud with the union. The next day his campaign was paying to air radio ads bragging about standing strong against the evil, extortionate union leaders.
I mean, he even appeared on WPRO's John Depetro Show on Monday. After all the snarky things Depetro has said about the mayor's sexuality, and gays in general, Cicilline must have had to eat a lot of pride to be a guest on his show, he must have had something he REALLY wanted to say. And what he had to say is that it is the firefighters' fault that the Obama crew is boycotting the mayor's conference and he isn't going to bend to their demands at the expense of Providence taxpayers (and voters, but he didn't mention that part, not yet anyway). The day he shows up on Buddy Cianci's program, you will know he will have pulled out all the stops.
No matter what side you take on the contract dispute, you kind of have to give Cicilline some credit because, after all, it takes a really big set of, um, courageous political convictions, for an elected official to take on firefighters. Yes, public employee unions are in something of a bad odor with the public these days - particularly among folks who listen to talk radio and go to State House tea parties - but firefighters, even if they are in a union, are different. They save lives, they preserve property, they get beloved pets out of the neighbor's tree, for Pete's sake, risking life and limb in the process. People love ‘em, and rightly so.
Cops are deservedly really high on the scoreboard of popular esteem, too, but they give out speeding tickets and parking tickets, so firemen have something of an edge there. (Yes, I said firemen as a generic grouping, no intent to snub the brave and dedicated and capable females in fire departments [almost] everywhere.)
Picking a fight with the guys and gals at the fire station is risky political business, but that is how Cicilline has cast his lot and now he has to play it out.
If by Wednesday you didn't already believe that Cicilline really wasn't interested in making peace with the union, that sham of a meeting he held with Local 799 President Paul Doughty should have been enough to convince you. He basically told Doughty to eat the city's latest contract proposal and take it to his membership as is, which he fully knew Doughty wouldn't do. Then he threatened to make the offer worse if it went to arbitration. Also, in an apparent effort to add insult to injury, Cicilline said Doughty could address the conference of mayors. So Doughty could either cross his own picket line, or take down his picket line in exchange for talking to 200 politicians, only one of whom (Cicilline) he could negotiate a contract with. Why the hell would Doughty want to address the mayors' conference?
What I can't give the mayor a pass on, however, are those "protestor registration forms" and the Orwellian-named "public viewing areas" to identify, segregate and limit dissenters and people who have grievances they want to air publicly like, I don't know, firefighters perhaps. Cicilline knows better. I remember back in the days when he was a state legislator, I covered some events put on by the ACLU and there was Cicilline, a prominent and respected civil libertarian. First the traffic cameras, then the cameras in public places now this. His transformation is apparently complete.
It is particularly unsubtle that all of the "public viewing areas," which others have referred to as "protest pens," are all across the street from the conference sites. That way, mayors - who are, after all, political beings - don't actually have to thread their way in between picketers on the sidewalk to get into the door of their meetings. I wonder how many of the mayors would have balked if they had to physically, rather than just metaphorically, cross a picket line of firefighters, maybe even getting their pictures taken doing so, photos that could be mailed to the firehouses back home?
The daily newspaper that covers the Creative Capital appears to make no bones about being in the mayor's corner in its news stories, columns and editorials. That sidebar about unions "hobbling" the state's economy seemed particularly egregious from an objectivity point of view. So with the lone exception of Cianci's radio show, the firefighters are on their own in the media.
Providence is going to have financial problems and angry property taxpayers long after the mayor's conference is forgotten. I mean, there have been 76 other mayors conferences; I defy you to tell me what happened at even one of them. The only reason anyone cares is that this one is in Providence and there was a big hubbub about it. If the conference was not being held here, but even somewhere as close as Worcester or Fall River, who would give a whit about it? Nobody, that's who.
So as far as Cicilline is concerned, having already forsaken a bid for governor to run for re-election in Providence, this is a fight to the finish. He is banking that Providence voters hate property taxes more than they support firefighters. It's a great political test of wills and strength pitting a Democratic mayor against organized labor and only time and the November 2010 election will tell who wins. |
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