Report Inappropriate Comments

Robert Cushman‎ to The Taxpayers' Spin

An open letter to Warwick Citizens:

With all of this news on Warwick’s financial problems splashed all over television, newspapers and social media, galvanized by the recent elimination of school sports, it makes me angry that the citizens of this city have been asleep at the wheel for so long letting the political leaders off the hook for creating this mess.

I’m sorry to inform you, but you are directly responsible for this mess. Your lack of involvement in the political process allowed the problems to fester and grow to the out of control proportions we are facing today. And if you think what is happening now is a one-time problem, you need a serious wake up call.

Many have been warning of this day for years. We were ignored and demonized.

This is the tip of the ice berg. These problems will continue to occur annually with the severity exponentially increasing.

Drive down any main road in the city, walk through a city or school building or visit a recreation area to experience firsthand the degradation in the city.

Water and sewer infrastructure is literally crumbling under are feet. You think the closure of Sandy Lane this past winter was an anomaly, get used to it. With estimates of $200+ million funds needed in the next 20 years to perform annual maintenance and no plan to raise those funds, failures like that will become routine.

Talk to some of your neighbors who own a home assessed in the $200,000 to $300,000 range. Assessments have skyrocketed, $50,000, $60,000, and some over $80,000. In another week those folks will soon be realizing the sticker shock when their tax bill has increased $600, 700 and $800+ range. Talk to the elderly on a fix income and ask them what they will have to cut out of their disposable income to be able to afford to make that kind of payment.

And all the while we have city leaders pointing fingers, blaming schools when their own spending is out of control and just about every new tax dollar collected in the city has been allocated to the city budget.

School Committee Chairwoman Backus complaining schools need more money yet signs a contract giving $13 million in teacher raises that they now can’t afford to pay? Where was the planning? Where is the coordinated approach by school and city leaders to figure out what is affordable and adopt negotiating guidelines to meet those limits? There isn’t any. It’s every-man for himself.

Where was the 5 year forecast that would have shown that the police, DPW and school contract should never have been signed? Oh yeah, I forgot, the Mayor stated that he could blow his noise with such a plan and the plan was never released.

Where are the givebacks from the union leaders who have won every step of the way in negotiating more and more lucrative salary, pension and healthcare benefits for their members that are un-affordable? Yet with the city facing a financial crisis and cherished programs being cut, they refuse to make a shared sacrifice to restore programs and they still want even more.

In the last decade more money is being spent in the city budget for people who use to work for the city, that provided services in the past, then the people performing services today. How much longer can we afford that to occur?

But no one really knows that. Some folks are content with using the kids as political pawns, making noise, holding a couple of rallies. They will be content and go back to sleep when school sports programs are restored.

In the meantime the very fabric of the city is being destroyed by politicians who are allowed to implement Band-Aid approaches that kick the can down the road while the city continues on it death spiral. Scott Avedisian did exactly that over the last 18 years and continued to get re-elected year after year.

So what are you going to do about it?

All of the stakeholders in this city really need to make a commitment to understand the serious structural issues plaguing the city and schools. If you can at least commit to do that, you will then have the ability to see through the political spin and hold the political leaders across the city accountable and elect people who are willing to solve the problem.

Profiles in courage are needed from our elected leaders to make the difficult decisions to put the city back on sound financial ground. That means confronting organized labor in the city and schools. It means demanding major structural changes in contracts that will save millions of dollars by reducing the unsustainable growth of legacy costs in the city budget and the unsustainable growth in active employee costs in the school budget. It means reallocating that money back into programs and service we have come to expect in Warwick without raising property taxes each year.

So it time for you to raise up and demand change. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to support people with the will to tackle these issues and not abandon them when organized labor mounts a campaign to throw them out of office after one term for speaking up as I was 12 years ago?

If a larger group is interested in organizing and learning the facts let me know. I am committed to help.