LETTERS

So, who's to blame?

Posted 4/25/19

To the Editor: I just finished reading the newspaper from last week and think that I am finally understanding the situation. Mayor Solomon has been running all over the city saying that the surplus is not what he was told it would be. The insinuation is

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LETTERS

So, who's to blame?

Posted

To the Editor:

I just finished reading the newspaper from last week and think that I am finally understanding the situation. Mayor Solomon has been running all over the city saying that the surplus is not what he was told it would be. The insinuation is surely that someone stole the money and did something wrong.

But the budget article where Mayor Solomon says that he will have a more transparent process shows what really happened.

They all agree that the surplus was about $22 million as of June 30, 2017. But earlier in June that year, Councilmen Edgar Ladouceur and Steve Merolla led the City Council (which Mayor Solomon was the president of) to amend the budget to take $4.2 million of surplus and raise projected tax collections, which caused another loss of $1.1 million. That means the surplus was now $17 million.

In the June 2018 budget, the council then took another $3.8 million in reserve funds and the same $1.1 million shortfall meaning that the surplus should be somewhere near $12 million.

Seems to me that they want to blame the prior administration when they were the ones making those decisions. Stop playing games.

Chris Allen

Warwick

Chris Allen served as a campaign manager for former mayor Scott Avedisian

Comments

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  • Reality

    Allen is delusional. Avedisian created this fiscal mess but she is in denial. Wasn't Allen the partner of Ed Carpenter who got a $70k custodial position at the police station supervising one person ?

    She is living in fantasy land.

    Thursday, April 25, 2019 Report this

  • Cat2222

    I used to have a coworker that would go on vacation certain times of the year and when someone was covering for them, all the bad management decisions and hiding of mistakes would appear. I would say that all the dead bodies are rising to the top. That is what is happening in Warwick right now.

    There is no way anyone will believe that the financial cliff we are standing on started when Solomon took over for Avedisian. There is mounting proof that the writing was on the wall for the past decade. I wholeheartedly agree that Solomon and those on the council were aware of the looming issues and did nothing to stop it but they were not alone in it. Avedisian and his administration created this mess. The current administration is composed of many of the former administration so it is only fitting that they roll up their sleeves and get down to the hard work necessary to get us out of this hole.

    But please, don't try to insult our intelligence by stating Avedisian had nothing to do with it. We are way past that point.

    Friday, April 26, 2019 Report this

  • Thecaptain

    Cant believe it,

    She is actually living in Florida with Ed Carpenter enjoying his spiked pension for working 3 years as the maintenance supervisor at the Police Dept. Supervisor of 1.

    Friday, April 26, 2019 Report this