On Politics

The Atlantic Hockey blog mentions that the University of Rhode Island is being considered by league brass to replace the University of Connecticut, which is moving its Division 1 hockey team into the Hockey East.

The Atlantic Hockey Conference is known as a stepping stone conference for colleges moving up to Division 1. Quinnipiac, for example, started in Atlantic Hockey and is now a national power that plays in the ECAC conference along with such Ivy League schools as Brown and Yale, which won the national championship a few weeks back over Quinnipiac, Yale’s New Haven neighbor.

Moderate Party founder Ken Block, who has hinted for months about a second run for governor, made it official Tuesday, unveiling a campaign Web site and an announcement:

Former Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey, who had a meteoric rise in Rhode Island politics before losing a Republican primary challenge to then-US Senator Lincoln Chafee in 2006, is headed toward a GOP run for governor in his adopted state of Colorado.

Via KDVR (h/t Kathy Gregg):

Welcome back to my Friday column. Your thoughts and tips are always welcome at idonnis (at) ripr (org), and don't forget to follow me on Twitter. Here we go:

Seth Magaziner, who would add an unabashedly progressive profile to the 2014 campaign season, is considering running for treasurer next year.

UPDATE: Via email, Magaziner confirms that he's looking at the race, adding that he's still early in the process:

Over the past few days, a number of people have encouraged me to run for General Treasurer should the position become open. I haven't made any decisions yet, but am considering the possibility.

The Dynamo House, the century-old onetime Narragansett Electric power station, now sits as a forlorn reminder of what once thrived along Providence’s downtown waterfront.  And as Rhode Island Public Radio political analyst Scott MacKay notes, it now stands as a guard to the old Jewelry District that state and city officials are trying to rebrand as a Knowledge District.

Former state auditor Ernest Almonte has made it official -- after announcing for governor last year and vowing to stay in the race, he's decided to run instead for state treasurer as a Democrat:

Richard Walton was an unforgettable presence for decades in our cozy state. An activist, he was in the forefront of so many campaigns for social justice and peace during his 84 years on this earth that even his friends couldn’t do a full accounting. A graduate of Brown in the 1950s, at a time when most of his WASP classmates went into banking, law or joined the CIA, Richard took the path less traveled. He became a reporter for the Providence Journal, then worked in New York newspapering during the Golden Age of print journalism.

Two of the candidates hoping to succeed Angel Taveras as mayor of Providence have posted Web sites to offer visibility, attract supporters, and raise money.

Council President Michael Solomon's site is called Mike for Providence.

Capellan, an educator in Central Falls and veteran of Providence politics, is a bit more oblique with his eponymous site (although not so much with a background shot of the Providence skyline, including the now-vacant Superman Building).

Rhode Island hasn’t had enough to celebrate lately. RIPR political analyst Scott MacKay brings us an anniversary all Rhode Islanders can take pride in next month.

Three hundred and fifty years ago, Rhode Island struck a blow that would reverberate around the globe when England granted the colony a charter that for the first time in the modern world put in place a government that granted absolute religious freedom to its people.