On Politics

More changes at the Providence Journal as Paul Tooher, the night managing editor, retires. There is an old newspaper chestnut that every young reporter learns quickly: There is always somebody in the newsroom smarter than you are. The other is if your mother tells you she loves you check it out.

Tom Heslin, who oversaw the Providence Journal's Pulitzer-prize winning probe of the state court system in the 1990s, is retiring later this month as executive editor, the paper reports. The move comes after a long and distinguished career encompassing the Journal's glory days.

Heslin, 62, had been on an extended leave of absence for health reasons.

Bob Whitcomb, the ProJo’s witty and intellectual editorial page editor, who is 65, will be stepping down in at  the usual  retirement age for top executives at the newspaper.

Whitcomb does a fine job for many reasons, not the least of which is the wide variety of opinion and subjects that grace the editorial and op-ed pages every day. He is one of those rare ProJo people with a wide background in newspaper editing and reporting; he even served as an editor in Paris with the International Herald Tribune.

Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian today announced that he is moving ahead with plans to renovate the closed Potowomut Elementary School into a fire station to serve the neighborhood.

Avedisian said in a news release that he will ask the city council to use $2 million in bonds for the renovation. The mayor said putting a fire facility in the old school would allow Warwick to end its fire service agreement with the East Greenwich Fire District, which would save Warwick the annual $350,000 payment to East Greenwich.

The leader of efforts to kill straight-ticket voting, Moderate Party founder Ken Block, says opponents of the master lever plan to raise their focus on winning support from House Speaker Gordon Fox and Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed.

“It’s up to the speaker and the Senate president to bring those bills up for a vote in committee to get them to the floor, and now the public pressure begins to mount on both of those offices to do that," Block says. "We’ll be pushing on that very hard over the next month, month and a half.”