Tagged: Rhode Island

The 2013 edition of the “Rhode Island Government Owner’s Manual” has been published and is ready for pick-up at the Statehouse.

The 300-page directory is published every two years to reflect the results of the November election. It includes contact information for hundreds of officials, including every member of the General Assembly as well as city and town councils.

Cranston Mayor Allan Fung announced an agreement Monday to improve the condition of one of the worst funded municipal pensions in the state.

Fung says the deal will save Cranston $6.5 million in pension costs over the next fiscal year while solving a lingering problem.

“This issue has been an albatross over the city for decades, close to half a century, and this agreement shows the progress that can be made when all parties come together in a spirit of cooperation,” said Fung.

A bill has been introduced in the Rhode Island House to form a Freshman Caucus. It’s sponsored by newly elected Representative John Lombardi of Providence.

He says 21 percent of the chamber is now made up of either first-time elected officials or those returning after a hiatus. The new, he says, can sometimes get lost in the not-so-new. 

As proposed in the Lombardi bill, after the Freshman Caucus has served for two consecutive sessions it would be dissolved and a new Freshman Caucus would be formed from among the then newly-elected members.

It’s been a little over three weeks since Brown University philosophy major Sunil “Sunny” Tripathi disappeared. His family has posted an online video in hopes of reaching out to him.

The video, which will be posted on Facebook, contains messages of love from Sunny Tripathi’s family, who remain in Providence looking for him.  The missing man’s brother, Ravi Tripathi, says the hope is that Sunny will see it and come home.

The number two man at the Rhode Island State Police is retiring next week. Deputy Superintendent Raymond Studley is stepping down after 22 years on the job.

His future with the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority is unclear.  Studley has been running RIPTA since last summer, when a camera was found covered over in a room where money is counted. 

RIPTA board chairman Scott Avedisian says no decision has been made on whether the agency will retain Studley. His title at RIPTA is interim CEO.