hard deadlines

What it looks like when I testify. Photo courtesy Sen. Jeanine Calkin

Just got back from the State House where I testified before the House Labor Committee on Rep. Ken Mendonca's bill H5594 which would freeze the minimum wage for those under 20 at $9.65/hr, no matter what the general assembly does this session. He complained that people were "lighting up his twitter feed," so if any of his Portsmouth constituents are inclined to tweet at @ElectKenRI and provide feedback, you definitely should.

Here's what I said to the committee this evening:

Chair Craven, members of the committee. I’m John McDaid, a retired parent of a 17-year-old from Portsmouth. I’ve worked since I was my son’s age, and a fair minimum wage is important to me and my neighbors in Island Park, an area that committee member Jay Edwards represents.

I speak in opposition to H5594, which would limit employees under 20 years of age to the current minimum wage, no matter what increases other workers receive. This is grossly unfair. I believe in equal pay for equal work. If a 19-year-old is doing the same work as someone just a year older, they deserve to be paid the same rate. I oppose H6052 for similar reasons. The narrow purpose these bills is to deny equal compensation based solely on age. If the general assembly decides to raise the minimum wage, why would it not extend young Rhode Islanders equal protection?

Representative Mendonca’s concern trolling about the impact on jobs is disingenuous. Anyone who has studied the data should know the correlation between minimum wage increases and job loss is tenuous and inconclusive. Included in my written testimony is a study conducted by the National Employment Law Project analyzing 75 years worth of data. Quote: “basic economic indicators show no correlation between federal minimum-wage increases and lower employment levels, even in the industries that are most impacted by higher minimum wages.” I urge the committee to consider all the facts.

As a semi-senior-citizen, I also urge the committee to consider the impact on older workers. This bill tacitly encourages age discrimination. If employers are as motivated by the bottom line as Rep. Mendonca suggests, why wouldn’t they always choose younger workers to get a lower rate?

And as a parent of a child approaching college age, I can tell you I want my kid to get every penny he deserves at his jobs. This committee understands paying for college is no picnic. I want any member of the general assembly who supports for this bill to look my son in the eye and tell him “An hour of your life is worth less than an hour of mine. And I think that is fair.” If this bill passes out of committee, I promise to bring him back and introduce him to you all so you can tell him that personally.

Honestly, I am ashamed that a representative from Portsmouth sponsored this bill, and I urge this committee to treat it with the contempt it deserves. As my 17-year-old would say, “kill it with fire.”

References
National Employment Law Project Summary
National Employment Law ProjectFull report (pdf)

I'll be doing the feature performance at the Sandywoods Center for the Arts in Tiverton, RI, on Tuesday, April 25 at the open mic hosted by Gary Fish. My 40-minute set starts at 8pm (doors open at 7). No cover, BYOB/BYOF (pass the hat). And here's a new song I'll be doing that I wrote for the Rhode Island Songwriters Association (RISA) Songwriters in the Round. It's called (Time to) Face Facts, And it doesn't even invoke Kellyanne Conway (until the fourth verse...) Enjoy!

The Rhode Island Foundation is offering local libraries, schools, municipal agencies and nonprofit groups grants of up to $10,000 to fund proposals that bring people together as a community, the group announced in a release.

“We believe that community is created at the intersection of people, places and traditions. Our goal is to make unique and important things happen that will enliven their communities,” said Jessica David, the Foundation’s senior vice president of strategy and community investments.

Potential uses include improvements to parks and other public spaces, the creative use of art in public spaces and staging programming that invites people to experience community in public spaces.

Priority will be given to proposals that include community support such as matching grants, the participation of volunteers and donated space or other forms of in-kind contributions.

While new initiatives as well as enhancements to ongoing projects are eligible, the grants are intended to support one-time costs and expenses. Projects will not be eligible for renewed support in future years. The deadline to apply is March 31.

This is the second consecutive year the Foundation has offered the Community Grants program. In 2016, the organization awarded grants for bike lanes, walking tours, community gardens and public artwork and historical markers among other projects.

Last year, the Town of Portsmouth received $10,000 to create a dog park in a 2-acre section of Melville Park. An estimated 1,600 dogs are licensed in town.

The Rhode Island Foundation is the largest and most comprehensive funder of nonprofit organizations in Rhode Island. In 2016, the Foundation awarded a record $45 million in grants to organizations addressing the state’s most pressing issues and needs of diverse communities. Through leadership, fundraising and grantmaking activities, often in partnership with individuals and organizations, the Foundation is helping Rhode Island reach its true potential. For more information about the Community Grants program, visit rifoundation.org.

Editorial note: Written from a news release.

Committee meeting at the fire station.

Last night's meeting of the Portsmouth "Citizens Interested in the Comprehensive Planning Process Committee" saw members of this ad-hoc group voice a desire to wrest control of drafting the Town's revised comprehensive plan from Town Planner Gary Crosby.

For much of the 90-minute meeting at the conference room in the fire station, members of the 16-person committee, which was created last April by the Town Council solely to "provide comments and/or input to the Planning Board, Town Planner and the Town Council," expressed frustration at what they perceived as the slow pace of the process and the level of input they were allowed to provide.

Full disclosure: This reporter ran for Town Council against members of this committee (Harding, Kesson, Staven), which voted 11-1 to remove "all references to sea level rise projections" from the first two sections of the comp plan. That they later agreed to revisit that every five years to assess "if sea level is decreasing, increasing, or remains at the predicted level" is not something I find at all reassuring.

The committee's limitations were explicitly laid out during its creation in the minutes of the April 11, 2016 Town Council meeting: "President Hamilton stated that this is a committee to take what Mr. Crosby has drafted, review and they can report back to Mr. Crosby as a group or they can report back to the Planning Board as a group. But again, they do not have any more input that any individual citizen."

Last night, the committee ended up settling for a resolution to send several members to complain to the Town Administrator about what they see as a lack of progress, but their rhetoric during much of the meeting was significantly more grandiose.

Town Councilor and committee member Paul Kesson said, "We haven't got Gary's attention on this one, but three people [could go and] tell him. We want to take this over on our own." Kesson was clear that he understood this was not within the committee's remit: "Way it [this committee] was chartered by Town Council was to review what Gary wrote. You're talking about a coup."

Arguably, Kesson was using a figure of speech, but the positions advanced by other members during the discussion were clearly in line with the desire for a takeover. Currently, they receive the updated document a section at a time and then provide feedback to the Planning Board, which they felt did not offer them enough control over the end product.

"All we can do [now] is comment on the plan," said committee member Fred Marano. "We do not have any authority to say, 'This you haven't touched on.'"

"[We should] Take Gary's outline, go section by section, mark it up however we want. Then hire a consultant," said committee member Conni Harding. "If Gary doesn't have a section ready, we just take charge."

"I almost think we should consider starting over," said member Ann Fiore. "This group should take three comp plans we really like, and maybe we would be best suited to starting something like that."

A comprehensive, or "comp," plan is the overarching framework that controls land use, resource management, and development within a community -- as well as interactions with the State -- and the update of the document is required periodically. While citizen input is encouraged -- in fact, required -- responsibility for creating a town's comp plan is governed by RI General Law 45-22.2-8 (a)(1): "A local planning board or commission has the sole responsibility for performing all those acts necessary to prepare a comprehensive plan for a municipality."

Chair Judi Steven acknowledged "State law says it's the Planning Board's baby," but noted that there was nothing stopping the group from taking action on their own. "We're a citizens' group, we really don't have to go by any pattern," said Staven, "It's not out of the realm of possibility that we would just take the old comp plan and go through it. As a group, we have the right to go before the Planning Board and tell them how we want this to be."

After more than an hour of discussion, the group voted to empower a 4-person working party to "express our dissatisfaction with the current state of the comp plan" to Town Administrator Rich Rainer. They attempted to vote on this in principle and have one of the members provide the language to the chair later via e-mail, but took the time to draft the actual text after a reporter queried about a potential Open Meetings violation.

While the revised comp plan is unlikely to be ready in time to meet the state deadline set for all municipalities — July 1 — Town Planner Gary Crosby said in an e-mail that he believes many towns are in similar situations and that the statewide planning department is most interested in seeing progress toward delivery. As to the pace of the effort, Crosby noted that he and the Planning Board decided to tackle the three most difficult sections first: Services and Facilities, Economic Development, and Housing.

"The first two sections were 'camera ready' with charts and graphs, ready to go to the State," Crosby told harddeadlines. "Housing will be [done in a simpler fashion with] all the recommended elements, stripped down, so we can get them out a little quicker and stay on schedule."

"Housing will be published [for review] this Friday," said Crosby, "And then we'll aim to be back on schedule."