hard deadlines

For the first time in history, Portsmouth, RI has achieved the highly acclaimed triple-A rating following a review by Standard & Poor's Rating Services on the Town's outstanding general obligation bonds and long-term rating, according to a news release distributed this afternoon by John Klimm, the Town Administrator.

In the release, Town Council President Jim Seveney said, "This is particularly rewarding given the financial challenges we have faced the last few years and is affirmation that the Town is moving in the right direction. The AAA rating reflects our absolute commitment to honor our fiduciary responsibility to our residents and taxpayers and is a reflection of the hard work of our Town and school leaders over the last two years."

S&P credit analyst Timothy Little is quoted as saying, "The stable outlook reflects our view that management will remain proactive and make the necessary adjustments to produce at least balanced operations as it has demonstrated while adding to available general fund reserves." Little goes on to say, "We do not expect to change the rating within the two-year outlook horizon."

"The basis for the rating upgrade was attributed in part to our strong management, financial policies, and our consistent ability to maintain balanced budgets while increasing our fund balance," Klimm said.

the AAA rating is the highest a community can receive, and reflects the Town's sound financial management, according to the release. Only a small percentage of communities throughout the United States have an AAA rating. Portsmouth becomes only the second RI community to obtain an AAA rating. In nearby Massachusetts, only 29 of the 351 communities have an AAA rating.

A Triple-A rating has a direct and positive impact on the Town's residents. Funds borrowed carry a much lower interest rate due to the AAA rating. Jim Lathrop, the Town's Finance Director, said, "This is Portsmouth's financial report card, and it is nothing but A's. It is gratifying to work for a community that takes its financial health seriously."

Editorial note: Written (with glee) from a press release.

Slurry wall at the World Trade Center; you can read the story behind it here.

Previous posts here.

Bristol County DA Sam Sutter holds a copy of Bill McKibben's article. Photo credit: Peter Bowden.

In one of the most delightfully unexpected twists in a US courtroom since Miracle on 34th Street, the Bristol County District Attorney, Sam Sutter, dropped criminal charges against two men who had used a lobster boat to block a coal shipment at the Brayton Point power station and promised to join them at the People's Climate March in New York in two weeks.

"Political leadership on this issue has been gravely lacking," Sutter said, in video taken at the press conference this morning outside the Fall River District Court where he announced the deal which dropped the criminal charges in favor of civil infractions with restitution to the towns affected. Sutter went on to say that he was pleased to have reached an agreement that "symbolizes our commitment at the Bristol County District Attorney's office to take a leadership role on this issue."

"I certainly will be in New York in two weeks," he said. He showed the assembled media a copy of Rolling Stone featuring an article by climate activist Bill McKibben urging people to attend the People's Climate March on September 21.

This afternoon, the Better Future Project, which had been organizing support for the two climate activists through the web site Lobster Boat Blockade.org, sent a release to media with the background and responses from the two men.

In May 2013, Ken Ward and Jay O’Hara used a small white lobster boat, the Henry David T, to block a shipment of 40,000 tons of coal to the Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset, MA, the largest coal plant in New England. They were charged with conspiracy, disturbing the peace and motor vessel violations and faced up to several years in jail.

Ken and Jay had sought to become the first American climate activists to use a “necessity defense”, arguing that the blockade was necessary in light of the imminent threat of climate change. They had planned to call former NASA climatologist James Hansen and environmentalist Bill McKibben to the stand as expert witnesses.

“The truth is that taking these sorts of actions is necessary in light of the drastic news that continues to be described by the science. This decision by the District Attorney is an admission that the political and economic system isn’t taking the climate crisis seriously, and that it falls to ordinary citizens, especially people of faith, to stand up and take action to avert catastrophe,” said Jay O'Hara, a Quaker.

“By dropping the criminal charges against us and stating that ‘political leadership on this [climate] issue has been gravely lacking,’ DA Sutter in effect accepted our necessity defense. The climate crisis is so terrible and so fast that it overwhelms ordinary political avenues. Even now, as the West Antarctic ice shelf is in unstoppable collapse, the Brayton Point plant is increasing the amount of coal it burns. Protest works, indeed protest maybe the only thing that can save us,” said Ken Ward.

Ken and Jay’s blockade sparked a summer of action at the Brayton Point, including the arrest of 44 people at the gates of the plant in July 2013. Last fall, the owners announced the closure of Brayton Point in 2017.

Editorial note: Written from a press release.

Photo: Reed.Senate.gov

In a meeting at his Cranston office this afternoon, RI Sen. Jack Reed expressed unequivocal support for net neutrality to a group organized by Demand Progress.

"We need net neutrality," Reed said to the half-dozen constituents from around the state.

Reed first invited the group to share their perspectives, and the common theme was a concern that the FCC needs to take action once the period for comments on their proposed rule making ends on Sept. 10. Attendees included a librarian, an educator, a technology consultant, a musician, an activist, and a journalist, and everyone had a personal story about how the Rhode Islanders they work with would be impacted by a two-tiered Internet — the so-called "Fast Lanes" for access that could result if this year's Verizon v. FCC ruling prevents strong FCC regulation.

Reed acknowledged their concerns, and reiterated several times during the meeting that for him, "The objective is net neutrality." He compared the risk of pay-to-play fast lanes to the informational advantages sought by traders on Wall Street described in Michael Lewis's recent book Flash Boys.

Reed deferred judgement on the correct approach to achieve a level playing field — whether to push the FCC to reclassify broadband as a common carrie under Title II or see if they could craft rules under Section 706 that would survive the kind of legal challenge Verizon mounted. The regulatory issues, he noted, are complex. "We owe it to get the analysis on the table," he said, "and then make a judgement."

"They [the FCC] might even come back to us for legislation," he said.

The question of how best to implement rules that strike the appropriate balance between regulatory burden and public interest is one of the central questions in the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

A group of online activist organizations, including Demand Progress, are planning an online day of action on Sept. 10, where web sites will put up simulated "loading" images to show the possible impact of a two-tiered Internet. Major sites — including Etsy, Kickstarter, Foursquare, Wordpress, Vimeo, reddit, Mozilla, Imgur, Meetup, Cheezburger, Namecheap, Bittorrent, Gandi.net, StartPage, BoingBoing, and Dwolla — will be among those displaying the dreaded spinning load icon, according to a press release from the organizers.

Full disclosure: As is probably apparent, I was the journalist at the meeting, and want to thank Sen. Reed for meeting with us and for his support of an open Internet. Oh, and come next Wednesday, you'll see that spinning icon on this site too.