A candidate worth considering
Sue Anderbois: I made that decision this past
fall after a lot of thought. It was a lot of wrestling with where I can be most
effective. It’s a chaotic time, Steve. In Rhode Island, we have so many
enormous problems. I honestly love my time on the Providence City
Council. I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot and feel positive about what
I’ve achieved. Most days, I’d say it’s the best job I’ve ever had. It was a
hard decision to run for Lieutenant Governor and give up my seat, which I’ve
never taken for granted. Elections are important. I was not concerned about
reelection because I’ve delivered a lot for my constituents, but if someone ran
against me, I would welcome it. That’s democracy.
I was trying to decide whether to run for reelection or do
something else. Am I going to do none of this? I had a great day job that I
loved, and I got a big promotion. I was traveling a lot for work. I talked with
a lot of folk, asking, “How can I be most effective?” And the one thing that
came up was the real opportunity in the lieutenant governor’s office. There,
someone can lead without authority, because there aren’t very many statutory
requirements for that job.
The job allows you to say, “This is an important thing, a
hairy topic that we need to dig in on. We need to bring people to the table. We
need to know how to work the legislature. We need to know how to work with the
administration. We need to know how to bring in the community.” The job has
room to solve some things. And honestly, my main skill in life is blowing
things up, taking a larger view, and asking, “What is this? Transportation is
never roads and bridges. How do we access healthcare? How do we access food and
tourism?” It’s like all the things.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I had my own conversation with Sue, though hardly as long and in depth as Steve's. I was very impressed with her and think she's worthy of support. You should read Steve's extended interview below. Though the office of Lieutenant Governor is often thought of as an almost useless position (current LT Sabrina Matos and her predecessor Dan McKee are good examples of that type), it can also be a productive one. Charlie Fogarty showed that during his 1999-2007 term as did his successor Liz Roberts when she served from 2007-2015. It takes the right person. - Will Collette
So when I asked, “Where could be most effective? What’s my real skill?” It’s that. I talked with a few of my colleagues on council because we have a small but mighty progressive majority, and I didn’t want to leave them. I love my colleagues. We have some great people on council, and we work well together. So I talked with a few of them before deciding, and they said, “We love working with you on council, but we’ll support anything you do because we have your back, because you have our back in Rhode Island.” It was a hard decision.
I remember talking to my best friend about it. She said, “My
priority is Sue Anderbois. Your priority seems to be the State of Rhode Island,
but I want you to figure out what is the best decision for you.” By the end of
our week together, she said, “You have to do this. You’re going to regret it if
you don’t, because you’re going to see stuff not happening and you’re going to
be like, Oh my God!”
Steve Ahlquist: Once you had that vision, you
had to give your best shot.
Sue Anderbois: My whole thing, and it’s tattooed
on my arm, is “What are you going to do about it?”
We have so many big challenges. I won’t feel good if I don’t
try to do something. I hope I get to do this. I’m working hard. I’m meeting
folks across the state, but also, if it doesn’t happen, I will find another
unique way to contribute. I will be able to have some awesome job, I’m sure.
Steve Ahlquist: Not that you’re planning for
failure.
We know there are only a few things that a lieutenant
government has to do.
Sue Anderbois: There are three task forces—the
committees for long-term care, small business, and emergency management.
Steve Ahlquist: And also, if the governor were
to step down, you would become governor - temporarily or permanently. That
hasn’t happened often, but our current governor benefited from that.
One of the things that needs to be asked of a candidate for
lieutenant governor is, are you ready to be governor? That’s a big step.
Sue Anderbois: This is how I feel about it: you
want someone ready for that if it happens, who has the temperament and the
vision, who knows how government works, who has the stamina, who’s ready to
lead on day one, and who isn’t distracted by that. I’m not doing this to get
that job. Hopefully, our elections work out, and we have the people who are
supposed to be in those positions. But the lieutenant governor should be ready
for that on day one.
And I know I would be ready if that were the case. I have
extensive experience in government. I have a lot of experience as a legislator,
working with legislators, and working in the administration, but being the
governor is not the job I’m applying for.
Steve Ahlquist: Past lieutenant governors have
headed up, for instance, healthcare initiatives, and Governor McKee has talked
about his work on energy choice, for whatever that’s worth (and I don’t think
it’s worth much), but this job can be more than a bully pulpit.
Where do you see yourself?
Sue Anderbois: That’s one of the parts I’m most
excited about. I am excited about the three task forces, because, not to be a
super nerd, but I rock a government task force.
Steve Ahlquist: I know you do.
Sue Anderbois: But there are these hairy issues
that we need leadership on. Two things I’d be excited to work on: One is this
question of energy. Right now, we’re seeing wild fluctuations, mostly on an
upward trend, in our energy prices and the solutions being offered to us in
Rhode Island - and this is not unique, this is happening in other states - are
to cut our commitments to clean energy, which is the exact opposite of what we
should be doing. If you talk to any expert in energy policy, or look at what’s
actually driving energy cost increases, it’s our spending on the distribution
and transmission system, which, not coincidentally, is where the utility makes
its money.
That’s not to say there shouldn’t be spending in those
areas, but how are they spending, and what’s the plan? We haven’t had an energy
plan in Rhode Island since 2015. It was written by Danny Musher,
who’s amazing, when Marian Gold was energy commissioner, an
awesome team. Had we implemented that plan, we’d be in a much better place than
we are now. We have so many amazing experts on these issues, both in Rhode
Island and in our surrounding area. One of my neighbors, Rich Sedano,
used to run a thing called the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP).
They work with Public Utility Commissioners across the country and their
equivalents worldwide on these types of issues. We should be leveraging that
kind of expertise. He lives half a mile away. Sam Ross, who’s my
constituent, works for Dutsky Energy Consulting and has done
some great research and analysis around energy rates. We have expertise here,
and we’re not using it.
I’d love to bring these folks together and ask, “What is our
energy plan? How do we work across the agencies?” We’ve got the Office
of Energy Resources, PUC, and the Division of Public Utilities and
Carriers, but we’ve also got all this greatness across the state. We have
to meet our clean energy goals. That’s not an if, that’s a “we have to” because
climate change is real and affecting all of us. That is an unfortunate reality
I wish weren’t true, but it is. So we have to meet those energy goals, and we
can do it in a way that stabilizes our rates and helps us to invest, but we
also need to do it in a smart way. We can’t build out a ton of clean energy
without modernizing the grid and building out battery storage. We have to be
smart about it.
It’s a matter of having a vision. I get frustrated by
“government by press release” and going after the shiny thing in a way that
won’t actually solve anything, but will make people feel good for a minute.
You’ve actually got to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work.
People know when they’re being BS’d. Rhode Islanders are
smart. Our neighbors are smart. I mean, this happens at the city level when
press releases go out. I’ll get calls or emails from neighbors saying, “This
doesn’t seem quite right.” People know. People want us to be honest. These are
hard problems, but we can solve them.
Some problems aren’t that hard to solve, like the Rhode
Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA). Another area I’d love
to work on as Lieutenant Governor is transportation. For lack of like $15
million, we’ve made drastic, draconian cuts to RIPTA. RIPTA staff and planners
are brilliant.
Steve Ahlquist: Among the top in the country.
Sue Anderbois: 100%. They know how to do this
work. They know how to manage RIPTA. They have ideas for how to make it work
better, but if you strip them of their resources, you get what you get, and
it’s what we have.
Steve Ahlquist: RIPTA has been cash-strapped for
so long, and they’re so smart, they’ve made it work. Imagine if they had
adequate funding.
Sue Anderbois: And RIPTA would actually start to
make money because, as the system gets bled, fewer people use it, and there’s
less money going into the system. It’s a downward spiral. But it could be an
upward spiral.
Steve Ahlquist: With all the people who claim to
understand business in Rhode Island politics, you would think they’d understand
how death spirals work. If you’re not expanding, you’re shrinking. I could not
fathom the recent RIPTA cuts.
Sue Anderbois: We heard this when Hasbro decided
to leave. “Our workers want to live in a place where they can get around via
public transit,” and as a state, we were offering them new facilities or tax
breaks. Hasbro was like, “Please give us functioning transit.”
Steve Ahlquist: Governor McKee offered them a
document saying that Rhode Island doesn’t have a millionaire’s tax as
Massachusetts does. And Hasbro’s like, “Yeah, we’re going to Massachusetts.”
The company wants to hire young hip people, and young people want high-quality
public transit, bikeability, and good public schools.
Sue Anderbois: Not to keep harping on transit,
but folks in Newport are saying, “We would love to come to Providence, go
to PPAC or Trinity, but by the time we drive up
there (and let’s not talk about the bridge, but the bridge traffic is real)...
They don’t want to drive up here, but then, the buses don’t take you at the end
of the night, so you can’t get home. And it’s the same in the reverse. I would
love to hang out more in Newport. I have a lot of friends who would love to go
to Newport on the regular. There are great restaurants and cool tourist spots,
but if you go at night, you have a 45-minute drive at 10 pm.
Steve Ahlquist: And if you’re out and you want
to have a couple of drinks or something, you shouldn’t be driving home.
Sue Anderbois: We’ve got amazing bars and
restaurants, and you don’t always want to have to drive afterwards.
Before Rhode Island, I lived in San Francisco and in
Mountain View. You could easily get around by Muni, Bart, Kick
Scooter, and all the other things. You could have a drink and get home
easily. It wasn’t a big deal. Then there’s the proliferation of parking, which
makes all the development more expensive. It becomes these compounding things
because we’re not looking at it holistically.
Even healthcare is more expensive because we need to pay for
folks to use Uber or Lyft to get to their
appointments, since they can’t take the bus. We’re not thinking about the
bigger picture. We see it as a line item, but it impacts so many other line
items. When we look at things in these tiny little chunks, we’re not
understanding the wraparound effects.
Steve Ahlquist: We knew as a state that the
changes we made to paratransit a few years ago were going to be a problem. We
did it anyway, and it was a huge problem. We’re still dealing with some of the
fallout from that. People could have died, and maybe some did, because their
medical appointments were suddenly so much more difficult.
We spent all that money putting a train stop at the airport,
and I have never been able to use it because the timing doesn’t work. It stops
there like twice a day? If I’m on the first flight out of Green, I can’t use
public transportation to get there. I’ve used the bus to get home from the
airport once or twice, and it took forever because there’s no direct route
downtown. It snakes its way through. So I get all the way home, and then it’s
like 45 minutes on the bus to get to downtown.
Sue Anderbois: As opposed to a 15-minute drive.
The incentive to use public transportation isn’t there.
Steve Ahlquist: Right.
Sue Anderbois: People are going to be surprised
when they visit for the World Cup. I visited my best friend this
fall. She lives in Madrid. We flew into Madrid and took the train straight to
her apartment. So easy. When the World Cup comes to the Boston/Providence area,
a lot of international travelers are going to be shocked by how hard it is to
get around here. In so many other places, you get to the airport, and you hop
on the train. In San Francisco, you hop on the BART to get around.
Steve Ahlquist: We’re planning extra shuttle
buses. We won’t do it for ourselves, but we’ll do it for World Cup travelers,
at least for a couple of weeks. Why can’t we have nice things?
Sue Anderbois: But we could have nice things.
Government could be something good. We know what to do, and the good news is,
we can do it. Even on climate change, we know what to do. We have millions of
dollars’ worth of state-level studies that lay out the action steps. We have to
do it like my work on North Main Street. We’ve known what to do
there for like 20 years. There are studies every five years. You need to
actually do it.
Steve Ahlquist: Think about all the RIPTA
efficiency studies...
Sue Anderbois: So many...
Steve Ahlquist: The people asking for these
studies keep hoping for a different result. They want to show that RIPTA is
inefficient, and the studies keep coming back: RIPTA is efficient. It’s great.
But that’s not the answer they want.
Sue Anderbois: I saw that Senator Samuel
Zurier is requesting an efficiency study of RIDOT.
Steve Ahlquist: That’s excellent. It made me
laugh.
Sue Anderbois: I’m pretty excited, now that
there’s new leadership at RIDOT.
Steve Ahlquist: I’m not so sure. The governor’s
still in charge of it. That’s where we need a change in leadership.
That’s an interesting question: From the point of view of
being lieutenant governor, you might have a preference for who the governor is,
but you’ll have to work with whoever wins...
Sue Anderbois: One of the best things about
being Lieutenant Governor is that the office is independent. Hopefully, I can
work with the governor, whoever it is, but if not, you can go around them.
You’re not required to be their right-hand girl. You could have your own
thoughts and opinions.
Steve Ahlquist: Governor McKee attempted a
closer relationship with Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos, but to
me, and I don’t have any inside information, it seems that Lieutenant Governor
Matos is distancing herself from him somewhat. Maybe that’s better for her
political ambitions. I probably shouldn’t speculate. Maybe I’ll cut that out.
[I didn’t.]
You’re running against Sabina Matos, the incumbent
lieutenant governor. Governor McKee recently said that primarying elected
officials is “disgraceful,”
but putting that aside, where has Lieutenant Governor Matos dropped the ball?
Where has she not been doing the work?
Sue Anderbois: That’s a good question. And to
disagree with our current governor, I don’t think it’s disgraceful to run
against an incumbent. As elected people, we are given terms, and at the end of
that term, there’s a job evaluation from our constituents, who are also our
bosses. In my regular job, I would receive an annual evaluation in which my
boss and my team weigh in on my performance.
If someone had run against me while I was running for
reelection, that’s part of the process. I would have said, “This is great.” I
probably wouldn’t have loved it, but I would have welcomed it because that’s
democracy. I’ve actually sent the link to the Board of Elections to
people when they say to me, “I would have made a different decision.” I reply,
“You are welcome to make a different decision. I’m going to listen to
everybody’s opinions and make the best decisions I can in the interest of this
neighborhood and this ward. But if you would do it differently and you’d like a
shot, you’re welcome to run.” That’s what this process is, and that’s one of
the beauties of our democracy.
I have a different vision for the Lieutenant Governor’s
office and what it could be. I think our current lieutenant governor is a
wonderful person. She has also served on the council, though we never served
together. She left before I joined. I have a strong track record of turning big
ideas into concrete actions that set me apart from the other folks in this
race. It’s great to say, “Here are some big things we need to address.” It’s
different to say, “And then I rolled up my sleeves, and I did those things.”
I’ve been sticking my neck out as a councilperson and as an
advocate. I was the Director of Food Strategy under Governor Raimondo. I’ve
done the hard, gritty work on things like making North Main Street safer, and I
will stick my neck out on necessary but unpopular policy decisions. I’ll also
bring people to the table to ask, “What is the right way to do this?” These are
messy problems. We’re making decisions, but everything’s gooey and gray. Very
few things are black and white.
That sets me apart. I have a different vision and goal for
what that office can achieve. I have extensive experience in the
high-functioning Raimondo Administration, and I’m an effective legislator. I
have a track record of stepping into a leadership void in a pretty unique way.
I’m going to do it differently. I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t feel I had a
lane and that people were ready for change and for folks with new ideas,
enthusiasm, and a track record.
Steve Ahlquist: You are one of the
hardest-working and most enthusiastic public servants I know. I’ve always
respected your work. Another candidate who announced is Newport City
Councilor Xay Khamsyvoravong, whom I know a bit from his work on
the Providence Water Board and his short tenure as Mayor of
Newport. He’s a capable administrator.
Sue Anderbois: I watched his work when he was
the Mayor of Newport. I bring a different kind of energy to the role. I have a
vision for where the state could go, and the bureaucratic ability to get it
done. We’re pretty different people in terms of our energy.
For me, politics has been about getting things done, and I
see this approach as the most effective way to do so. If something else were
the most effective approach, I would go with that. At a protest, I saw a sign
that said, “It’s so bad even introverts are getting in.” I felt that very
deeply.
Steve Ahlquist: Same.
Sue Anderbois: There’s a different version of
the world where I’m reading books and drinking tea at night...
Steve Ahlquist: I tell people, there’s another
world where I’m reviewing comics online. But I live in this one.
Sue Anderbois: I helped the City Council pass an
ordinance requiring all municipal buildings to be carbon neutral by 2040, which
I was very proud of. I remember negotiating that with the unions, and at one
point, someone suggested pushing the dates back, and I was like, “Look, the
science is the science. We have to fix climate change in the amount of time we
have.” I would prefer to be a baker. This was not the career I had planned for
myself.
Steve Ahlquist: I get it.
Sue Anderbois: But the world is the world, so we
are here trying to figure out how we’re going to decarbonize our buildings, and
we have to do it within the timeframe the science tells us we need to. We’re
going to do it as cost-effectively as possible because it’s going to be great
for the kids. They’re going to breathe better air. They’re not going to be
breathing natural gas fumes in their schools.
Steve Ahlquist: Do you consider yourself an
organizer?
Sue Anderbois: I never did, but that’s what I
am, because I’m a good team manager. I’ll see who needs to be at the table and
figure out their roles. This is going to sound hokey, but one of the things I
love is seeing what’s great about people and helping them leverage it. When
I’ve managed teams, I ask, “What is your superpower and how do we help you
leverage it?” So yeah, that’s organizing. The thing about a lot of this work is
there’s no one right answer. There are a lot of big problems and gooey gray
answers.
Steve Ahlquist: A lot of different things could
be the solution. It’s a matter of focusing on one. You have to make a choice.
They might be equally good, or one might be slightly better, but you won’t know
until you get there.
Sue Anderbois: Until you do it. And a lot of
that is bringing the right people to the table and asking, “What am I not
thinking of?” Earlier in my career, I worked at the Northeast Clean
Energy Council. We represented clean energy businesses, and we were working
on net metering policy and the renewable energy standard back in 2015. And it
was funny, later, when working at The Nature Conservancy, that I
realized, after the fact, “Oh, the group we weren’t talking to were the folks
who understood land use.”
It’s important to ask, “Who’s not at the table? What’s going
to make this not work?” We need to talk to the people who are going to oppose
it, because that’ll make this work better if we understand who it’ll affect.
That’s how I’ve tried to approach legislation, even on controversial issues.
For instance, I introduced legislation to phase out gas leaf blowers, which our
neighbors wanted but landscapers did not. I sat with the landscapers. They came
and testified in opposition, and I sat with them because they’re good people
running small businesses in our state.
Steve Ahlquist: Absolutely.
Sue Anderbois: And I was like, “I do not want to
put you out of business. That is not the goal. The goal is to reduce the use of
leaf blowers, which are bad for the environment. My neighbors complain about
the sound. How do we move away from them, and what is an appropriate timeline?
What’s wrong with how we did this ordinance that would make your life better?”
Obviously, they answered, “Don’t do the ordinance.” But I
pushed. If it’s a given that this passes, how can we amend it? I took like
three or four of their amendments: modifying how fines are assessed, more
clearly defining leaf blowers, and starting with a seasonal phase-out because
they were concerned that electric leaf blowers aren’t strong enough for heavy,
wet leaves in the fall. I said, “Okay! You can use them in that time period,
but not the rest of the year.” We adjusted because it’s not about “I’m right,
you’re wrong.” We’re trying to solve some weird, hard problems.
Steve Ahlquist: If I’m a small business and I
bought five new leaf blowers, and then the city outlawed them, I could be out
thousands of dollars...
Sue Anderbois: Not to talk about leaf blowers
forever - but we included an eight-year window for the phase-out to be
completed because gas-powered leaf blowers tend to last about eight years.
Steve Ahlquist: That can be frustrating for me,
because I want immediate solutions. Eight years? I’m going to be 71! My dad was
a firefighter, and I have this idea that if there’s something to do, you do it
now.
Sue Anderbois: In eight years, I’ll be 50. I
don’t want to wait either. That said, we’re now seeing a couple of all-electric
landscaping companies looking at Providence. That helps other cities and towns
look at how they can do it too. Would I have preferred a two- or three-year
phase-out? Yeah, that would be awesome. But would we have been able to enforce
that? 0%.
Steve Ahlquist: Honestly, enforcement’s going to
be hard anyway because I don’t know how many police officers are going to be
out giving tickets to leaf blowers. However, selective enforcement is a whole
different issue.
Enough on leaf-blowers. I want to go back to something we
touched on: Governor McKee’s effort to pull back from our energy goals. Much of
this is due to President Donald Trump’s attack on renewables
and Revolution Wind. The governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island
were on a dock in Connecticut after the first time the courts declared Trump’s
work stoppage illegal, and basically said, “We are listening to the Trump
Administration and we’re adopting an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy, which
meant more pipelines, more fossil fuels, possibly nuclear, and less wind and
solar. Governor McKee specifically
said we don’t have a pipeline in Rhode Island.1
In January, the Governor released his budget, and he’s
pulling back from our 2021 Act on Climate goals. I wanted to
get your impression on that because I know you’ve been active in this.
Sue Anderbois: That’s my background. It’s hard
to see these attempts to roll back our efforts, since I worked on many of these
policies as an advocate. I submitted comments to the House and Senate Finance
Committees in my capacity as a council member because my concern, beyond
climate change, is that these rollbacks don’t make financial sense. The reasons
the governor is giving for a lot of these rollbacks are things like bill
savings, and I don’t think it adds up because, again, he’s not looking at it
holistically. If we’re going to cut energy efficiency, which is wild because
energy efficiency is the most cost-effective program we have...
Steve Ahlquist: ... the kilowatt hours we don’t
use...
Sue Anderbois: Yeah. Energy efficiency always
pays off in bill savings for folks who participate, and it pays off in bill
savings for folks who don’t participate, because when we lower energy use
across the whole system, we’re not buying the most expensive peaker-plant
energy, which is what drives a lot of our costs. We don’t have to invest in new
infrastructure because we’re using energy more efficiently. We’re saving money
and keeping our usage pretty flat. And beyond all the actual energy savings,
we’re creating thousands of jobs every year, local jobs you cannot outsource.
It’s people coming into your homes to install insulation in your walls and
replace your light bulbs. It’s very physical, in-person stuff that’s not
getting outsourced. It’s not becoming AI. It’s actual humans with jobs.
That is shortsighted. A number of the governor’s ideas won’t
reduce our bills; they’ll put us on a path to more expensive energy use going
forward. Let’s say we stop investing in renewable energy as a state; both
renewable and fossil energy require infrastructure to exist. You need to build
a fossil-fuel plant or a solar plant. Once you build those facilities, one of
them needs an expensive fuel that’s volatile in price, and the other does not.
We sometimes compare the cost of building solar to the
fluctuating price of natural gas, and we forget all the infrastructure you need
to support natural gas. We don’t compare apples to apples when we’re comparing
price, and that’s wild to me. Then we make these decisions that lock us in. So
let’s say we do disinvest in clean energy because we’re a little worried about
a line item on the bill. What we’re going to see is the distribution and
transmission rates skyrocket because we’re going to need to build new pipelines
to bring more natural gas into Rhode Island.
We have pipelines now. A lot of our electricity is generated
by natural gas, and our heating and cooling are still powered by it. We’re at
the end of the pipeline. Folks might remember that around ten years ago, there
was a big discussion about expanding pipelines. It’s simple supply-and-demand
economics. We’re at the mercy of natural gas prices, which fluctuate due to
factors like the War in Ukraine. And our bombing of Iran isn’t going to help
any of this...
Steve Ahlquist: It’s already hurting us.
Sue Anderbois: Building pipelines is incredibly
expensive. If we think that a minor charge for a renewable energy program is
expensive, wait until we’re building a $2 billion pipeline that Rhode Island
has to pay for. That’s insane.
The other thing that’s harmful about these proposals is that
they’re distracting people from the first rate case to be opened in six or
seven years at the Public Utilities Commission.
Steve Ahlquist: And it’s a full rate case,
right?
Sue Anderbois: It’s the first one they’ve had
since Rhode Island Energy bought the utility. While everyone
is focused on the governor’s budget, all the distribution and transmission
charges are proposed to go way up! If we scale back on renewables now and don’t
pay attention to this, we’re in for, like, crazy increases.
Steve Ahlquist: I should be on this story.
Sue Anderbois: There’s too much going on. We’re
so focused on the governor’s budget and preventing those rollbacks that people
don’t have the bandwidth to focus on the PUC.
I’m hoping the Attorney General gets involved.
I’m worried that the governor’s budget proposal is going to
be really bad for costs. Even if I didn’t care about climate change - set that
aside - we’re going to set ourselves on a path that, once we’ve invested in
this infrastructure, we’ll be stuck with the bill for the life of that
infrastructure. It feels like we’re saying, “Trump punched us in the eye, we’re
going to punch ourselves in the nose.” Why would we do that?
Steve Ahlquist: The Governor’s on the phone with
Trump’s energy secretary, thinking he can negotiate to save Revolution Wind, as
if he can trust them. After winning the court case and talking about a
compromise with the Administration, Trump shut down the project a second time!
What else should we talk about?
Sue Anderbois: I am excited about the three task
forces led by the lieutenant governor’s office.
Steve Ahlquist: Let’s talk about that.
Sue Anderbois: The topics are incredibly
important. We have a healthcare crisis in this country and in this state, so
the long-term care work is so important.
Small businesses are the backbone of the Rhode Island
economy, yet we spend a lot of time thinking about how to attract big
companies. I currently represent the neighborhood along Hope Street,
a successful commercial corridor where we’re sitting right now. The owners of
these small businesses also live in the neighborhood.
Steve Ahlquist: Aside from CVS and
the banks, they’re all local businesses.
Sue Anderbois: A lot of these folks live within
walking distance of their shops, they care about this community, and they’re
investing in the neighborhood. How do we invest in these types of businesses
and reduce the barriers they might face? That’s investing in Rhode Island.
The third task force is about emergency management. I have
some background in that in a few ways. I was the council person assigned to
update our emergency preparedness plan, which we redo every five years. Clara
Decerbo serves as the Director of the Providence Emergency
Management Agency (PEMA), and we should be so grateful that
Clara works for the city. I worry every day that she’s going to get stolen by
another state. She’s a top emergency management professional in the country,
and we somehow have her at PEMA - I do not know how - and I’m very grateful for
her. She’s got this tiny little team that punches like a million times above
their weight.
Then, at The Nature Conservancy, I worked with every single
city and town on climate and resilience planning. In doing so, I’ve read their
hazard mitigation plans and comprehensive plans, and I have the view that much
of this work happens at the municipal level. I understand who’s making
decisions and how the different structures of our communities are affected by
flooding, major storms, and other types of events like that. We’re in some real
trouble because of the dismantling of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), the lack of preparedness funding, and the lack
of funding for resilience infrastructure. The Emergency Management
Assistance Compact (EMAC) is the body that the lieutenant
governor oversees. It provides the kind of coordination and preparation that
will be so key.
We’ve seen places we need to work on, like when we had
the Brown University shooting a couple of months ago, there
were breakdowns in communications that we need to be addressing. The shooter
was walking around the neighborhood, walking to his car, and folks did not know
he was in the neighborhood. I got a notification - not as a city council person
- I got it because my husband’s faculty at Brown. That’s how I initially found
out about the shooting, and then I called my colleagues. We need strong
leadership to bring communities together and address some of these challenges.
With the dismantling of FEMA and the distrust we have in our federal
government, we need to be better organized.
Steve Ahlquist: If something were to happen, we
can’t rely on the idea that Trump will send aid.
Sue Anderbois: So much happens at the municipal
level. The state needs to know how to support that work. I’ve been a municipal
legislator, someone who has worked with all the cities and towns and
understands how many of their structures work, how different and under-resourced
they are.
The other thing that gets me excited about these task
forces, besides their topics, is that, as I said earlier, I’m such a nerd and I
love a good government task force. We can get some stuff done. It leverages one
of our big strengths in Rhode Island, which is our people and how brilliant we
are, and how much people want to engage and help. These task forces can go one
of two ways: They can be super boring meetings where someone reads a PowerPoint
to you, and everyone is texting on their phones, nobody’s engaged, and they’re
there because they have to be. These are expensive meetings with high-level
people where nobody’s paying attention, and then, after an hour’s up, they look
at their watches and leave. Nothing gets done. Everyone’s a little more frustrated
than when they started, and they’re not looking forward to the next one.
But it could be different. You can ask yourself, “Why did we
create this body?” The legislature created these three task forces for a
purpose. All were created when Charlie Fogarty was lieutenant governor. What
are we trying to achieve? What are the goals? How do we leverage these smart
people to make progress at every meeting?
That’s like how I’ve run task forces. I have my North Main
Street task force, and I feel like we’re getting some stuff done.
Steve Ahlquist: The meetings are more
interesting than most.
Sue Anderbois: Thanks. We try to leverage the
fact that we have great people around the table. We chose who would be there.
We ask hard questions. “If we make this change, what does that do for you,
RIPTA? If we change this lighting structure, who owns these lights?”
We were changing the timing of the crosswalks so that people
had a human amount of time to cross the street, and that has follow-on effects:
for example, the R-Line bus needs to move at a certain speed to be rapid
transit, so we have to talk to each other. That’s how I work with a task force.
“Who needs to be part of this conversation? How do we get things done?” Then,
people want to keep coming back because there’s progress. At an early meeting,
we learned that lighting was a problem. A local business owner brought it up to
me, and then the Providence Streets Coalition did a little
study, and then the group that runs the city’s lighting did another little
study to better understand. I kept saying, “We need money for lighting,” and
found half a million dollars to invest in new lighting across the whole
corridor.
We’re doing the things that come up, and that’s part of the
team organizing I do. I never hold a meeting to hold a meeting. We hold a
meeting when there’s something to discuss and something to do. I’m excited
about these three task forces because, as I talk to folks around the state,
they have no idea they exist unless they are on them or have interacted with
them.
Steve Ahlquist: I’m only aware of the task
forces because I’ve covered previous lieutenant governor races. I’ve never seen
anything interesting coming out of them.
Sue Anderbois: We could. These are important
topics that require this coordination and collaboration.
Steve Ahlquist: And these three task forces are
a major part of the job. Otherwise, the job is whatever you make it. People
talk about eliminating the office of Lieutenant Governor, because they’re like,
“What is it you do? You wait around for the governor to die?”
Sue Anderbois: You literally could walk into
that office and read the newspaper every day and wait for the governor to
leave. That is a legal way you could do the job. I understand why people think
the job should be eliminated if that’s how it’s done.
But it could be a place where we get some real stuff done.
We don’t have the luxury of having any of these offices not working as hard as
they can.
Steve Ahlquist: That’s absolutely true. We need
to be firing on all cylinders to make this work.
Sue Anderbois: We’ve got some real challenges,
but also, not to be all Leslie Knope, real
opportunities. I’m always like, “Government, do something!”
Steve Ahlquist: You’re speaking to the
converted. To me, the world is sadder because I can see the better world behind
it. You know what I mean?
Sue Anderbois: The author, Rebecca
Solnit, talks about how
hope is resistance.
Being hopeless is so seductive because you can wallow in it,
but if you have hope and you know where things’ve gone, you’ve got to put your
work boots on, do some real stuff, and it’s harder.
Steve Ahlquist: It’s easy to be a French
existentialist, smoke cigarettes, wear a beret, and be sad.
Sue Anderbois: But if you know that a better
world is possible, you’ve got some work to do.
Steve Ahlquist: Not only that, you have an
obligation to do it.
Sue Anderbois: You have an obligation. I
recently saw something like: Public enthusiasm is a form of courage because
it’s so much easier not to do it. Maybe I tell myself this because I’m so
enthusiastic, so maybe I’m courageous too, but like you, you’ve got to believe
that it’s possible because if you don’t, it’s definitely not.
We don’t have the luxury of not doing the work. We’ve got
too much work to do.
Maybe this isn’t a popular thing to say, but the folks at
RIDOT are amazing. It almost bums me out that we have good people in all these
agencies.
Steve Ahlquist: RIDOT is filled with amazing
people, but leadership has been lacking. DEM is in a similar situation.
Sue Anderbois: I do love Terry Gray. I’ll say
that on the record.
Steve Ahlquist: I’m frustrated by some DEM
decisions...
Sue Anderbois: Like Morley Field?
Steve Ahlquist: Morley Field and the Port
of Providence. DEM
does not give a crap about environmental injustice and racism. They
don’t. They have a nice bunch of words, but when push comes to shove, they
consistently fail. They’re not helping, and not helping is complicity with the
racism and injustice.
Sue Anderbois: The Port is a real challenge.
That’s another place where there are so many different people at that table. We
need like a project manager...
Steve Ahlquist: It’s the biggest businesses in
the world versus the health and wellbeing of a small community.
I was at a People’s Port Authority meeting
last night and was disturbed to hear that the Parks Department took
the community benefit money, which is to be used at the community’s discretion,
and used it to fix up parks in Wards 10 and 11. The Parks Department
appropriated that money and started spending it, $200 thousand, which they
probably, technically, had no right to.
Sue Anderbois: Yeah. I’m a parks commissioner. I
wasn’t there for that vote, but we are working to ensure there’s a better
process going forward.
Steve Ahlquist: I’m going to throw that out
there that the money needs to be replaced. We do not need to spend the benefits
money on standard park maintenance and upgrades unless the community decides to
do so. The Parks Department is not the community.
Sue Anderbois: I’ve been in some of these
meetings because, as a former chair of the Sustainability Commission who’s now
a council person and a parks commissioner, I’m like, “How do we actually make
this work?” Because ... there was no process.
Steve Ahlquist: I understand that the original
agreement lacked specifics. But whatever is decided needs to be done with the
community at the table, making decisions together.
I know this is off topic, so, back on track!
Sue Anderbois: I’m excited about this race. A
lot of folks wonder why progressives don’t run at the state level. And I’ll
say: It’s hard. You have to raise a lot of money, and as someone who doesn’t
come from wealth and has been a climate activist my whole life, I can’t write
myself a million-dollar check. That’s not a thing. I can maybe write myself a
$10,000 check, and that’s like a big deal for me. It’s hard, so if folks are
interested in getting involved, either time or resources, please reach out.
My website’s so easy: SueAnderbois.com
I’ve got an amazing campaign manager, a young woman who’s
been a climate organizer herself. I’m trying to build the bench. Progressives
don’t build up the next class. I want to win, but I also want to use this to
help build our base.
I understand why people do not run at the state level. This
is hard, a big personal sacrifice for my family and me, but it’s important. So
I hope folks will want to get involved. I’m doing a lot of house parties all
over the state, if anybody would like me to stop by.
I’ve already been in Smithfield, North Kingstown, Foster,
Providence, and more, because what unites us is way more than what divides us,
to be honest. In the more rural parts of the state or in Providence, we share
many of the same concerns. Our energy prices are high. People do not trust the
government. People do not think that our elected officials have their best
interests at heart, and they think they’re being lied to.
This is what I hear from folks. They’re looking for someone
who’s going to be real with them. My promise is that I will always listen. I’m
going to work harder than anyone you’ve ever met in your life. I’m going to
bring some joy, love, and enthusiasm to this job because that’s why I’m doing
it. I love, love, love this place, and I love our people, and I want us to have
nice things, and I think we can.
Steve Ahlquist: All the things you said are true. I know you, and you’re the real deal. You deserve all the support you can get, and you have my vote.
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“We don’t have a gas line, but I’m with Governor Lamont.
We’ll open up those conversations to make that happen for an all-in strategy.
We have a great backyard called the Atlantic Ocean, and we will use it.” [Note:
Governor McKee is seemingly unaware of the gas pipeline that runs through
Burrillville in the northwest corner of Rhode Island, or the natural gas
pipeline that terminates in the Port of Providence and famously exploded in
2017.] In a statement, Governor McKee was clearer. “Increasing our energy supply
options is essential to lowering long-term costs. That’s why my administration
supports an all-of-the-above energy strategy that includes offshore wind,
nuclear power, natural gas, and hydropower. This approach diversifies our
energy portfolio and keeps our energy system reliable.”