Good riddance, Pawsox

Pawsox  shows how not to apologize after Chick-fil-A Pride Day, Sean Spicer flap

JOSH ISRAEL

The Pawtucket Red Sox, the top minor league team in the Boston Red Sox farm system, offered a partial apology on Thursday for a Pride Night celebration that featured former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer and a cross-promotion with Chick-fil-A, the notoriously anti-LGBTQ fast food chain. 

But while the team acknowledged that having Spicer throw out the ceremonial first pitch on that night of all nights “wounded” many in the LGBTQ+ community and allies, it offered an explanation for the Chick-fil-A promotion that only made things worse.

The Rhode Island-based team hosted its annual Pride Night last Friday. It also hosted a wounded veterans nonprofit — which chose to be represented by Sean Spicer, a native of the nearby town of Barrington — as well as a promotion sponsored by the local Chick-fil-A franchise at the same game. 

Given that the Trump administration and Chick-fil-A have both become lightning rods for their anti-LGBTQ records, their tone-deaf inclusion on a night meant to celebrate the LGBTQ community spurred national backlash.

How you can help your neighbors

Support the Summer Food Drive

Host a Food Drive
During the summer, food donations decrease as families struggle to fill the gap from missing school meals. You can help by holding a food drive at your workplace or in your neighborhood.

Set Up a Fundraising Page
Help us acquire and distribute healthy food by creating a fundraising page and inviting your friends and family to participate. Your donations will help us get healthy, nutritious food to our neighbors who need it most.

Thanks for helping us ensure that no one goes hungry this summer!

Striking Out Hunger

Every Summer, the PawSox team up with Citizens Bank and Cox Communications to help Strike Out Hunger. With every strikeout of an opposing team player by a PawSox pitcher, Citizens donates $60 to the Food Bank – up to $60,000. Check out the clip airing on Cox and get out to McCoy Stadium to support the winning team!

© 2019 Rhode Island Community Food Bank

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Providence, RI 02907

Phone: (401) 942‑MEAL (6325)

Email: contactus@rifoodbank.org

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One option, “Stadium Lofts”

URI report offers options for future of McCoy

Tony LaRoche

With the Pawtucket Red Sox’s decision in August to leave the city for Worcester at the start of the 2021 season, state and local officials are now turning their attention to the future of what has been the minor-league team’s home for nearly a half century.

Deciding what’s next for the 76-year-old, city-owned McCoy Stadium may take many months, but a public policy report written by two University of Rhode Island students could provide the necessary research to start the conversation.

Bridget Hall, then a URI sophomore, speaks to a gathering at the Rhode Island Statehouse in 2016 about a public policy report about possible future uses for Pawtucket’s McCoy Stadium.

“The Future of Pawtucket’s McCoy Stadium” was written in 2016 by undergraduates Bridget Hall and Michael Steiner for an honors public policy course, under the guidance of Associate Professor of Political Science Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz. 

The 22-page report presents a full range of options that were the result of extensive research into how other municipalities have attempted to repurpose vacant stadiums, including an analysis of costs and of how those options would work in Pawtucket.

But in 2016, PawSox owners committed to remaining at McCoy through the 2020 season, so the impact of the report was not immediately obvious, said Pearson-Merkowitz, who this April was named director of URI’s Social Science Institute of Research, Education and Policy

Michael Steiner, then a URI junior, presents his research about repurposing McCoy Stadium at a 2016 Statehouse meeting.

“It’s certainly more valuable now,” said Hall, who graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in history and political science. “Hopefully our research can help lawmakers see that there are innovative ideas for re-inventing McCoy Stadium that can carry Pawtucket into a new and bright future.”

Options include what the students’ research revealed to be the most common outcomes for ballparks left abandoned – demolishing the stadium; selling it “as is”; renovating it for use by a different team or sport; and converting it into a public park. The report’s final option highlights two inventive possibilities – repurposing the historic city landmark as much-needed housing or as a sports-focused public high school.

Some enviro bills pass including one wingnut bill

R.I. Passes Environmental Bills in Shortened Session

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

The General Assembly’s weeklong bonus session saw the passage of several environmental bills that were nearly approved in June. Here’s what passed last week:

Safe furniture H5082: For years, the chemical industry fought the removal of flame retardants and toxic chemicals from furniture and children’s products such as clothing. But Rhode island will ban the manufacturing and sale of mattresses, electronics and children’s products that exceed the allowance of certain chemical compounds that contain bromide, which is linked to cancer and harmful to fetal and child development. The law takes effect July 1, 2019. Watch video testimony of the Senate hearing here.

Geoengineering H6011: Theories abound about chemical engineering of the atmosphere and the cloudy spray from aircraft, called chemtrails. The legislation makes Rhode Island one of the first states to study the issue. A five-member committee will make recommendations for licensing geoengineering technologies — real or not — such as solar radiation management, ocean fertilization, and cloud cover protection and cloud whitening. The House commission is tasked to report its findings by April 2, 2018.

EDITOR'S NOTE: It boggles the mind that the General Assembly passed local wingnut Rep. Justin Price's bill to "study" one of the most insane far-right conspiracy theories. 

The idea in a nutshell is that some sinister force is mixing chemicals into jet fuel so that their contrails disperse mind-altering substances on an unaware, innocent public. 

These chemicals make them do crazy things, according to the wingnut theory, such as vote for Democrats. 

The only evidence I see of mass lunacy is that Richmond and Hopkinton voters actually elected people like Justin Price, and I'm not sure chem-trails are to blame. But maybe that's something for this study commission to examine. - Will Collette.

No multiplied by 35 million

How About Zero Dollars for PawSox Stadium?
By Beth Comery in the Providence Daily Dose



On May 12, Governor Gina Raimondo announced to the Providence Journal that the state should be giving no more than $35 million to the millionaire owners of the Pawtucket Red Sox.

This came two days after the news that a considerable shortfall is expected for the state budget of the fiscal year starting July 1st. 

From RIPR,

According to the state Department of Administration, revenues trailed November projections by about $99.6 million.

Governor Raimondo does not seem to know that $99 million + $35 million = $134 million in the hole. (Magna cum laude in economics from Harvard?)

Why should the state or city shower corporate welfare on team’s millionaire owners?

No Taxpayer Funds For PawSox Stadium
By Beth Comery in the Providence Daily Dose

Photo from Rhode Island's Future

Go PawSox! No really . . . go. Get your hands out of my pockets and go away. 

Millionaire team owner Larry Lucchino is back with a new pitch — he heard your concerns and has repackaged his outrageous demands. Gone is that not true “revenue neutral” pitch — now we have “publicly owned.” 

You will hear that phrase a lot now, but nothing has changed. The ownership team of entitled millionaires wants taxpayers to pay for their stadium. (With all the amenities! Amenities that no PawSox fan relaxing in McCoy with a cold beer and a hot dog, ever, ever missed.)

This battle is exhausting, and at this point, anyone — Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, or the Providence Journal editorial board — who suggests that stadiums are generators of economic development, is choosing not to know that the opposite was proven true long ago. 

Also known as lying.

Lessons we can learn

A Tale Of Two Cities

by BETH COMERY in the Providence Daily Dose

Pity poor Hartford. Turns out their new minor league stadium is costing more than originally promised and the developer is demanding another $10 million. According to the Hartford Courant in “Before You Buy a Stadium, Ask How Much,”

We’re learning that despite the assurances that accompanied the chaotic 2014 announcement of the construction of the stadium and the transformation of the New Britain Rock Cats into the Hartford Yard Goats, 

$56 million in public funds is not nearly enough to build a proper stadium. All those smiling faces of the past year and half now sport nothing but frowns hovering above pointed fingers.

A 6,000-seat stadium costs closer to $66 million to build. No one mentioned this when the project was rammed through local boards a year and a half ago. 

The unfurling story features unhappy and contradictory chapters. The developer/builder says it warned the stadium authority created to oversee the project that if design changes were not made, $56 million would not be enough.

There is the very real possibility that the stadium will not be finished in time for the start of the season, causing great anxiety in the league home office.