Urban slight

In his campaign for reelection, Governor Almond concentrates on suburbia's 'soccer moms' and leaves the cities behind

by Richard P. Morin

Less than a week before Governor Lincoln Almond's State of the State address, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC) released a comprehensive report detailing the dire condition of Rhode Island's urban centers. Not only did the report chronicle rising crime, continuing unemployment, crumbling schools, failing housing stock, and inequitable tax burdens in our cities but it provided specific recommendations on how Rhode Island could address these pressing problems.

The report, called "Strengthening Cities: A Report of the Urban Strategy Project," was greeted by a chorus of "hallelujahs" from many of the state's urban mayors who, for the first time, had concrete numbers to back up their need for more state aid. Produced by a coalition of nonprofit institutions that included several state officials, the 60-page document noted that the 10 urban centers identified by RIPEC have 82 percent of the students eligible for free and reduced lunch in the state (an accepted measure of poverty), 64 percent of the Rhode Island's housing stock with lead-based paint, 85 percent of the welfare caseload, 63 percent of the unemployed, and 83 percent of the violent crimes committed in the Ocean State.

More important, the report went on to say that if the state does not address its urban ills in a comprehensive manner, it will not only result in the spread of crime, poverty, and other traditional urban problems to the suburbs, but it will fuel the continuing middle-class flight from our cities, leaving mostly poor minorities and immigrants among the crumbling homes and abandoned factories in the state's urban centers.

Given its catastrophic predictions, you'd think that Rhode Island's governor would've reacted to the report's release last month in a very public manner. Think again. Despite its favorable reception among a number of local and state politicians, Almond neglected to even mention the RIPEC document in his State of the State.

More curious, when Almond introduced his proposed Fiscal Year 1999 state budget last week, it included few new monies for Rhode Island's 10 urban centers, even though the state has a budgetary surplus estimated this year at upwards of $70 million. Why would Almond sidestep an issue that is obviously so crucial to Rhode Island's economic future? The reason may be simpler than you think -- it's an election year.

You see, in Rhode Island, as with the rest of the nation, the base of voter power moved from the cities to the suburbs long ago. As a result, promoting specific urban initiatives while campaigning for office can be politically risky, particularly for someone like Almond, who, according to the latest Brown University public opinion poll, is in a dead heat with Democratic candidate Myrth York in this year's gubernatorial election.

"Urban America has fallen off the political agenda," says Darrell West, a professor of political science at Brown University. In a "triumph of the suburban vote," he says, today's American politicians are courting the "soccer mom" vote.

Indeed, even York, the former state senator from Providence, is distancing herself somewhat from the cities and the enunciation of a clearly articulated urban strategy for Rhode Island. And here again, the reason may be votes.

In the last gubernatorial election in 1994, York narrowly lost to Almond, primarily because voters considered her a tax-and-spend East Side liberal. To combat that label, York is now attempting to move toward the center of the political spectrum by espousing such broad-based initiatives as support for education, environmental protection, economic growth, and property tax relief.

TO BE FAIR, Almond is not solely responsible for developing an urban strategy for Rhode Island. But as governor, he certainly sets the tone for the state's primary initiatives. And Almond's first initiative when gaining office three and a half years ago was to cut the state's debt. In doing so, the former US attorney general from Lincoln signaled just where his allegiances were -- the voter-rich suburban communities of Rhode Island.

In that budget, Almond chose not to reallocate money for the state's Payments In Lieu of Taxes program (PILOT), which many of Rhode Island's cities -- particularly Providence -- had relied on for their solvency. Essentially, these programs reimburse cities and towns for the property taxes they forgo in hosting nonprofit institutions within their borders. In Rhode Island's case, its 10 cities are home to an overwhelming 80 percent of the state's nonprofits, according to RIPEC.

More recently, Almond once again demonstrated his apparent unwillingness to roll out legislative initiatives specifically targeting cities when he announced his long-anticipated blueprint for property-tax reform last week. As most city and state officials know, property taxes -- and the state's over-reliance on them -- are one of the single most critical issue facing Rhode Islanders today. This is particularly true of urban centers, which have trouble attracting and maintaining businesses and residents because these areas shoulder some of the highest taxes in the state.

But rather than address these inequities, Almond proposed a flat tax last week that would provide all Rhode Islanders, regardless of their present tax burden, with a $135 break on next year's property taxes. Almond also froze funding for the state's distressed communities program at 1998 levels. The program provides $6.2 million in state assistance to cities with the highest property tax burdens relative to the wealth of their taxpayers.

"That's not a plan," says Providence Mayor Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci of Almond's property-tax proposal. "The cities have the greatest tax burdens in the state, and I might add that although we send some $400 million up to the state, we only get a fraction of that back."

But despite such objections, Almond, by introducing his bill, at least delivered on his promise to address the property-tax problem in Rhode Island. What's more, because he proposes to fund the program with excess sales-tax revenue normally earmarked to pay down the debt from the state's credit union crisis rather than with money raised through higher property taxes in suburban and rural areas, he has not endangered his base of voter support.

In the 1994 gubernatorial race, Almond carried most suburban and rural towns, including Barrington, Narragansett, East Greenwich, and Scituate, whose populace is physically, if not psychologically, far removed from Rhode Island's cities. According to Tony Affigne, professor of political science at Providence College, voter turnout and campaign contributions in state elections are also the highest among these suburban ocean-front and island communities.

In York's case, she received her strongest support in Providence, which had the lowest voter turnout in the state. As a result, this year both she and Almond seem to have wised up to the fact that it is best to focus on statewide initiatives rather than on the specific needs of the cities. In her "coming-out" party two weeks ago, for instance, York didn't mention the words "city" or "urban" in her announcement speech once.

Her campaign manager, Rob Horowitz, says that York was not slighting the cities -- she was only trying to give a broad blueprint of her vision for the state. But considering that York has long been known as a champion of Rhode Island's poor, with much of her support coming from those working in human services, her failure to mention the RIPEC report was conspicuous.

As Affigne says, any talk of spending more money on the state's cities is not something suburban voters want to hear. Even though "the cities pay the most in taxes, not the suburbs," there is a "mythology" among suburbanites that state programs aimed at urban ills will be "subsidized" by suburban tax dollars.

Still, York, as the Democratic candidate, may not be able to break free from the urban agenda altogether, says Affigne. Because many of the Democratic strongholds in the state are in the cities, "she probably has the toughest road ahead," he says. "She has to court the suburban vote while not antagonizing her base of support in the cities."

ALMOND SPOKESMAN Eric Cote says that the governor also did not mean to slight the cities in his State of the State and that he is "overall supportive" of the RIPEC report. As an example, Cote mentions that Almond has introduced legislation to reduce property taxes, provide further tax breaks for businesses operating in urban enterprise zones, and increase child-care options for families. As part of his budget for next year, the governor is also proposing a $12.8 million increase in school aid for the 10 cities listed in the RIPEC report, with the bulk of the aid going to Providence.

Taken as a whole, these initiatives amount to Almond's "quote-unquote" urban strategy, but like his recently released plan to provide more child-care to Rhode Island's families, they only address a fraction of the problems.

Under Almond's child-care proposal, 700 more poor children in Rhode Island would be enrolled in either Head Start, a government-run pre-school program, or in a state agency like it. But according to Cianci, this is only a drop in the bucket when it comes to Providence, where some 1700 children are on the waiting list for Head Start alone. "They're Band-Aids that he's proposed," says Cianci, one of Almond's biggest critics.

But despite Almond's unwillingness to put forth a sweeping urban strategy for Rhode Island and York's reluctance to articulate a need for one, there appears to be growing movement in that direction, particularly now that the much-respected RIPEC is involved. For the first time in recent memory, the General Assembly is seriously discussing reducing property taxes and making them more equitable between cities and towns, bumping up PILOT aid to cities, and providing more money for several urban school systems.

While it is true that, in the past, similar initiatives have failed in the General Assembly, they might receive a different reception this time around. That's because the RIPEC report has considerably broadened the definition of "urban" to encompass places such as Cranston and East Providence, providing a catalyst for the leaders of these cities to present a more powerful and politically persuasive front to the governor.

"In the past, everyone has looked at our urban problems as just a Providence thing. Now they realize Providence's problems, which have received a great deal of attention due to our being the largest city in the state, are problems that many communities face," says state Representative Joanne Giannini (D-Providence).

"I think you will see us [the state' urban mayors] being more vocal," adds Pawtucket Mayor James E. Doyle. "It's important that we do so. There is a lot at stake in our cities and, more importantly, for the rest of Rhode Island."

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