For those of you who don’t know me, I am Doug Gablinske’s wife; we have been married for 37 years. I couldn’t be happier that we reside in Bristol. As a Providence girl, I was apprehensive at first about moving to a small town, but I have never looked back. Bristol is a great town, with many loving and caring people. That was never more apparent to me than when our son passed and this community collectively wrapped its arms around us, for which we will forever be grateful.

But I can also say there are a lot of people who use social media, as well as the Phoenix, for not so nice reasons and for political expediency. I would like to clear up some information that has appeared in the Phoenix for the past two weeks and on social media and is likely to appear in mailers over the next week as we enter the final stage of his campaign.

About that “pigs at the trough” comment he made in 2010. I am an educator … it was certainly not a nice comment to make … and I can tell you he really wishes he had phrased his thoughts in a different way. However, the people he was calling “pigs at the trough” were UNION LEADERS who were at a Statehouse committee hearing to once again plead for changing public education policy to benefit the adults in the room and not the children. He definitely was NOT talking about teachers.

However, the union leaders portrayed it as he was talking about teachers because that is way more incendiary and served to fire up their members to vote against Doug, who was gaining traction and beginning to have an impact at the state level in creating laws and programs that put a child’s education first and not the adults.

I have heard Doug say time and again, I so wish I had said that differently and instead said, “the public employee union leadership has a voracious appetite to change public policy to their advantage over what is best for the child’s education and life.” I also know that he believes that the poor outcomes associated with Rhode Island’s education system are at the very core of turning this state’s economic malaise around and become a thriving place for business to do business, just like Massachusetts has done.

Massachusetts has done so by changing their education system around, and now Massachusetts has the most successful education system in the country — as well as a burgeoning economy. I know that Doug also firmly believes that it is not good enough that one, two or a few towns have good educational outcomes; it must be the entire state, every city and town.  

All of Rhode Island’s kids are our kids, and a successful education system will decrease poverty, prisoners at the ACI, welfare dependency, drug use and depression, as well as create a burgeoning economy here in Rhode Island.     

Patricia Gablinske, Ph.D.

45 Kickemuit Ave.