I admit that I have high hopes for the administration of Governor Gina Raimondo. I am not ready to abandon them yet. Her most recent “explanations” for the unexplainable, however, leave me wondering whether she’s taking the path of least resistance to political forces.

Take her appointment of former State Representative Donald Lally. He cost the taxpayers a tidy sum to hold a special election recently for the seat he stepped away from on the basis that this part-time job was detracting from needed family time. He then stepped into a created   unadvertised full-time job at over $87,000 a year. Putting aside a moment how ludicrous it is that his "family time matters" excuse is bogus, the ink was hardly dry on his resignation when he stepped into this new employment in July. His patron, Speaker Nick Mattiello, gets to tout him as an exhibit that loyalty pays off and, meanwhile, the Governor looks like a back-room dealer with the violation of at least the spirit of the ban on revolving –door appointments with a nit-picking excuse for this made-up job.

She quickly followed up on this sleight of hand “explanation” by giving a spokesperson job to a woman which was also unadvertised. The excuse this time was that the job didn’t exist but it did elsewhere and, well, it will be vetted soon by the personnel office, and…. Good grief! Stop! You are hurting my eardrums!

Then there’s the appointment of Jeremy Licht, son of the governor’s powerful ally, Richard Licht who got his judicial appointment also in violation of the spirit of the ban on revolving door from former governor Lincoln Chafee. The son doesn’t exactly have a marquis background in economic development for his appointment to the commerce corporation. His appearances at his office are reportedly sparse.

Kudos to the Providence Journal’s Katherine Gregg for her story about the problems outlined in various RIDOT reports about the transportation department’s shortcomings. As bad as the reports were in documenting the many failings of RIDOT the interesting underbelly of Ms. Gregg’s article  was the fact that one company ,Gordon and Proctor, was already doing some reports re the problems there ,including one at the very same  time a different consultant, AECOM, was hired  to do the same work.  In addition to an original amount of $340,000 an addendum was added for $400,000 in this initially unadvertised bid. RIDOT administrators finally put the bid out because they anticipated federal dollars which never came. When the Providence journal started nosing around about why there were 2 consultants on the payroll studying operations of RIDOT, AECOM abruptly resigned. The Gordon and Proctor report was then headed for the trash bin but for the excellent investigative work and persistence of Ms. Gregg. No explanation has been forthcoming as to why with 3 reports in hand AECOM was even hired to do another covering the same ground.

This travel of behind the scenes machinations hardly gives confidence to the taxpayer as to what is going on at RIDOT and why they should be entrusted with mega spending on road/bridge repairs. The political favors being parceled out by the Governor also erodes confidence in her administration. Hopefully, she will stop the favor factory.

Arlene Violet is an attorney and former RI attorney general.