Letter: We don’t need candidates with ties to Statehouse

Posted 8/30/18

First, I would not usually do this. I would usually sit on the sidelines and make comments to my friends. Here in Bristol and Warren, even across the state, we have a growing problem.

I could …

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Letter: We don’t need candidates with ties to Statehouse

Posted

First, I would not usually do this. I would usually sit on the sidelines and make comments to my friends. Here in Bristol and Warren, even across the state, we have a growing problem.

I could not keep keep my opinion to myself and to like minded folks. This is an issue that everyone should know about, everyone who worries about the well-being of our community.

I read Warren Wollschlager’s letter last week and was disappointed to learn about the ties between Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and Andy Tyska, a candidate for state representative in our District 68. It’s sad to see yet another candidate going down this path.

Speaker Mattiello has admitted to breaking the law during his last campaign, and most of the members of his inner circle, including Carnevale and Gallison, have been convicted of crimes in the last few years. He has put the chamber and the state government up for sale and refused to give needed reforms, such as the line item veto, an up or down vote.

It’s clear to me that Mr. Tyska has aligned himself with Speaker Mattiello. Consider the evidence. He’s got a long history of donating thousands to Mattiello and his cronies, as displayed in last week’s paper.

Statehouse staff has shown up to knock on doors in our towns for Tyska. Mr. Tyska was endorsed by Mr. Mattiello’s state party. The local district committee appointed by Ken Marshall endorsed Mr. Tyska before he had even publicly declared.

Mr. Marshall even kept his own retirement a secret to help clear a path for Mr. Tyska, showing up minutes before the deadline with a written endorsement in hand. To me, this felt like an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of voters in the district.

There’s just no other reasonable way to read these facts other than that Mr. Tyska was always the candidate of Speaker Mattiello and the Statehouse.

Mr. Tyska’s backers will likely try to explain this as just “the way things are done,” because that’s the way the Statehouse has always done things. You give money and you get influence. It’s just the cost of doing business. And that’s exactly the problem we have here in Rhode Island. The culture of “I know a guy” is no way to get things done right. As far as I can see, it’s not a way to get anything done at all.

Both Gallison and Marshall worked very hard to ingratiate themselves to Mattiello. Both ended up climbing into the inner circle of his team. But that never seemed to trickle down to our towns.

Our school systems still suffered from massive cuts, and Metacom remained ignored. The values our community believes in have certainly not been represented at the Statehouse. It seems to me that the only people helped by their powerful positions were themselves.

It’s doesn’t matter if Mr. Tyska writes about “challenging the status quo” on his materials if his campaign depends on the support of the Statehouse. We don’t need another representative who is going to follow in the footsteps of Gallison and Marshall.

David Patrick Coyne 

Warren

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Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.