Submitted by Locksmith-Pitiful t3_ylf027 in providence
Genuine question. Seems like every person I talk to, democrat or republican, can't stand him.
I'm confused because he seems pretty progressive on a lot of things and has pushed this city forward through many initiatives. Am I wrong?
The weird attempted fight with McKee was a head scratcher too...
Spill the tea? I can't find info on this.
They argued at a Waterfire and it was caught on camera. In retrospect, it was unremarkable. I think Elorza was complaining to McKee about the teacher contract negotiations and a lack of transparency.
Most people assumed he'd be running for governor then so it got a lot of traction for a day or 2. A state trooper had to hold Elorza back. It was the most interesting thing to ever take place at or involving Waterfire, but still relatively tame.
context: there was a contentious city contract. Both McKee and Elorza were contenders for governor. McKee was able to close a deal finally that Elorza said he was unhappy with and tried to stop without the authority to stop (all parties had already agreed). Elorza was on a hot mic saying something like you can't do this-- it was awkward and made national tabloids.
The school system is atrocious, cost of living has skyrocketed, there’s a housing crisis, property taxes are crazy high, and the police force hasn’t been reigned in at all. Just to name a few things.
Weird to blame elorza for all that to me but not super surprised from Providence residents.
The police force one would absolutely fall on him. Property taxes are a direct result of the city having to overcompensate for TSAs for private developers and Brown skullfucking the city on property taxes. Those 2 things force the city to push that burden onto everyone else.
Some of these problems are much bigger than Providence and not easily solved but I think a lot of residents think his priorities were out of whack because instead of trying to do stuff about him, he was dreaming up "Let's just make ourselves into Austin" or the Great Streets stuff.
I agree on the police things and dirt bikes, I hear he wouldn't let police intervene which I thought wasn't the best idea. I've found his great streets to be awesome for our little, car obsessed city. But, it seems get people get mad over all that so that may explain some of it.
He's blamed for the "don't chase" policy but the Police Department put it in place in 2014 internally before he took office. He wasn't really clamoring to change it either. But, a couple city councilors were awfully vocal about allowing pursuits right before police pursued a group of ATVs and put one of them into a coma. There's been less popularized incidents where these "we're chasing you but not really" have led to pedestrians being injured by ATVs too.
That one is hard to win. He and the police did a fairly good job encouraging people to dime out their neighbors. But the city also had the embarrassing episode where a bunch of seized bikes and ATVs were stolen out of a city-owned garage about 5 years ago.
Not to mention the “don’t chase” policy is because when people get injured in those chases they sue the city (see: Baltimore, Philly), which brings our taxes up even higher.
The financial factor is there but I care way more about people not getting hurt or killed than relatively paltry sums of money covered by insurance.
I just want to sue the city, but Elorza refuses to chase me!!
Moved from Boston to Prov this year. Love the ability to actually park in this state. People use cars everywhere, but here it isn’t overly burdenful to do so.
Walkable streets arent so easy to enjoy in Boston where you cant park and the T is always on fire
> Walkable streets arent so easy to enjoy in Boston where you cant park
I'm confused, how do you cater to a large number of large vehicles (most people drive these) and have a walkable city? As a local, half our city is parking lots and anytime we even strip a little for more walkability, greenspace, biking, everyone opposes it. Can't even cross the streets usually because cars are so damn big and you can't see.
Walkability != ample parking
In Providence I can drive to somewhere, park, and walk around. In Boston, I can’t park anywhere without getting shafted, so the broken train lines are the only option to get to stuff that isn’t near home.
Be glad you have parking lots instead of parking tickets. Brookline MA has very few public parking lots, and those are metered, and the streets have 2 hour parking at all times, even overnight.
Providence is such a small city I rarely ever see a need to drive 🤷 I also don't see a need to have half our city be a concrete lot at the expense of everything else.
You don't need to drive in Providence, but many of us need to drive to get into Providence. Once you're in the neighborhood you want to be in, you're fine, but you have to be able to get downtown, or whatever neighborhood you want. It's a catch 22, you can't have a great walkable city without infrastructure changes and increases in RIPTA, but you won't get those things until you have the userbase to necessitate it, and that population won't come if it's not convenient. As a capitol city, it gets a substantial number of out of towners, they have to get to the city some how, and RIPTA isn't convenient. I live in Riverside and work in Providence, it takes me 25-20 minutes to drive to work everyday, but would take 1:35 on RIPTA. I don't want to see Providence paved over, but I have to be able to conveniently get into the city, so that I can enjoy it. I want better RIPTA service so I can take RIPTA home from a night out in Providence. Right now, the last bus from KP leaves at 10:30, that's barely dinner, no show, no dancing.
I'm not sure how many "out of towners" come into the city and our state and whether that means we should even accommodate them. I've heard similar people in your position as arguments against more sidewalks and bike lanes, ie, "I have to commute by car from X town in RI and RIPTA sucks."
To me, that brings up two issues: Should we accommodate, especially in such a small, dense city, to cars? And why aren't we understanding that this infrastructure reduces car use among everyone? Let's be real, most people drive in Providence even if the destination is down the block because it's dangerous otherwise. I'm also not sure it's the responsibility of such a city to accommodate out of towners.
You'd be surprised at the number of people who don't live in Providence who visit every weekend. My friend is from Brockton, not a transplant, actually from Brockton, and she drives out here 2-3 times a week. She goes out in Providence more than I do.
You say "should we choose to accommodate cars", like Providence hasn't been doing that for 50 years. The reason the walkable city mentality is having trouble is because pvd has prioritized cars for 2? 3? generations, no one remembers when Providence had street cars, and you could take a street car to Cresent Park or Rocky Point. Now we're having to pull back that infrastructure in favor of pedestrian infrastructure. People don't like what they perceive as a step backward. People aren't understanding that infrastructure reduces car use among everyone because they don't want to. They either can't see 5 moves ahead to understand that, or they feel entitled to be able to take their cars everywhere because the US is such a car-centric country, and our rugged individualism views public transit as less than.
I don't think most people drive in Providence because it's dangerous to walk. I'd argue there are more car windows broken and cars ransacked every night than there are muggings. Compare Providence to the next most populated city country wide, Knoxville? And you'll see Rhode Island has significantly less crime. Providence isn't a dangerous city if you look at 2021's crime report and look at what's considered street crime (robberies and assaults), there were a total of 2,409 offenses all year. This averages out to 6.6 crimes a night. If WaterFire brings in an average of 40k people, let's assume there are 10k people who are going out on a normal Friday night and triple the average crime rate because there's more crime on a Friday night than a Tuesday night. That's one crime for every 5,000 people out. And yes, I know street crime is under-reported, and that's not even taking into account that most reported crime is committed by people known to the victim and not strangers. But seriously, can we stop saying Providence is dangerous? It's a bullshit excuse people from the suburbs use to say I'm uncomfortable if there are people of color in my vicinity.
You can choose not to accommodate people who don't live outside providence, but most of the Providence economy is service industry, and if you take the patrons away, Providence will be right back where it was in the 70's and 80's.
>You can choose not to accommodate people who don't live outside providence,
You literally wrote a whole thesis proving we shouldn't. It's either Providence is a big parking lot for outside traffic or that it invests in other infrastructure.
Exactly, Providence shouldn't. It can choose to, but it would be bad for the city it would be bad for the state. I didn't argue saying it was a good option. I just said it was an option and I warned what would happen if it was taken.
How can you possibly know whether the T is on fire when the next train is 20+ minutes from the station, sir!
When Ive already been there half an hour I start to suspect
Weird or not, he’s been the mayor for eight year and the city hasn’t gotten much better under his watch. “The buck stops here” sort of thing.
The entire country has been in rapid decline for the past 20 years.
If you really want to put a time figure on it, I'd probably call it 40 years.
Yes
This sounds like the entire United States
It is
I'll take a shot. So Elorza has always kind of given the vibe that he has wanted to work his way up to higher office. It comes off that way and I think people sense it. If youre very new here, you may not realize that he was effectively campaigning for governor for the last 4 years. For what its worth, his story and background are very interesting and impressive in terms of what he accomplished.
In his tenure, it seemed like he was always trying to appease different voting blocks and, in the end like you saw, pissing off everyone who would see that he was trying to play all sides since he presumably didnt want to close doors with voters.
The firefighters and the teachers both had drawn out miserable contract negotiations, that I can recall. He also can let his emotions show which isn't really a great look for any major politician.
On the surface, I liked some of his ideas and plans, but when you see years of news footage or interact in person and some of this stuff just comes off as showboating for a larger media audience. I think it adds up for people into an overall more negative picture about his authenticity and by the time the primaries rolled around he saw it was best not to run.
I did like some of his ideas like the bike stuff. I also don't blame him for housing issues-- that's just a confluence of high prices in major cities and remote work.
> Elorza has always kind of given the vibe that he has wanted to work his way up to higher office.
I think everyone assumed that and it definitely came from somewhere, but it's worth noting we were all kinda wrong. If he really was that, there's no way he rules himself out a full year before the primary when it's not even clear who the nominees would be.
He took himself out of the money 2 months before Ashley Kalus had even closed on a home in the state and had plenty of time to change his mind when it became clear it'd be a crowded field and just how vulnerable McKee was.
I had the same perception as you, but I think we might've just been wrong. Or conflating Angel's one and done run with Elorza or something, idk.
While that is a possibility, he was considered an underdog to win when he dropped out. This public radio article covers it pretty well "A Providence mayor has not won election as governor since Dennis Roberts won four two-year terms in the 1950s. And the uncertain level of statewide support for Elorza, even with more than $1 million in his campaign account, led campaign observers to question his chances of victory." (source: https://thepublicsradio.org/article/elorza-will-not-run-for-ri-governor-in-2022 )
He also wouldn't rule out a future run for higher office. I think if Raimondo was a lame duck and he had better odds, we might have seen different choices here. Allan fung has run and lost repeatedly for office (and actually likely to win this time), but I don't think most candidates want to take the L like that if they can help it.
Fair points. I just think that's truly driven to climb the ladder like that is probably capable of deluding themselves on the odds. Ego and ambition are powerful drugs
>showboating for a larger media audience.
Yes, I always felt he was intent on keeping up with the latest mayoral fashions (mostly a good thing) but whenever the initiatives bump up against entrenched powers, his will to fight is not there.
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Said this here before: he bends over backwards to the police union, tried to privatize our WATER, has let shitty developers run rampant with hotels and ugly ass condos, trying to remove any trace of poor people from Kennedy Plaza, etc…
He’s a great urban planning mayor, but like those before him couldn’t fix schools. Perceived (though not real) sense of crime increasing.
I think he’s more popular than people think and polls confirm this. He doesn’t pander to the powerful and loud east siders so they write about him in their rags like no one likes him. Meanwhile on the south and west sides people think he’s fine.
I'd agree he's probably plenty popular. It's worth noting that Elorza 100000% owes being in office to those East Siders. He pretty much lost the rest of the city but cleaned up there.
it’s easier than looking at the fact that nothing can fix this city
He tried. I give him 100% for trying, PVD is in a tough situation $ wise. For the bike lanes alone i say 200%.
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He's a sentient bicycle inside a man shaped suit.
Not a providence resident, but I like so much of what he's done and attempted to do. Mostly parks and urban planning, but some other things as well. If you dive into the great streets initiative master plan type thing (can't remember what it's called) it's really sonething. I don't know if he's as hated as the loudest voices make it out to be, but that made it seem he was doomed. I would totally vote for him.
I will have some details wrong here, but I remember there was that impasse where he submitted the budget or something but the committee refused to vote it at all... until he was out of town (on vacation or maybe even just a mayors convention or something) and then they voted real quick then made a big stink about him being asleep at the wheel and an absentee politician. There were even more layers of absurdity to it but that was the gist. And I'm pretty sure Raimondo made his life difficult.
Chalk that up to the city council. Elorza may not be the greatest, but the city council is so dysfunctional.
Personally… The bike paths… can’t stand them. It’s too cold half the year to bike and there’s maybe a handful of people who use them. I blame Elorza
As someone who uses bike paths year round, I see plenty of people using them.
>and there’s maybe a handful of people who use them.
Woah, I must be hallucinating when I see people use them all day every day, even in the pouring rain!
I’m glad that the 12% of bike users in prov are enjoying them(pg 15) (https://pvdstreets.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/21-8057-Providence-Great-Streets-Initiative-Report.pdf Maybe you see those type of people in downtown or on the east side ( though I usually see people walk or use the electric scooters atp) but in the North and South I see even less than a handful. And that joke of an initiative near PC should shine a light on how much they’re “needed”. The bike path that cost thousands to make, and then we get rid of it a week later, costing thousands more. Most of the bike paths we have have been heavily opposed including students themselves https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2021/11/mcgough-23-biking-in-providence-is-bad-and-brown-is-part-of-the-problem. Im here for the planet, and sustainability but providence is too small, and filled up w too many people who use cars for there to be a lane taken away and given up for 1 person to use. I could see the funds being used for a lot more, like the craters on the roads, but Elorza doesn’t have my vote, and idc what anyone says 🤷🏽♀️ kinda new to Reddit so go ahead and dislike this comment? Idek what the arrows are for tbh
That’s about 22,000 people in Providence alone who use bikes. Does that even count all the folks from the surrounding areas who bike in to providence?
A huge difference from the “handful” you originally purported.
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Proof-Variation7005 t1_iuy70op wrote
I'm not sure there's an easy quick answer, but it's a combination of stuff he inherited and beyond his control like the city's fiscal cliff, crimes, bad schools, etc.
Then throw in a mix of failed ideas like giving meters, "Let's sell the water supply", etc
Throw in some spats with fire and teachers' unions and that ain't a great look.
Some didn't like bike lanes. Others didn't like expanded parking meters.
Some people think he imports dirtbikes and ATVs and personally distributes him across the city.
He's either too progressive or not progressive enough.
Overall, he's probably a C+/B- mayor? I give him credit for trying to deal with the looming fiscal cliff of the pensions more than his predecessors. He certainly didn't fix it but going back to first edition Cianci, most of the city's mayors either actively made it worse or just tried to kick the can down the road and pretend it wasn't a problem.