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Avedisian to receive $68K severance in termination agreement with RIPTA • Rhode Island Current
PROVIDENCE — Scott Avedisian’s six-year tenure as the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority’s (RIPTA) CEO officially ended Tuesday as the agency’s Board of Directors voted 7-0 to accept his resignation and termination agreement.
Board members Heather Schey and Marcy Reyes were not present at Tuesday’s special meeting.
The deal includes $67,823 in severance — about a third of which includes compensation for unused sick and vacation leave. Payments will be made in weekly installments of $5,217 beginning on April 25, and will continue through mid-July.
Avedisian is not eligible to collect a RIPTA pension, agency spokesperson Cristy Raposo Perry said in an email Tuesday afternoon. The agreement also includes a clause prohibiting Avedisian and RIPTA from making any disparaging comments about each other.
“Given all the facts surrounding this and the service he provided, and the contract, I think it’s a fair settlement,” Board Chairman Peter Alviti Jr. told reporters after the meeting.
Avedisian, who was not present at Tuesday’s meeting, submitted his letter of resignation to Gov. Dan McKee on April 11 — just eight days after he pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of leaving the scene of a fender bender at a McDonald’s drive-thru in Warwick.
RIPTA CEO Avedisian resigns following hit-and-run charge
Avedisian allegedly smashed his RIPTA-issued SUV into the 2010 Mercedes in front of him, causing the Mercedes to hit the 2013 Toyota Camry in front of it. No injuries were reported, but both drivers told Warwick police they wanted to press charges.
Alviti said this alleged incident likely won’t impact any of RIPTA’s policies surrounding the use of agency-issued vehicles.
“I think agency vehicles are necessary,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll let any one occurrence determine what the future of the policy is.”
Avedisian is scheduled to appear in Kent County District Court for a pretrial hearing Thursday, April 25 — the same day severance payments begin. In his letter of resignation submitted April 11, Avedisian wrote,“I regret that the good work of the employees is being detracted by my actions.”
“It is sad and troubling that Scott’s employment ends this way,” Board Member Normand Benoit said after Tuesday’s vote.
But Benoit said he appreciated that Avedisian stepped down not long after the controversy began instead of trying to “drag things out.”
“Scott took the high road, to his credit,” he said.
CFO named interim CEO
After approving Avedisian’s exit package, RIPTA board unanimously agreed to elevate Chief Financial Officer Christopher Durand to be the bus agency’s interim leader for the foreseeable future. Durand, who has served in his current position since July 2021, appeared briefly in the back of the room during Tuesday’s meeting, Raposo Perry said.
Alviti said Durand has “got good knowledge” to take over the agency and has been “very responsive to the board members.”
“The CFO of the organization really is key in that person has direct knowledge of just about all aspects of the organization,” Alviti said.
Durand’s appointment also came at the recommendation of the advocacy group RI Transit Riders. No timeline was set on how long Durand will serve as interim leader.
“The board will confer with all parties — the legislature and the governor on what form and process will ensue,” Alviti said.
As the RIPTA searches for a permanent leader, transit advocates are calling on the board to make sure the CEO is someone with a mass transit background. Before his appointment in 2018 by then-Gov. Gina Raymond, Avedisian served nearly two decades as the Republican mayor of Warwick.
“The next CEO needs to maintain service and continue to make progress on the initiatives to improve and expand operations that are currently underway,” RI Transit Riders Co-Chairs Amy Glidden and Patricia Raub said in a statement Wednesday.
The group also called on RIPTA’s Board of Directors to include a transit advocate as a public member on the CEO search committee.
Daria Phoebe Brashear, a transit rider from Cranston, had one request for board members as they embark on a search for a permanent leader: All applicants must ride the bus from Aquidneck Island to their interview in Providence.
“So they may speak with the immediate benefit of experience with RIPTA service,” she told the board during public comment. “And further, that if they miss the interview, they be removed from consideration.”
Randall Rose, a member of the Kennedy Plaza Resilience Coalition, told Rhode Island Current he simply wants to see a leader who will stick to RIPTA’s mission of providing public transit.
“People need to have mobility for where they need to go,” he said.
Alviti told reporters criteria for the search process will be set as the search continues, but he did not rule out looking internally for a permanent CEO.
“We’ve got a great bench here at RIPTA of highly competent professional, smart, energetic folks who want to move this agency into the future in a very positive way,” he said. “I really look forward to the future of the agency.”
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New East Bay Bike Path bridges are open and ready for bikes
What’s it like to ride over the new East Bay Bike Path bridges? We sent a reporter to try them out.
I’ve long thought bike paths are among Rhode Island’s premier attractions, up there with the beaches, the mansions and the bay.
We like to knock government, but credit where it’s due, the state has done an amazing job building out an incredible pedaling network.
It’s clearly a priority.
At least I thought it was.
But they’ve just dropped the ball on what should have been a beautiful new stretch.
The plan was to finish a mile-long connector from the East Providence end of the Henderson Bridge all the way to the East Bay Bike Path.
There was even $25 million set aside to get it done.
Except WPRI recently reported that it’s now been canceled.
The main fault lies with the Trump administration, which is no friend of bike paths, and moved to kill that $25 million.
But it gets complicated, as government funding always does.
To try to rescue that money, the state DOT reportedly worked with the administration to refunnel it into a road project. Specifically, the $25 million will now be spent helping upgrade the mile-long highway between the Henderson Bridge and North Broadway in East Providence, turning it into a more pleasant boulevard.
That totally sounds worthy.
But it’s insane to throw away the bike path plan.
Especially for a particular reason in this case.
They’d already put a ton of money into starting it.
When state planners designed the new Henderson Bridge between the East Side and East Providence, they included a bike path.
It’s a beauty – well protected from traffic by a barrier, a great asset for safely riding over the Seekonk River.
The plan was to continue it another mile or so along East Providence’s Waterfront Drive, ultimately connecting with the East Bay Bike Path, which runs all the way to Bristol. Which, by the way, is one of the nicest bike paths you’ll find anywhere.
But alas, that connector plan has been canceled.
So the expensive stretch over the Henderson Bridge to East Providence is now a bike path to nowhere. Once the bridge ends, the path on it continues a few hundred yards or so and then, just … ends.
Too bad.
We were so close.
Most of the stories on the issue have been about the complex negotiation to rescue the $25 million by rerouting it to that nearby highway-to-boulevard project. But I don’t want to get lost in the weeds of that bureaucratic process here because it loses sight of the heart of this story.
Which is that an amazing new addition to one of the nation’s best state bike path systems has just been scrapped.
You can knock the Rhode Island government for blowing a lot of things.
The PawSox.
The Washington Bridge.
But they’ve done great with bike paths.
And especially, linking many of them together.
Example: not too many years ago, Providence bikers had to risk dicey traffic on the East Side to get to the more pleasant paths in India Point Park and on the 195 bridge to the East Bay Path.
But the state fixed that by adding an amazing connector that starts behind the Salvation Army building and beautifully winds along the water of the Seekonk River for a mile or so.
That makes a huge difference – and no doubt has avoided some bike-car accidents.
We were close to a comparable stretch on the other side of the river – that’s what the $25 million would have done.
But it’s now apparently dead.
Online commenters aren’t happy about it.
On a Reddit string, “Toadscoper” accused the state of being “complicit” with the feds in rerouting the money from bikes to cars.
And there was this fascinating post from FineLobster 5322, who apparently is a disappointed planner who worked on the project: “Mind you money has already been spent on phase one so rejecting it at this point is wasting money and also against the public interest … but what do I know? I only worked on the project as an engineer … I didn’t get into this to build more highways. I do it … to give back to communities and give them more access to their environment.”
Wow. One can imagine the state planning team is devastated. That’s not a small consideration. Good people go into government to make life better in Rhode Island, and it’s a bad play to take the spirit out of the job by first assigning a great human-scale project and then, after a ton of work, trashing it.
A poster named Homosapiens simply said, “We just accept this?”
Hopefully not.
The first stretch of the path over the Henderson Bridge is done, money already sunk.
What a shame to leave that as a path to nowhere.
It doesn’t have to happen.
Between Governor McKee and our Washington delegation, there’s got to be a way to get this done.
There’s got to be.
mpatinki@providencejournal.com
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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