To the Editor,

It’s clear to me that Rhode Island Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi (D-Warwick) is trying his best to fix that which isn’t broken.

In his recent 15 bill package, addressing housing throughout Rhode Island, he is intent on side-stepping local Zoning Boards and taking State control (H-7062).

The motivation is to develop multi-unit housing in areas where it’s never been before. These areas would include business districts and industrial zones.

This is not to mention the possibility of apartment buildings and condominiums, conceivably, in residential areas reserved and designed for single family homes. Imagine, if you will, a second separate house in your next-door neighbor’s backyard. With no Zoning Board to intervene, YES it could happen under this plan.

It’s obvious there’s a shortage of housing throughout Rhode Island and this issue needs to be addressed, but in a thoughtful and precise way. A cookie-cutter approach statewide is no way to cure this problem. What’s right for Central Falls or Providence is not what’s right for Johnston or Cranston.

This legislation would eliminate the authority of local Boards allowing developers to simply erect multi-unit, or other housing, wherever they want with little or no local permitting. The elimination of local Zoning Boards or the combining of local Planning and Zoning Boards is a thinly veiled means of putting all control in the hands of the State by statute.

Local boards understand their towns, their comprehensive plans and the local neighborhoods. Most importantly, these boards understand the people who live and work there and are accountable to those same people.

Clearly the Speaker’s intent is to override all local control, creating tracts of housing like a runaway train, with no consideration for consistency of local architecture or neighborhood design, but most importantly no consideration for homeowners and businesses.

The Johnston Zoning Board has done a remarkable job of guarding the interests of our town. We dare not put that decision-making responsibility in the hands of the State or remove it by statute. You can imagine how that will turn out.

Let’s remember, these are our neighborhoods, this is our Town and we have the right to plan and shape it free of State interference, the way we see fit.

Richard Fascia, of Johnston

Member of both the Johnston Zoning Board & Johnston Republican Town Committee

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — A career criminal from Providence admitted to a series of bank robberies in 2021.

United States Attorney Zachary Cunha said 47-year-old Vaughn Watrous pleaded guilty Wednesday to four counts of bank robbery stemming from multiple incidents over three days in January 2021.

Watrous admitted to a federal judge that from Jan. 19 to Jan. 21 he robbed three banks in Providence and Cranston and attempted to rob a fourth in North Providence.

He was arrested in Providence on Jan. 24 after an investigation by Cranston police.

Court records show that Watrous was previously convicted of seven bank robberies in 1997, 2003, and 2013.

He was sentenced to over four years in prison in 1997 for robbing a bank in Utah and then convicted in Providence on two counts of bank robbery in 2003 and four counts in 2015, accruing around 14 years in total prison time.

He was released from federal prison on Feb. 25, 2020.

Cunha said the sentence for Watrous’s latest robberies will be determined at a future date after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

WORCESTER, MA — What’s the difference between the drive to Boston from Worcester, and the drive to Boston from Nashua, NH?

About $4.40, if you pay your toll with an E-Z Pass transponder.

MassDOT Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt this week sparked a border war when she suggested Massachusetts should start tolling drivers coming into the state from New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Howie Carr called her a “nutjob,” the Herald used the headline “Off Her Nutt.”

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte both took shots at the idea (perhaps forgetting about their state’s tolls near the MA border?) and even Gov. Maura Healey stepped in to clarify the MassDOT chief’s toll opinions “do not represent the views of this administration.”

But if you’re a resident of anywhere west of I-95 — or even New York and Connecticut — you might’ve been left wondering: shouldn’t those out-of-state commuters pay their fair share, just like we do?

Maybe it’s another case of Boston-brain, which causes anyone within a subway ride of Beacon Hill to forget about the whole rest of the state. If you drive to Boston from Worcester, Framingham, Westborough or even Springfield, you pay tolls back and forth, every day. Anyone heading to Boston from central Connecticut will also likely pay a Mass Pike toll. Same for any day tripper or ultra-commuter coming to the Berkshires or Boston from just over the New York border.

Tibbits-Nutt’s comments were related to a state task force established by Healey that’s charged with developing a long-term funding plan to keep roads, bridges, highways and transit infrastructure “safe, reliable, and efficient.” The task force does include representatives from central Massachusetts, including former Worcester city manager Ed Augustus, Worcester School Committee member Alex Guardiola and Shrewsbury resident and 495/MetroWest Partnership Executive Director Jason Palitsch.

Tibbits-Nutt has said she wants the task force to be aggressive, exploring revenue sources like tolling and charging heavy road users, like delivery services and rideshare companies. The state takes in about $1 billion each year from tolls and gas taxes, but needs to spend more than double that to keep up with infrastructure — an important task made very real recently by the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, and the failure of the I-195 bridge between Providence and East Providence.

If you pay tolls, or just want to give your opinion, take our (very unscientific) poll: