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‘Warehousing’ children; RI’s most wanted; Friars prospects: Top stories this week
Here are some of The Providence Journal’s most-read stories for the week of May 12, supported by your subscriptions.
Here are the week’s top reads on providencejournal.com:
Rhode Island has violated the federal civil rights of hundreds of children with mental-health or developmental disabilities by “routinely and unnecessarily segregating” them at Bradley Hospital, U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha said Monday.
Rather than placing children with such disabilities in intensive in-home or community-based programs, Cunha said the state’s Department of Children, Youth & Families has over-relied on hospitalizing them at Bradley, leaving them there for weeks, months and, in a few cases, more than a year.
“Rhode Island has failed, miserably and repeatedly, to meet its legal obligations to children with mental-health and developmental disabilities,” he said.
What comes next for DCYF after U.S. Attorney’s scathing accusations?
Mental health care: ‘Appalling’: Feds accuse RI DCYF of ‘warehousing’ children at Bradley Hospital. What to know.
Gov. Dan McKee has quietly asked lawmakers to approve a tax relief-and-spending package for Citizens Bank that includes the proposed state purchase of a Citizens-owned building on Tripps Lane in East Providence for more than twice its current $16.9 million assessed value.
A second of two unannounced budget amendments has Democrat McKee asking lawmakers to allow a tweak in the state’s “financial institutions tax” that could potentially cost the state millions in revenue.
Within the State House, it is believed to be a targeted effort to assist Citizens for unstated reasons, though it does not specifically name the company.
Read on to find out what we know about the Citizens Bank deal – and what we don’t.
Business: Inside McKee’s 11th hour pitch to keep Citizens Bank – and its jobs – in RI. Here’s the deal.
Spread too thin as owner/chef, and with two other businesses, Ben Lloyd will close his Salted Slate this month. The Wayland Square restaurant has had a 10-year run serving lunch, brunch and dinner in Providence. The last day of service is May 31.
News of that closing was compounded by a Facebook notice that a second Wayland Square institution, Minerva’s Pizza at 20 South Angell St., has also shuttered. Kabalan and Kaylin Habchi bought the restaurant in 2002 and have run the pizzeria since.
Did the traffic disruptions of the Washington Bridge closure play a role? Journal food editor Gail Ciampa talks with Lloyd about the stresses that led to his difficult decision.
Dining: Two restaurant closures stun Wayland Square. How much is the Washington Bridge to blame?
Byron Valle and Douglas Leon were in a crowd of about 2,000 soccer fans gathered at Merino Park when they were shot to death in 1987.
Thirty-seven years later, police are still trying to find the man who pulled the trigger. The accused killer is Julio Merida, and he’s among a small group of fugitives identified as “Rhode Island’s Most Wanted.”
Featured on a webpage maintained by the Rhode Island State Fusion Center at state police headquarters, each of the most-wanted fugitives has a story. Read on to learn more about Merida and seven other men on the most-wanted list, as well as instructions from the state police about what to do if you have any information that could aid in apprehending them.
Crime: Have you seen these men? Here’s the list of Rhode Island’s most wanted fugitives
The end of this month could see Providence College already well down the road with respect to building its next men’s basketball recruiting class.
The Friars already hold a commitment from a 2025 prospect and could see two more before the calendar flips to June. The first could come as soon as Sunday afternoon.
Jamier Jones will announce his decision live on Instagram, and he was scheduled to start a final visit to Providence over the weekend. Jaylen Harrell is set to pledge May 27, and the Friars are also among his last six schools under consideration. Journal sportswriter Bill Koch explains the impact they could have on PC’s basketball program.
College sports: Two more top prospects might commit to Providence basketball this month. Who are they?
To read the full stories, go to providencejournal.com. Find out how to subscribe here.
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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