Groups Lobby for Seats on RIPTA Board
By Bruce Landis; Journal Staff Writer
Demonstrators in Kennedy Plaza urge Governor Carcieri to appoint members who represent the elderly, disabled and environmental activists.
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PROVIDENCE – Transit advocates yesterday demanded that Governor Carcieri name a more diverse board for the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority.
They said that the governor’s nominations ignore the spirit, if not the letter, of the law on appointing members to the board, and that he is trying to pack it with businessmen rather than people who are interested in and use public transit.
The demonstration/news conference at Kennedy Plaza, RIPTA’s main bus hub, was the latest skirmish in a years-long struggle over control of the RIPTA board of directors and the system that carries more than 20 million riders per year. Only four of the eight board seats are filled now, and all of the members’ terms have expired.
“We want a seat on the board,” said Irene Santos, president of the Gray Panthers, a group representing the elderly. She was carrying a sign describing the RIPTA board that said, “No senior. No disabled. No environmentalist & No women.”
Groups interested in the environment and those concerned with the elderly and the disabled have been pressing for representation on the RIPTA board, arguing that it ought to include the people who depend on public transit and those who see transit as an answer to environmental problems.
The governor’s spokesman, Jeff Neal, said the governor is following the law, which says he should “achieve a diverse membership in the board” and “give due consideration” to groups including the ones that met in Kennedy Plaza yesterday: the Gray Panthers, the Sierra Club, and the American Federation for the Blind. The Gray Panthers and American Federation for the Blind are supporting Almas Kalafian, who is blind and says she uses RIPTA to get everywhere – to the doctor, grocery store and hairdresser.
The Sierra Club has unsuccessfully put forward several people, including a former RIPTA board member, Barry Schiller, and Molly Clark, an official with the Rhode Island Lung Association, another transit advocate.
Neal said that the governor has given “due consideration” to the groups, but that he isn’t obligated to appoint the people they want, and he hasn’t. If the Senate approved all the present nominees, the governor’s business nominees – along with the seat occupied by the state director of transportation, whom the governor also appoints – would dominate the board.
The governor appoints the board members “with the advice and consent of the Senate,” and the Senate Judiciary Committee hasn’t acted on the governor’s nominations, effectively blocking them. It’s not clear whether the committee and Senate will act before this year’s legislative session ends, which could happen within the next two weeks. Sen. Michael J. McCaffrey, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, couldn’t be reached yesterday.
John Rupp, one of the governor’s nominees whose name has been bounced around the State House for more than two years, said yesterday that he’s getting frustrated.
Rupp, a corporate lawyer with Textron, said he’s interested in improving the state’s transit system, and that he spent more than two years during the 1970s, when he lived in Illinois, as a volunteer working on the merger of bus, rail and elevated transit lines serving Chicago under one regional transit authority. He said that he thinks RIPTA is a good system and that he would like to help make it better.
But Carcieri, no friend of unions, tried to use Rupp’s nomination to oust the labor representative on the present RIPTA board, retired steelworker William Kennedy. The Senate let that sit along with Carcieri’s other nominations.
Lately, the governor has given some ground. He withdrew Rupp’s nomination to replace Kennedy, nominated Kennedy for another term on the board and renominated Rupp for a different, unoccupied seat. If the Senate acts, that would put both Rupp and Kennedy on the board.
The governor has also nominated John M. MacDonald, a member of the Governor’s Commission on Disabilities, to the board, addressing another transit constituency without going outside his administration.
The governor’s other nominees are:
Robert Batting, a retired businessman who was Carcieri’s only successful RIPTA nominee. Carcieri has nominated him for another term.
Thomas Deller, the Providence city planning director and the board’s chairman, also nominated for another term.
Edward J. Field, the president of Fitzwater Engineering, of Scituate, who would be a new member.
The state transportation director, Jerome F. Williams, whom the governor appoints to that job directly, sits on the RIPTA board by law. There is one remaining unfilled seat.
blandis@projo.com / (401) 277-7487
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