Issue No. 238  l   May 1, 2008   l   Providence, Rhode Island

 

New Recruits Graduate From the 65th Providence Police Academy
Fifteen recruits are sworn in as Providence Police Officers

 

Mayor David N. Cicilline joined today with Police Chief Dean M. Esserman in honoring 15 graduates from the 65th Providence Police Training Academy.  The graduation exercises took place at the Columbus Theater, with the new recruits beginning their careers in law enforcement after 22 weeks of rigorous training under the leadership of Captain Anthony Sauro and his staff of academy instructors.

The Academy invited input from community leaders, who shared their expertise with recruits on a variety of issues, including seminars on nonviolence and mental health.  In addition, recruits participated in extensive and realistic scenario training, to help prepare them for real-life situations.

 

“Today, we are proud to welcome the fifteen new recruits to the ranks of our department,” stated Colonel Dean Esserman. “I look forward to these men and women becoming acclimated with both the community and their peers, as well as having long and distinguished careers within this department.” 

Curriculum at the 65th Providence Police Academy also included instruction in: criminal law and procedure, ethics, firearms training, hate crimes training, traffic and patrol procedures and emergency medical training.

Graduates of the 65th Providence Police Academy:

Recruit Everett Carvalho    

Recruit Michelle Chasse
Recruit Michael Clary
Recruit Francisco Colon
Recruit Eric Cuellar
Recruit Jason Dalton
Recruit Daniel Fascitelli
Recruit Noel Field
Recruit Roberto Gutierrez
Recruit Mark Hubbard
Recruit Jessica Leone
Recruit Joseph Pineau
Recruit Matthew Rampone
Recruit Daniel Sirignano
Recruit Clifford Torres
    
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Mayor Cicilline to Present His FY 2009 Budget to Residents & The City Council

Budget Presentation set for tonight, May 1 at 6 p.m. at Providence City Hall

Mayor David N. Cicilline will deliver his FY 2009 Budget Presentation to the City Council and the residents of Providence on Thursday, May 1 at 6 p.m. in the City Council Chambers at Providence City Hall.

The Mayor is expected to outline his budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year and discuss strategies for protecting the future prosperity of the Providence.  He’ll also announce steps the City is taking to mitigate the severe impact of the State’s budget crisis on Providence City government and taxpayers.

 

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Pedal Your Way to Bike to Work Day on May 16!

 

Across the United States cities are gearing up for the 52nd Annual National Bike to Work Day on Friday, May 16, 2008.  Providence will be hosting its own press conference and festivities for Bike to Work Day.  Taking place at Bank of America City Center in downtown Providence, bicyclists will convene at the skating rink entrance at 7:00am for refreshments and kick-off press conference at 7:30am.  
Providence Mayor David Cicilline, Richard Godfrey, Director of Rhode Island Housing and Chair of The Providence Foundation Bike to Work and College Committee, and Mike Lewis, Director of the RI Department of Transportation, will lead the way to the event as they cycle into downtown for the press event.  Joining Mayor Cicilline at the podium will be Richard Godfrey, Mike Lewis, Chris Wilhite of the Sierra Club (RI Chapter), and Providence City Council member John Lombardi.
   

Breakfast and refreshments will be served to cyclists from 7:00am until 10:00am. At 3:00pm the skating rink comes alive with bicycle-related vendors providing safety tips and demonstrations, local environmental organizations, information about upcoming bicycle signage and lane striping, Rack n’ Ride demonstrations by RIPTA, refreshments, a bike raffle and entertainment.

Promoting a healthy ride for energy independence, Bike to Work Day seeks to raise awareness about bicycling as a healthy and viable transportation alternative.  Among the goals of Bike to Work Day are to help reduce traffic congestion, reduce the demand for parking, reduce air pollution and make Providence a better place to live and work.  The American Automobile Association cites that the estimated cost to own and operate a vehicle in 2008 is $8,121 – a $298 increase from last year.  While the costs for automobile maintenance, insurance and depreciation have actually decreased from 2007, higher prices at the fuel pump have more than offset these savings and pushed the overall costs of vehicle ownership and operation higher.

“Riding a bicycle or RIPTA bus to work everyday represents one of the strongest actions a commuter can take to reduce global warming pollution and our dependence on oil,” said Chris Wilhite , Sierra Club Rhode Island Chapter Director. “By making it safer and easier for cyclists to commute to work, Cool Cities like Providence can be significant leaders in ensuring that Narragansett Bay stays cool enough for its fisheries and wildlife.”

To help promote and support bicycle commuting in Providence, The Providence Foundation and the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) have invested in the installation of over 100 bicycle hitches throughout downtown Providence including locations at the Amtrak Station, Bank of America City Center and Exchange Terrace.   The City of Providence Department of Planning and Development has completed plans for the signing of bicycle routes along many of Providence’s thoroughfares.  It is expected that this project will be completed this fall.  Bike lanes will be striped on Blackstone Boulevard and Broadway in addition to bike route signage on the following streets: Elmwood Avenue, Broadway, Smith Street, Charles Street, and Hope Street.

Bike to Work Day is funded by the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) through a grant from the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program (CMAQ) of the US Department of Transportation (USDOT).  Administrative and organizational support is provided by The Providence Foundation.  The Providence Bicycle Coalition, an advocacy group of citizen-cyclists who work to promote and enable bicycling as a healthy, enjoyable, efficient and environmentally friendly mode of transportation in and around Providence, is organizing this year’s Bike to Work Day event with the US Open Cycling Foundation.

For more information on Providence’s Bike to Work Day and for information on RIDOT’s Bike RI program visit www.dot.state.ri.us/bikeri/. For information on what The Providence Bicycle Coalition is doing to support bicycling in Providence visit www.bikeprovidence.org.  And, for more information about the efforts of the RI Chapter of the Sierra Club to support and promote clean, affordable transportation alternatives, please visit www.rhodeisland.sierraclub.org.

 
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Celebrate Providence at Waterplace Park This Summer!
Friday Night Concert Series Kicks Off June 20 with Roomful of Blues

Mayor David N. Cicilline, the Department of Art, Culture + Tourism, Lynne McCormack, Director, and the Department of Public Parks, Robert McMahon, Acting Superintendent, are pleased to announce this summer’s Friday Night Concert Series at Waterplace Park. This summer, six unique and dynamic musical acts will perform at Waterplace Park on Friday nights during the months of June, July and August. The musicians that will be performing in the Friday Night Concert Series at Waterplace Park represent some of the finest and most talented musical acts from Providence, New England and around the world.  All concerts are FREE and begin at 7:30 pm.

Grammy nominated Roomful of Blues will be kicking off this year’s Friday Night Concert Series at Waterplace Park on June 20.  Even though Roomful of Blues’ lineup has changed over the years, the band has always been one of the tightest, most joyful blues ensembles in the world. Currently an eight-piece unit led by guitarist Chris Vachon, the band has never sounded fresher or stronger. In 2007, singer Dave Howard took over the vocal duties, bringing his gritty and soulful vocals and adding another bright new dimension to the jazzy, jump-blues musical roots. Their winning combination of jump, swing, blues, R&B and soul remains their calling card, as does their ability to fill the dance floor.

Vieux Farka Touré will be performing on June 27.  Vieux Farka Touré, a brilliant guitarist, singer and songwriter, is one of the world’s most thrilling and talented new artists. He is the successor to the internationally celebrated legacy of his two-time Grammy Award-winning father, Ali Farka Touré. Blending rock, funk, and reggae with the Saharan Blues of his native Mali, Vieux is pioneering an electrifying new global sound. His band unites African and American musicians, creating a spectacular mix of styles and sounds.

Carlos de León will be performing on the Waterplace Park stage on July 4. Trumpet player and bandleader Carlos de León had already been playing professionally for five years when he came to New York City at age 17 from his native Dominican Republic. In the late 1960s and early 1970s he played with such Latin jazz luminaries as Tito Puente, Tito Rodríguez and Frank “Machito” Grillo, as well as the Fania All-Stars, a band that pioneered salsa.  Over the next two decades he performed widely in the U.S., Dominican Republic, and Venezuela. In 1989 de León moved to Providence, bringing his powerful interpretation of the Latin jazz tradition to New England.  Immediately following the concert, the Statehouse will light up the sky with their Fourth of July fireworks spectacular.

2008 Grammy nominated Geno Delafose will take his Zydeco and cowboy spirit to the stage on July 18.  Unbeknownst to many northerners, who often reserve the image of a cowboy for white Anglo-Saxons, Creoles (African-American Francophones) also share in the rural roots of hard work and dedication to the land. Geno epitomizes this cultural tradition. Born into a family of Zydeco musicians, at the ripe age of seven, Geno picked up the rubboard and joined his father John Delafose’s band the Eunice Playboys, an ensemble that Geno would one day lead. John Delafose was key in re-launching the current upsurge of Zydeco, and Geno is poised to crossover Zydeco to a wider country music audience with his charismatic cowboy spirit and lively presentation.

On July 25, the series continues with Réveillons.  Réveillons! offers a new approach to traditional Quebec music. While their music retains the spirit of tradition, it never ceases to grow and change as the band creates and explores their own interpretations.  Réveillons! is comprised of Richard Forest (composition and fiddle), Marc Maziade (guitar, voice), David Berthiaume (voice, jaw harp) and Jean-François Berthiaume (percussions, step dance, voice, call, etc.).

The series will come to a close on August 1 with Greg Abate. He’s a pro who got his start in the Blackstone Valley and worked his way to become an influential jazz virtuoso on saxophone (alto, tenor and soprano) and flute.  His 2004 CD Evolution drew rave reviews and caught the attention of the Grammy committee.  The recording made the ballot in four categories – album of the year; best jazz instrumental solo (“Angelic”); best jazz instrumental album, individual or group; and best instrumental arrangement (“Angelic”). Never one to rest, Abate followed Evolution with two CDs in 2005: Horace Is Here  and Monsters in the Night.

The Friday Night Concert Series at Waterplace Park is presented and sponsored by the City of Providence, David N. Cicilline Mayor, Department of Art, Culture + Tourism, Department of Public Parks, in cooperation with NBC10 WJAR TV and with the support of Waterplace Restaurant and Lounge.

For more information visit www.providenceri.com/ArtCultureTourism or call the Visitor Information Center at 401-751-1177.

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Feature: My Business
In Downtown, It's a Dog'z Life
  

Since more of us are working more hours these days to make ends meet, it means home can be a lonely place during the day.  We’ve got school, after-school, and team sports for our kids, but what about the pooch? Leaving the family dog at home all day doesn’t make for a very happy companion – and furniture, slippers, and rugs don’t fare too well either.  For these reasons, some of us are forced to consider giving up our canine friends.

Enter Dogz Downtown.  Cassie Delaney moved to Providence from California in 1999 to study at Brown.  She brought with her a passion and empathy towards other dog owners who have issues rearing their beloved rambunctious pups.  She had already been volunteering in the West Coast for various police K9 and search-and-rescue groups while a high schooler before she came here.  But the passion for this work welled enough out of her that she walked out of the Ivy league gates and built her own outdoor fences around a 20,000 square foot converted grocery warehouse on Eddy Street – which 3 years later, her business, Dogz Downtown, is filling up with some of the most well-behaved (but still rambunctious) canine clients. 

City News takes a tour around Delaney’s facility, and gets greeted with open paws. 

What inspired you to start this incredible facility here in the City?
Well, I have problem dogs of my own! I have a pitbull mix and a German Shepard whom I have done a lot of work with, and they both have inspired me to help other people.  Sometimes, the help comes in the form of having a dog calm when you get home at the end of the day after you’ve worked for ten hours.  Other times, we have dogs that are very aggressive and they don’t know how to help that dog be more comfortable and be more confident.  So, we help them through that as well. 

But in between going to Brown and then opening up this facility, how did you make that transition?

I started actually out in California.  I’d been working in shelters.  I’ve done some K9 police work and some Schutzhund training years ago.  Schutzhund is a sport version of police K9.  So I apprenticed with trainers out in California doing that.   And then I did some search-and-rescue work as well, all throughout when I was in high school 15 through 18 years old.  When I moved out here, I started to get into search-and-rescue work again but mostly I was working on behavior modification and helping people with their dogs. 

It seems that there are many different methods and techniques these days that are out there to teach pet owners how to raise their pets properly.  Tell us about the Dogz Downtown general philosophy on canine care? What’s your special method?
I don’t think that there is a special method.  But I think that most methods work and no method is going to work for every dog.  I would say that I don’t have a special method, especially when I work with my own dogs.  I use what I feel is appropriate for each dog.  So we really try to approach each dog holistically, not just if they have a training issue.  We’re going to look at things like diet, we’re going to recommend pet owners to see their vet to make sure that their problems are not medically-related first – but really what we do is approach the dog from a whole body angle, as well as use different training styles.  For some dogs, we use clicker training.  We do a lot of clicker training here.  Some dogs, we use food motivation.  Some dogs, we use toys.  Some dogs, we use praise.  So it really depends on the dog and what motivates them. 

The foundation of our training is keeping our dogs to want to listen to us, so controlling our resources.  We don’t use physical punishment because there’s really no need for it.  They get the training language we give them and they understand it.  They want to work for you and they want to get it right because they enjoy it. 

Now you screen the dogs before you accept them into your daycare, right?
Yes, for the daycare absolutely.  I know that my own dogs would be horrible daycare dogs! As much as they would enjoy it they would terrorize everybody.  They’d be bullies.  So we don’t allow bullying.  We take in dogs that are “bomb-proof” with other dogs.  We do accept dogs sometimes that have some issues with people because we will work with them and our staff will work with them to help them get through that.  But we don’t accept dogs that obviously have issues with other dogs.  So we are very careful about how we do that.   When you have dogs in a large play environment, they’re going to wrestle, they run into crates, they jump onto things, so they run around and play and have a blast but it’s like being in a dog park – they run into each other, they scrape and they get bumps and bruises.  So the bottom line is that we do want to avoid anything that happens outside of that normal kind of play. 

How does one become a Certified Pet Dog Trainer? What kind of education do you go through to become a CPDT?

You have to have learning theory background, body language background – all things vital to dealing with dogs.  You can work with a dog that is extremely fearful and maybe not aggressive, and then put him in a mall with maybe a hundred people, and he’s terrified while they’re all trying to pet him, he might very well nip at them just because he’s scared.  So, understanding body language is really important.  That’s a big part of our training.  Our daycare attendants get the crash course in different body language because we get to see so many dogs of different breeds, they have to learn to read their body posturing very well.  They do 40 hours of just observing the dogs before they even handle them, so that they can recognize their different body language.  We also do a lot of learning theory.  So, for certified trainers, that’s the requirement. 

And what’s the size of your staff?
Right now, we have about 8 on the payroll and 8 volunteers.  So we have quite a few who come in, like a friend of mine that comes in like 4 or 5 hours a week and play with the dogs.  Sometimes, our staff just can’t throw the ball around anymore, so our volunteers are crucial in relieving them during playtime.  So, they’ll help throw the ball around and play with the dogs. 
 
Tell us about your canine clients.  What do they do while they’re here?
They torture us! No, just kidding.  They’re great.  They do a lot of wrestling but it depends on the dog and the day.  We have quite a few Old English bulldogs that like to lay on their bellies out in the sun when it’s nice weather.  We have play structures outside that they actually jump on.  They use the slides.  They use the swimming pools that we have out there.  We have misters as well for the summer, chasing the sprinklers, chasing each other.  We have quite a few who think it’s their job to protect the yard even though I keep trying to convince them that no, that’s my job! For the first five or six hours, there’s a lot of tag, playing with the hose, taking toys, things like that.  About lunch time, they start to mellow out and take naps.  We have cots out there too and they sleep together and curl up together.  That’s my favorite part of the day – when they all curl up together. 

And if they could speak for themselves, what do you think they’d say about Dogz Downtown?
I think they do speak for themselves! In fact, I heard a dog halfway down Eddy Street and I said, ‘Ha! I know who that is!’ We know their barks very well! You know the dogs get very excited and we tell people that in their evaluations.  If the dog is not pulling or dragging to come in, then there’s a problem.  If they’re pulling away, there’s something wrong. 

Are your canine clients regulars?
Most of them, yeah! We almost always fill up right away.  Tuesdays through Fridays we almost always reach our capacity, so we have to turn people away.  We have a 45 capacity.  We split into two groups; sometimes we split into three.  On days when there are a lot of teenage boys, we split into three groups!

What did it take for you to convert this building into a dog facility?
A miracle! Basically we put up all of the walls and we had to slap everything into the ceiling for dogs like Great Danes and Newfoundlands running against them.  You can see we’ve had dogs go through the wall and one of the holes in the wall down in the end was my pitbull’s doing! And he didn’t even seem to notice! We put up all the walls and all the flooring and matting because when we got here it was all cement flooring.  But, that was pretty much it – putting up dividers, putting in the floors.

And how’s business since you opened?
Good.  It’s tough to keep up with.  It’s a good problem.  The facility’s been open for 3 years and so the toughest thing I think is keeping up with the demand. 

I think the biggest thing that’s really different about us is that we really look at the whole dog.  If your dog is not right for daycare, we’re going to tell you that.  A lot of people won’t see troublesome behaviors immediately, but we can tell you if this will be a bad environment for your dog or not.  We really do like to see our dogs have a good time – whether it’s at daycare or for training.  

Dogz Downtown is located at 1218 Eddy Street.  For more information, call 401-785-3649 or go to www.dogzdowntown.com.

 

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