Mayor Establishes Transparent Process to Maximize Economic Recovery Reinvestment Funds

Executive order sets priorities and names 26-member team to ensure funds are invested strategically and expeditiously

Video: Ready for federal recovery funds

 

Mayor David N. Cicilline last Friday signed an executive order establishing a set of clear guidelines and priorities to ensure federal dollars authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) are spent in the most strategic and timely manner.  The executive order also creates a 15-member team to identify opportunities for infrastructure improvement and job creation and to create a transparent system for tracking resources and expenditures.

 

“It’s critically important that we maximize these funds to their fullest potential to create jobs, rebuild our infrastructure and get our economy moving again,” said Mayor Cicilline.  “The executive order that I signed today will ensure that every single dollar is accounted for and invested wisely as we work towards strengthening our economy and ensuring the long-term prosperity of our city and state.”

 

In addition to setting out a transparent process for accurately accounting for the expenditure of funds under the ARRA, the executive order also underscores the importance of building a proactive, productive partnership with the State to ensure the funding is utilized in the most effective manner. 

 

The City’s priorities for the ARRA funds include:

• Increase employment and access to job training
  
• Repair and modernize infrastructure and transit
  
• Enhance long-term, sustainable economic development potential
  
• Provide assistance and economic relief to Providence families
  
• Strengthen education and public safety
  

Providence’s 26-member American Recovery & Reinvestment Act team will meet regularly to identify opportunities for investment, track resources and report on the results of those investments.  The ARRA team is led by Policy & Legislative Affairs Director Matthew Stark and includes an ARRA project coordinator, an ARRA compliance officer, ARRA analysts, the City’s chief of Administration, chief of Operations, the director of Planning & Development, the director of Public Works, the chief engineer of Providence Water, Providence Schools superintendent, Police chief, Fire chief, acting director of Public Property, director of the Providence/Cranston Workforce Investment Board, director of the Providence After School Alliance (PASA) and the director of the Mayor’s Substance Abuse Prevention Council, the director of Emergency Management, director of Pathways to Opportunity, director of the Public Housing Authority, director of Provstat and the director of ProCap. 

 

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First Annual Senator Claiborne Pell Lecture on Arts and Humanities In Session
Symposium continues through March 24

Mayor David N. Cicilline and Department of Art, Culture & Tourism Director Lynne McCormack this week kicked off the first annual Senator Claiborne Pell Lecture on Arts and Humanities.  The Mayor established the annual event in honor of the late Senator for his extraordinary work championing education, the arts and the humanities. 

 

“Senator Pell was an extraordinary statesman and a true a visionary who had a tremendous impact on arts and culture in our nation,” said Mayor Cicilline.  “Two of his most notable achievements were the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities and the Pell Grants that created education opportunities for countless students.  This annual lecture and symposium will enable us to honor Senator Pell’s lasting legacy while exchanging ideas and best practices on the best ways to strengthen our vibrant arts and cultural community.”

 

Guest speaker Jeremy Nowak, President & CEO of the Reinvestment Fund and a nationally recognized leader in urban development, addressed the crowd of hundreds this past Tuesday in the Ballroom of Hotel Providence.  Nowak’s recent publications examine the role of art and culture in neighborhood revitalization, policy options for distressed cities and the role of development finance for older industrial cities.  He is currently a Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a member of Harvard University’s Kennedy School Executive Session on transforming cities through civic entrepreneurship.

The following remaining symposiums, which will continue through March 24th, will bring together participants from the local creative community to build on the findings of Creative Providence: A cultural plan for the creative sector:

Create conditions for Providence’s creative workforce to thrive
March 9 | 2-5 pm | The Dirt Palace, 14 Olneyville Square
Sustaining individual artists, writers, scholars + designers as a matter of civic pride

 

Increase community access and cultural participation
March 12 | 5:30-8:30 pm | The DaVinci Center, 470 Charles Street
Exploring gateways into Providence's many cultures and wide range of creative practices

 

Raise public awareness of arts and humanities
March 17 | 1-4 pm | International Institute, 645 Elmwood Avenue
Rethinking advocacy, marketing, and cultural tourism to increase opportunities for participation and engagement

 

Educate for lifelong creativity
March 24 | 9 am – 12 pm | New Urban Arts, 743 Westminster Street
Developing creative thinking and practice in youth for 21st-century global citizenship

 

Providence business, educational, civic and cultural leaders and creative professionals are encouraged to attend. The event is free.  However, registration for each event will be limited on a first come, first served basis. Please visit www.creativeprov.org or call (401) 421-2489 x456 for more information.

 

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 Classical High School Poetry Champ To Represent the Creative Capital in D.C.

Earlier this week, the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts (RISCA) reported that Classical High School student Amber Johnson took top honors at the Poetry Out Loud state finals held at Bishop Hendricken High School in Warwick on Saturday, February 28th.  As the state champ, Johnson will go on to compete at the national finals in Washington, DC in April 28th.  She received a $200 prize check and an all-expense-paid trip to the nation’s capital.  Classical High School, her home school in Providence, will receive a $500 stipend for the purchase of poetry books.
 
Poetry Out Loud is a program sponsored nationally by the National Endowment for the Arts and The Poetry Foundation in Chicago.  Locally, the competition is sponsored by RISCA and VSA arts of Rhode Island.  Organized along the lines of the national spelling bee, Poetry Out Loud promotes competitions at the high school level throughout the country.  Congratulations, Amber!

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Feature: My Community
From the Classroom to the Workspace, Knowledge Equals Opportunity


Providence has an abundance of higher learning institutions.  We have one of the highest densities of colleges and universities in the country.  It is in those corridors of academia where Rhode Island's most precious resource lives: knowledge.  Just ask Dr. Jeff Seemann, Dean of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Rhode Island.

Over the last few years, Seemann has been one of the most recognizable voices in the efforts to grow Rhode Island’s blooming knowledge-based economy.  When he’s not on campus, he co-chairs the state’s Science and Technology Council, which has  already invested millions of dollars ramping science programs aimed at boosting more innovation and entrepreneurship in the state.

 

City News caught up with Dean Seemann to find out about how universities are joining forces with the business community and each other to prepare for the economy of the future.

 

Proponents of growing knowledge-based jobs like Mayor Cicilline suggest that this will be crucial to making our city and state competitive in the 21st century.  As a leader and expert in this field for many years, how would you rate Providence today as a city that has been working hard to grow this type of economy?

The Mayor is exactly right in looking forward with regard to how we’re going to have a vibrant economy in both the City of Providence and in the State of Rhode Island.  I think that we’re off to a great start.  Providence, first of all, is a vibrant city.  One that is very attractive to the entrepreneurs and companies of this world.  We are perfectly positioned in the New York-Boston corridor.  We have great institutions of higher education – Brown, URI, JWU, PC, RIC, RISD – and in fact we have one of the highest densities of higher ed in the country. That’s a critical part of the knowledge-based economy.  We’ve also got some great research hospitals and Lifespan. 

 

And then of course, we have this terrific physical opportunity that is now the Jewelry District and the Mayor has a brilliant vision, along with a lot of other people, around a knowledge district that will take advantage of all the current high intelligence in the area. It has the potential to be quickly transformative, which is unique to Rhode Island, and the ability to create what I think could be this wonderful physical space that builds around this new knowledge-based economy.  So, it’s absolutely right for Rhode Island and it’s absolutely right for Providence.  It’s essential for the economy. 

 

For those who still aren’t familiar with this type of economy, describe plainly how an investment in knowledge and innovation translate into better economic conditions for a city like Providence?

These are the industries, the companies, the higher-wage jobs that come from high technology development.  The United States and Providence are really no longer competitive in the global world, and just in terms of making things or widgets – whatever that might be.  That capability has really been taken over in China and India and throughout the world.  Our unique niche in the world remains in the area of innovation and being able to develop new ideas that lead to new high technology companies in biotechnology, biomedicine, biomanufacturing.  Those are the knowledge-based companies that we can grow here in Rhode Island based upon the intellectual capabilities of the people in the State.  So having, for example, a Brown University that is home to some great scientists, we can do a great job in leveraging their intellectual capacities to spin out new companies and new opportunities right in homegrown territory and right in the knowledge district. 

 

In terms of job creation, what are the possibilities present when cities invest in knowledge economy growth?

The possibilities are fundamentally in those higher-wage jobs – those jobs that we need so desperately in Rhode Island to bring us up to being competitive with Massachusetts and Connecticut that surround us.  People in those jobs pay a lot of taxes.  They spend a lot of money in the area, but the companies they grow, they have more people, they attract new companies.  So becoming a base for these knowledge-based high tech companies like biotechnology companies is one that sort of feeds on itself and continues to attract more and more companies and more and more growth.  It’s so wonderfully complementary, for example, to what’s happening in the Boston-Cambridge area. 

 

As an academic and a dean of one of our state’s best science program at URI, describe the role of the university in building this new knowledge sector.

You can think of the growth of the economy as one that is derived from a continuum of ideas that are moved along.  So often they begin in the academic space – on the benches, or in the laboratories, or in the studios of brilliant academics, who then through technology transfer activities of the universities, of cities and states, and help move those activities into commercial spaces and start new companies.  It’s this benches-to-business kind of movement where a lot of ideas get translated. 

 

When you look in the Boston area, for example, MIT in their history has probably spun out well over 400 companies that remain in that area.  Many of them that are enormous companies today.  We’ve done a lot of that too in Rhode Island but not nearly enough.  I think that URI, Brown, and the other institutions can really contribute to that.  The Science and Technology Advisory Council that I am privileged to co-chair are working hard with all these organizations to help that technology transfer and commercialize.  We are moving along quickly, effectively, and productively for the city and the state.

 

Also, one of the really exciting things now is that RISD, Brown, and URI are coming together to each bring their unique and complementary capabilities to do so much more.  Design is an essential and central part of the way science goes forward and RISD, with the arrival of their new president John Maeda, is a really exciting force in Providence and will be a very exciting force in the development of the knowledge district. 

 

I know the Mayor is thrilled to see the growing presence of URI, especially in the sciences, here in the Capital City.  What factors make URI and Providence a good fit?

Let’s be clear.  We’ve got a great university down in Kingston.  We’ve got tremendous programs down there and we don’t want to do anything that will slow down or stop that growth.  But in the areas of biomedicine, in particular, we’ve got a lot of great opportunities to both expand and start new programs that are very complimentary to Kingston and that will help those programs flourish, that will take advantage of the hospitals, and of Brown and their medical school.  These opportunities can allow URI to have a presence too in Providence that will both support those other organizations and allow us to add a lot of great things to it. 

 

We bring a tremendous strength in the allied health sciences – pharmacy and nursing – something that I know that the Lifespan hospitals really need greater support on.  Getting those pharmacists and nurses trained and out there is an area where URI can play a major part.  So, there are lots of complementary opportunities for us in Providence to be, in the end, the public state research university that’s the real flagship. 

 

What do you think has to be done to attract and sustain the knowledge economy sector in the future?

Number one, we need great leaders like Mayor Cicilline.  Number two, we need collaboration.  It’s hard to imagine that any one institution or organization is going to do it itself.  Collaboration is what we have the capabilities for, and doing our very best in Rhode Island being a small size.  Third, we need to think about investing for the long term.  In this time of economic crisis, it’s hard to get our heads above water and look beyond the troubles that we’re in.  Much of what you see coming to fruition, like the Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences at URI, that’s testimony to people’s long term vision six to eight years ago.  The knowledge district is going to create a lot of short-term opportunities for investment, jobs, and construction, but really the long-term payoffs aren’t going to happen today.  But if we are to have the great city and the great state that we imagine, we’ve gotta’ keep that long-term focus going, even in these tough times.  We’ve got to take a fair fraction of these stimulus dollars and invest them for the long term. 

 

For more on Dean Seemann’s work visit: www.uri.edu/cels or go to http://stac.ri.gov/epscor/

  

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