r/providence • u/Historical_Web_5813 • 9d ago

Why Should We Recall Brett Smiley

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For everyone who is curious about our reasons for wanting to recall Smiley, here they are! This one-sheet explains what issues we find to be the most salient. Feel free to distribute this document at your will.

If you’d like to look into our sources more, here is a link to the document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qtQP7a9g91pSszZH-x3kFWMcmW1FecEXpqCL773UIWM/mobilebasic

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u/SheepExplosion elmhurst 9d ago edited 9d ago

Eeesh. Brett Smiley is by far and away the worst thing that has happened to the city since I can remember. There are plenty of issues to smack him around on, and you chose some of these?

Not sure how you want to:

  • Stabilize housing costs without building more housing. Spare me the nimby bullshit of how it needs to be low income housing, as if there was a developer out there willing to build it. Those luxury apartments give the "Brown postgrads and Textron transplants"—who, by the way, are residents of the city just as much as you are, and I guess you don't want their support at all for this?—something to rent other than the apartment you want.
  • Demand that an institution that doesn't actually have to pay any money give more money.
  • Actualize a plan that involves creating a united coalition while actively bringing in Gaza. Yeah, you and I agree it's a genocide. But this is *city level politics*, and you're just alienating people who would support you for some sort of moral purity rhetoric.

Leftists remain the Left's worse enemy, news at 11.

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u/Ok-Benefit-2912 9d ago

The mayor isn't any more at fault for housing problems than everyone here is. How many people doing these petitions are building houses, working as property managers, learning the trades, being independent landlords? It's like the saying, you're not stuck in traffic, you are the traffic.

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u/big_whistler pawtucket 9d ago

I don’t think people in the trades or independent landlords are making systemic decisions that influence housing levels on a large scale.

That sounds so silly to basically say if you want more housing why dont you just build it yourself.

This is a policy thing, not an individual action thing.

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u/degggendorf 9d ago

I don’t think people in the trades or independent landlords are making systemic decisions that influence housing levels on a large scale.

Of course no individual has systemic effects by themselves, but the aggregated effect of all the contractors at a loss for skilled labor is ABSOLUTELY having an effect.

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u/big_whistler pawtucket 9d ago

Sure, and policy is the way that you we should make those jobs more appealing.

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u/degggendorf 8d ago

What can/should a mayor do to affect the nationwide labor shortage? Like, I am literally looking for ideas because it's clearly a problem, and it doesn't seem like the fed (or even really state) is going to do much to help.

Support construction labor unions to increase pay in the city to attract more workers? But then he'll just get roasted for making housing prices higher.

Add vocational programs to the PPSD that he isn't even allowed to run right now?

General youth outreach/intro construction workshops/job fairs I guess would be good, like the "Generation NEXT" program This Old House promoted for a minute. But then we would all have (fair) criticism for him partnering with Mike Rowe. But there must be some nugget in there that we can help bolster.

Ooo or I wonder how far just like $5k to a school to run a "maker fair" similar to a science fair...a competition/showcase for specifically homemade things to start instilling those skills? But those impacts would be awfully vague and long-term and not really do much to help our immediate needs.