EDITORIAL: Speaker Shekarchi Is So Good to Us; He Is Finally Going to Let Us Watch Him Spend $50M
Saturday, February 18, 2023
Speaker of the House Joe Shekarchi is so good to us.
On Friday, he announced that after 12 plus years of legislative stonewalling and three years after he promised to hold public meetings of the Joint Committee on Legislative Services (JCLS), he has now again promised to hold hearings on how the General Assembly spends approximately $50 million annually.
“I look forward to the commencement of the work of the committee with the common goal of efficient management of the General Assembly on behalf of every Rhode Island taxpayer,” said Shekarchi in a press statement on Friday.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTA GoLocal investigation published in March of 2022 unveiled that the effort by Shekarchi and Senate President Dominick Ruggerio to block legal efforts to force the legislative leaders to conduct public meetings of the JCLS was costing Rhode Island taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
According to hundreds of pages of documents secured by GoLocal from the Rhode Island Attorney General and General Treasurer’s offices, the costs in 2022 exceeded $200,000 -- and some billing documents appeared to be missing.
GoLocal had filed under the Access to Public Records Act a request seeking the billing documents for the more than a half dozen attorneys hired by the state of Rhode Island to fight efforts by then-House Minority Leader Blake Filippi to force the JCLS to meet and conduct legislative business in public.
But after years of delays, the waste of hundreds of thousands in legal fees, and the complete lack of transparency, Shekarchi is now going to be sooooo good to us.
Soon, we can see him spend about $50 million annually — just to note, $50 million in taxpayer money.
Oh, Speaker Shekarchi, thank you, thank you.
You are so good to us.
An editorial is the opinion of a publication — specifically, the ownership.
While based on facts and news reporting, it is an opinion intended to discuss critical community issues. Often, the opinion is written with the intention of positive change.
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