HOT

RI's Bill Almon '75 to be Inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame

Brown baseball alum and one of the best players to ever come out of Rhode Island will receive a major honor next month. Bill Almon '75 will be one of 10 inductees to the College Baseball Hall of Fame's Class of 2023.

Almon was the first pick in the Major League draft in 1974

The group is set to be inducted on Friday, February 3, at the College Baseball Hall of Fame Foundation's Night of Champions event in Omaha, Nebraska.

HOT

Rhode Island Criminal Justice Hall of Fame 

The Rhode Island Criminal Justice Hall of Fame held the induction ceremony for its 2022 class of inductees on Thursday night. 

The Hall of Fame’s 2022 class of inductees are:

Martin Cappelli, former chief of RI DEM’s Office of Criminal Investigation
Peter A. DiBiase, Esq.
Cedric Huntley, Executive Director of the Nonviolence Institute {photo)
The Honorable Gilbert V. Indeglia
Chief Thomas F. Oates, III
Colonel (Ret.) Steven G. O'Donnell
The Honorable James E. O'Neil
The Honorable Judith Colenback Savage

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Hugh Clements

U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced that Colonel Hugh T. Clements Jr. has been appointed to serve as the new Director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office). The COPS Office is the component of the Justice Department responsible for advancing the practice of community policing by the nation’s state, local, territorial, and Tribal law enforcement agencies through information and grant resources.  

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“Town Made” Shared Kitchens in Wakefield Launch Scholarship Program for Food Entrepreneurs

Town Made, a local food hub and shared kitchen facility in Wakefield, has announced the launch of its new scholarship program for food producers.  

Scholarship recipients can receive no-cost access to Town Made’s commercial kitchens, storage solutions, and team of culinary and marketing experts. Designed to strengthen the local food system, scholarship eligibility is dependent on makers incorporating mostly local food ingredients in their products.

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Moving on Up

GoLocal, Rhode Island’s largest locally owned news organization, is moving on up.

The company will be expanding its Providence headquarters and launching a series of new studios on the first level of the Turks Head building — one of the city's most historically significant landmarks. 

“When we launched GoLocal a dozen years ago, we were located in a basement, albeit a cool basement, and now over the years, we have grown and transformed into one of the largest news organizations in the state,” said Josh Fenton, CEO and Co-Founder.

“The Turks Head building is arguably one of the country’s most beautiful commercial buildings, and we are thrilled to be on the street level,” said Fenton. 

GoLocal will be in the most visible, centrally located portion of the iconic location at the intersection of Weybosset and Westminster Streets. 

The Turks Head Building was Providence’s first “skyscraper” when it was constructed in 1913.

Three new studios are now being built-out at GoLocal’s new space. 

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Avedisian Gives Fung’s Law Firm $86,000 Lobbying Contract

For years, Scott Avedisian and Allan Fung were close political and personal friends. The two Republicans were the faces of the party in Rhode Island. Avedisian was the long-time Mayor of Warwick, and Fung was the Mayor of Cranston.

In 2022, Fung was the GOP candidate for Congress and narrowly lost to Democrat Seth Magaziner. After the election, he returned to his law firm, Pannone Lopes Devereaux & O'Gara.

Now, the lobbying division of Fung’s law firm has been given an $86,000 contract to lobby for the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA). The lobbying division of the firm is named PLDO Strategies. The firm is paid $7,000 a month for 12 months.

Avedisian is the Chief Executive Officer of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority

GoLocal secured a copy of the contract through an Access to Public Records Act request.

The contract states, “This Agreement shall commence on January 1, 2023, and shall terminate on December 31, 2023, unless extended by the mutual written agreement of the parties. Either party may terminate this Agreement immediately if an act or omission by the other party constitutes a material breach of this Agreement.“

Further, the contract states, "The parties agree that the $84,000 fee for PLDO STRATEGIES's work is for the Session. The installment payments are a courtesy granted by PLDO STRATEGIES to RIPTA in order to spread PLDO STRATEGIES's fees for work during the Session throughout the calendar year."

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RI Healthcare Professionals

Two health professionals have been suspended by the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) after reports of sexual assault and, in a separate incident, alleged having cocaine on the premise of a facility.

And, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University Amy Cameron has been placed on probation by the Rhode Island Department of Health.

The Harvard-educated Cameron is an accomplished researcher and practices at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Providence. She has an academic appointment at Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School.

Beyond Harvard, Cameron also earned a Ph.D. at Clark University.

According to he resume, she is a member of more than ten medical societies and has been widely published. One of her papers, “Moral injury as a unique predictor of suicidal ideation in a veteran sample with a substance use disorder,” was published in the Journal of the American Psychological Association.

RIDOH sanctioned her for an inappropriate relationship, and they called out that Cameron did not self-report the incidents, as the violations were raised by a complainant — who was not identified by the RIDOH.

According to the RIDOH finding, the incident was a violation of the “Psychologist Act" by breaching several tenets of the American Psychological Association Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct,

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Dirty DOT, Alviti's Mess

A GoLocal editorial published Thursday calls for Alviti's departure:

After a two year plus year investigation by GoLocal, which sparked both federal and state enforcement action on the dumping of contaminated soil in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Rhode Island, one thing is clear, Peter Alviti must go.

GoLocal's exclusive reporting revealing the contamination at the 6/10 site was first published on Tuesday, September 8, 2020 -- and just two days later, Alviti was on the radio saying statements that were lies.

“So basically we've proven that the fill that was brought in is OK, but we're concerned and I think the investigation is going to continue because we're concerned that another agenda is going on here. We don't know what it is,” said Alviti on the Gene Valicenti radio show. 

The other agenda was a systematic attack by Alviti claiming that James White, the President of Local 57 of the International Union of Operating Engineers — had other motivations.

In November of 2020, after Access to Public Records Act (APRA) requests by GoLocal to both RIDOT and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM), documents showed that Barletta’s alleged illegal activities were done with the knowledge of the RIDOT and Alviti.

Alviti repeatedly failed to take action and went on the radio to try and cover up the allegations.  When the contamination was confirmed by testing conducted by RIDEM, Alviti again returned to the radio claiming that the contaminated soil was no more risk than the charcoal on a burger.

Alviti has lied, misled, and been an enabler to the dumping and the trashing of a neighborhood.

When asked about the allegations, he repeatedly defended Barletta claiming the project was “on time and on budget,” but that, too, was a lie. GoLocal unveiled that Barletta received more than $21 million in change orders just through August of 2021.

Today, there is no place for Alviti in Rhode Island’s government. He is an arrogant man, who has repeatedly misled Rhode Islanders.

If it weren’t for whistleblower James White, former Rhode Island State Police Lt. Michael Casey, some vigorous DEM employees, victims of the dumping like the Carmona and the Bonilla families, as well as some vigorous reporting by GoLocal, this trashing and dumping enabled by Alviti never would have come to light and faced justice.

It is time for Alviti to go.