Baldelli-Hunt interested in succeeding Lt. Gov. McKee
WOONSOCKET — Less than two months into her fourth term, Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt made it plain Friday – if Lt. Gov. Dan McKee asks her to be his successor, she’s in.
She was just as clear about this: He hasn’t asked.
“I have not had a conversation with the lieutenant governor,” Baldelli-Hunt told The Call. “I have not called him and he has not called me.”
But there’s no question Baldelli-Hunt is up for the job and thinks she’s got the right stuff to do it. Her stewardship of the city through the lean years of near-bankruptcy, her prior experience in the legislature and a solid working relationship with the politically like-minded lieutenant governor all make her an excellent candidate, she says.
“I, like him, understand municipalities,” Baldelli-Hunt said. “I’ve been a mayor for seven years, in a community on the brink of bankruptcy... we had a five-year plan that called for taxes for five years. That didn’t happen. I’m fiscally conservative and strong in my approach to expenditures.”
Like McKee, Baldelli-Hunt is a Democrat, having served seven years in the House of Representatives before she became mayor in the city’s non-partisan contests in 2013.
“It’s good to understand the dynamics of the legislature, and if he calls me I will entertain a conversation with him,” the mayor said.
McKee and Baldelli-Hunt are cut from similar political cloth. They were both small business entrepreneurs when they got into public life, with Baldelli-Hunt concentrating on real estate. A Cumberland native who served six terms as the town’s mayor, McKee ran the Woonsocket Health and Racquetball Club at 600 Social St. for about 30 years and owned the building even longer. He sold it about two years ago and, more recently, it was sold again to the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Rhode Island.
Baldelli-Hunt’s comments came in the midst of a rapidly-evolving game of political dominoes that began on Thursday, when the New York Times first reported that President-elect Joseph Biden intended to appoint Gov. Gina Raimondo to serve in his cabinet as the nation’s commerce secretary. Raimondo has indicated that she will accept the position, but even if she does the switchover won’t necessarily happen quickly. She will need the approval of the U.S. Senate, which some analysts think may not happen until March.
Confirmation isn’t automatic, but in a U.S. Senate that will be controlled by Democrats, with President-elect Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote, Raimondo’s appointment is all but a shoo-in.
It might have been an entry
posted on a Twitter account called “Woonsocket Watchdog” yesterday morning that got the media focused on Baldelli-Hunt as a possible contender for the state’s second-highest political office. Citing “rumors” of Baldelli-Hunt’s interest in the job, Woonsocket Watchdog tweeted that McKee made only “a few” political contributions during the last election cycle and a uniquely generous one was to the Democratic City Committee, which the mayor sits on.
Baldelli-Hunt says she doesn’t know who is behind Woonsocket Watchdog, but sometime after the tweet appeared she received “a cold call” from a reporter asking if her interest in the lieutenant governor’s position was genuine.
But the field of contestants for the next lieutenant governor is already so crowded that she and her competition would have to stand six feet apart and wear masks if they
met indoors. Baldelli-Hunt is one of at least five names that are already circulating as possible McKee successors – among them former Central Falls Mayor James Diossa, who stepped aside recently. Term-limited, his last day on the job was Jan. 3.
Former State Sen. Donna Nesselbush of Pawtucket, Lisa Ranglin of the Rhode Island Black Business Association and State Sen. Louis DiPalma from the Newport area are also reportedly interested in the job.
What does McKee have to say about all this? Not suprisingly, perhaps, his mailbox was full on Friday, so efforts to reach him by cell were not successful. He didn’t respond to a text message, either.
If Baldelli-Hunt does get drafted by McKee, the trickle effect would give Council President Daniel Gendron some serious thinking to do – if not about whether he wants to be the next mayor of Woonsocket, then possibly about
rectifying some weird omissions in the City Charter about the rules of succession for officers in local government.
Under the City Charter, whenever a vacancy occurs in the office of the mayor, the president of the City Council “shall” become the mayor, according to the document. Does he want the job? “I would have to give that some thought,” said Gendron, who already has one full-time job at The Friendly Home, where’s he’s in charge of building and grounds. “I wouldn’t certainly not violate the charter, that’s for damn sure.”
The charter is silent on the question of whether a special election may be held to fill an unexpected vacancy in the mayor’s office. That essentially means there can be none.
On the contrary, if a vacancy occurs on the City Council with more than 240 days left in the term of the member who created it, there must be a special election, the charter says. So the only special election that will be in the offing were Baldelli-Hunt to make an early departure from City Hall would be for the purpose of filling a vacancy on the council – and not necessarily one created by Gendron.
Theoretically, the council president says, if he didn’t want to serve as mayor, he and his colleagues could voluntarily reorganize the council to make someone other than him the president – someone who presumably wants to be mayor and who would be in a position to serve what could shape up as a term balance of about 20 months.
But Gendron says it’s far too soon to begin seriously discussing possible scenarios and what-ifs. There’ll be plenty of time to consider the options when the campaign for lieutenant governor is over.
“How about we have that discussion if the offer actually comes through?” he said.