Challenger Albert G. Brien: City Hall needs more transparency
Aveteran of local government, Albert G. Brien is known as much by the vintage Mercury wagon in which he tools around town as for his record of public service. Now, in the schism of broken relations between the administrative and legislative branches of local government, Brien believes he has found an opening big enough to drive it up to the fourth floor of City Hall.
At age 77, Brien – a seasoned competitor of the political arena – now finds himself matched against incumbent Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt in one of the liveliest races for the city’s top leadership spot in recent memory.
His low-budget campaign has hewn to a few simple themes, the most strident of which has been fueled by the cool relationship between the mayor and a City Council that has unwaveringly asserted its watchdog muscle over the administration.
Brien puts the blame for the chill on Baldelli-Hunt, accusing her of operating in a vacuum and refusing to develop collaborative, productive relationships with other boards and commissions.
If elected mayor, Brien says, all of this will change.
“I am running to ensure we have open, honest and transparent government,” Brien explains. “No secret deals or unilateral decisions made without the appropriate input, in collaboration (with) our other elected and appointed officials, always remembering that we are conducting the public’s business, not our own.”
As the campaign entered the home stretch, Brien was disparagingly portrayed in an attack flier circulated by Friends of Lisa Baldelli-Hunt that questioned his fitness for
office and blamed him, as a councilman, for the financial failures that culminated in the state’s appointment of a Budget Commission in 2012.
Brien says the accusations amount to little more than revisionist history from the mayor, who conveniently overlooks another narrative. Back in 2011, Brien said, he was on the same council that included some of her strongest allies, including former Councilman Robert Moreau, now the mayor’s campaign manager, and Christopher Beauchamp. If he’s to blame – and he doesn’t accept that he is – then they are, too.
More to the point, Brien argues that the mayor’s nar-
rative conveniently sidesteps her own responsibility for ushering in the conditions that led the state to put the budget commission in charge of the city’s finances. He says the mayor, as a state lawmaker, supported the budgets advanced by then Gov. Donald Carcieri, gutting state aid, and then denied former Mayor Leo T. Fontaine’s request for a supplemental tax – the very tax that became a linchpin of the budget commission’s plan for lifting the city from the brink of bankruptcy.
Commercial tax rate too high
Brien says that Baldelli-Hunt campaigns on the notion that it was she who rescued the city from economic doldrums with hard work and savvy policy, but the truth is that she has enjoyed the lasting benefit of the supplemental tax bill. The added tax provided a permanent expansion of the tax base, providing Baldelli-Hunt with a fiscal bump that was denied other administrations.
Baldelli-Hunt sounds themes of prudence and lean government in her pitch to voters, but Brien – once a finance director for the city – says her administration remains too profligate, taxes are too high, and it’s inconsistent on economic development strategy.
Relative to the value of the property they own, Brien said, city residents are among the highest tax-burdened denizens of the state of Rhode Island. And commercial tax rates, at $36.19 per $1,000 – among the state’s highest – remain one of the most serious impediments to nurturing a thriving business community.
“Our taxpayers have been crushed with one of the highest tax burdens relative to value in the state,” says Brien. “Our commercial tax rate is anti-business. We need the government we can afford and no more. We don’t need chiefs of staff. We don’t need budgets that yield surpluses every year, which just means we have overtaxed our residents.”
Union teachers should get raises
Sometimes, Brien says, the administration’s economic development policies work at cross purposes. As proof, Brien points to RISE Prep Mayoral Academy. Foremost, Brien lambastes the endeavor as an elitist, parallel school system that drains money from the traditional public schools – including resources that could be used to grant members of the Woonsocket Teachers Guild a deserved raise.
The failure to adequately compensate teachers is itself short-sighted from an economic development standpoint, Brien argues, since a competitive workforce is essential for economic vitality. To add insult to injury, he says, Baldelli-Hunt is moving forward with a plan to relocate RISE Prep to the former Blockbuster Building at 30 Cumberland St., thereby permanently removing a piece of prime commercial real estate, with immense potential for generating revenue, from the tax rolls.
If elected, “I will not chair RISE Prep Mayoral Academy,” Brien says. “It’s a parallel school system that drains millions of dollars away from our already distressed educa-
tion department. This is an endeavor we cannot afford.”
Brien also makes a point of telling constituents that he plans on running City Hall as a big tent if he’s elected. Whether friend or foe in the heat of the campaign, he pledges to work with all in a neutral, welcoming fashion if he’s elected mayor – even, as he put it, “the Al Beauparlants of the world.” A real estate developer who claims the administration has turned a deaf ear to his ideas, Beauparlant was certified to run for mayor but dropped out early on to prevent the 2018 matchup from becoming a three-way. He has since thrown his support behind Brien.
“On Nov. 6, we push the restart button and we start from scratch,” said Brien. “It doesn’t matter who you supported...we want to work with you. This is not going to be an administration of vindictiveness. There’s not going to be any gotcha moments. We need to put the people first.”
A retired real estate appraiser, Brien ran Albert G. Brien & Associates on Hamlet Avenue for decades. He graduated from Providence College in 1961 with a degree in business administration.
Active in politics for 40 years
He has been active in political circles for many years. He served in the House of Representatives as an elected state lawmaker from 1975 to 1987, and has also held several high-level administrative positions at City Hall over the years.
Ironically, former Mayor Charles Baldelli – the incumbent’s uncle – was Brien’s boss for much of the late 1980s, when Brien served as finance director. Brien worked for a few months under Baldelli’s successor, the late Mayor Francis Lanctot, as well.
From 2007-2008, Brien also worked for former Mayor Susan D. Menard as her director of human services and administrative assistant.
In the ensuing years, even when Brien held no position in city government, Brien was a perennial presence at city council meetings, often stepping up to the lectern to offer his take and advice on the topics of the day.
In 2011, Brien decided to run for public office again, winning the first of two terms on the City Council, serving as president of the panel for much of that period. When he ran for re-election in 2013, he was among the highest vote-getters for any municipal office. He ran for a third term in 2015, but did not make the cut – the same year his son, Council Vice President Jon Brien, was elected to the council.
If elected, Brien would be about 80 years old by the time his first term as mayor winds down – a fact of chronology that some pundits have used to suggest that he lacks the stamina for the job.
But Brien says the assertion that he can’t serve effectively as mayor because of his age is a lot of hooey. He’s might not be an athlete, but he’s perfectly capable of stepping up to demands of the job.
“I’m good,” he says. “It’s not part of the job description that you have to run three miles every morning.”