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I must say I was surprised this newspaper which I thought believed in clean government endorsed Mr Mattiello. Shame on them. Is it because of the thousands f dollars he spent to advertise here? Is it because they don’t want to break up the status quo “business as usual” atmosphere in the GA? Is it because they don’t want to continue the non transparent “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” backroom dealings that will continue to go on? Did they get one of Mr Mattiello’s legislative grants?

Perhaps this site accepts Mattiello and what he has done this past session alone but we in district 15 feel differently. He may be the “accidental” speaker(he got that position only because his handler Bill Murphy called in all his favors after Fox resigned) but he doesn’t represent the middle class majority in the district. He supported truck tolls. He aligned himself with Raimondo, throwing pensioners under the bus accepting her pension reform . He signed and passed raimondo’s pension legislation saying he fixed the pension. He fixed nothing. The pension continues to lose a million dollars a day. He has done nothing in the past Jan to June GA sessions to address it. There’s been no discussions, no oversight, no monitoring of the lack of pension due diligence w/current treasurer but he made it a point to sign raimondo’s bill to hide the $4B due to decades of GA malfeasance. Is it the opinion of this paper that they accept his stance on the pension because they don’t have a horse in that race and don’t understand that the contracted COLA illegally taken (we will never know since a court case was squashed w/Taft Carter burying the issue) would have been discretionary income going to local business where now they get nothing, too? This paper thinks legal challenges to the law were a bad thing. Rest assured the legal challengers, if allowed would have shown RIRSA 2011 to be unconstitutional; all SA2015 did was hide a bad law. But Mattiello, his tag team partner Raimondo & the court put the kibosh on any litigation.

As for the stadium salivating speaker’s want of a ballpark, that’s not a dead issue. Look how Prov. is changing w/projects; Pawtucket is temporary and in 4 yrs, the 4main millionaires including one of Raimondo’s Point Judith pals will again bring the issue up. As for Mattiello being best position for meaningful change, you omitted change for who?

Even Michael Sepe, Cranston’s Dem mayoral candidate lashed out at Dem Speaker Mattiello for effectively throwing him under the bus, in an effort to link himself to the city's Republican mayor Fung.

Are you so blind as to see that if Mr Frias wins, the statement will have been made to clean House and that alone is meaningful change? People are sick of the scandals, the 38 Studios debacle, the head in the sand pension stance, his lack of sensitivity to even the developmentally disabled when he cut their budget a few years ago saying the state was broke. He’s a flip flopper and makes promises he can’t deliver on. The car tax he vetoed in 2010 is now an issue for him in 2017 if he wins. His limited state tax reduction on SS & pensioners affect a miniscule percentage of the population; many won’t qualify! Leg grants are his pay to play using taxpayer money. He’s against term limits &he never wanted an ethics law in his political 10 yr career. The Gallison debacle changed his mind as he came up with a part time ethics law with a block out time period. How laughable is that? One cannot make a complaint during campaign-election season. You are very generous in your assessment to a man who has helped the corporate and the higher socio economic population as many people still continue to flee to other tax friendlier states. As for your last statement, “We hope his voice remains a part of our shared discourse” you forgot to add “as the new District 15 rep full of honesty and integrity” because your support for Mattiello is just more of the status quo, backroom dealings and business as usual.

Thank you.