The mayor was operating from Politics 101 when he called a news conference to take responsibility for the mess, and to vow the implementation of changes to prevent the same thing from happening again. Yet even in damage control, Cicilline’s leadership style came in for criticism. As the Providence Journal’s M. Charles Bakst wrote, he appreciated the mayor’s claim of responsibility, “But I’d have appreciated it more if he also had accepted more of the blame, if he talked less like a bureaucrat and more like a human being.”
The fallout offered an early Christmas present for Cianci, who, following his May 2007 release from federal prison, has enthusiastically assumed a role, via his well-paid perch at WPRO (630 AM), as Cicilline’s chief critic. The mayor is also a favored target for WPRO’s Dan Yorke, and to a lesser extent, John DePetro, creating a steady (and unanswered) opposition campaign that other elected officials face only during campaign season. (Disclosure: as part of an advertising trade relationship with WPRO, Phoenix writers appear on Cianci and Yorke’s shows.)
Writing in the New York Times in April, former ProJo scribe Dan Barry classified Cianci’s approach as a mix of sharp analysis and legitimate criticism, along with “taunts and half-truths, released into the radio air like toxic puffs.” Cicilline, meanwhile, has said he will leave it to others to assess his roguish predecessor’s credibility as a watchdog.
The mayor and his administration sometimes offer fodder to their critics. In one such example of a story that got broader media exposure after first being mentioned by Cianci, police chief Esserman was called back to go through the metal detector at T.F. Green in May after receiving an initial escort around the security screening. The irony is that such episodes don’t much effect Cicilline in Providence, but they may cast a greater shadow statewide, where voters care more about image.
The mayor’s East Side base may not be big on talk radio. Yet the decision not to engage with Cianci in particular, and with talk radio in general, remains unusual — and argua-bly a tad elitist — in little Rhode Island, a place where close access to elected officials comes with the territory.
Informed observers consider this a reflection of broader flaws in the administration’s communications operation, such as the thin skin exhibited when Cianci — from his post as a regular pundit on WLNE-TV (Channel 6) — criticized Cicilline during the December 13 snowstorm.
Yet when asked about his absence from talk radio, Cicilline says, “I don’t have any idea whether that decision hurts me,” adding that he doesn’t listen to talk radio and will leave the judgment to others.
Will he or won’t he?
In June, the mayor’s brother, well-known criminal-defense lawyer John M. Cicilline, pleaded guilty to federal charges that he had participated in a plot to extort drug dealers and to manipulate the criminal justice system. Sentencing in the case is scheduled for September 11.
A bitter and ongoing contract dispute with Providence firefighters allows Cicilline to cast himself in the role of fighting for taxpayers, and he got some positive press with the recent settling of a new contract, with $2 million in touted savings, with the Laborers, Local 1033.
