Friday, March 07, 2008

Writing in 2004 about how David Segal and Miguel Luna found it tougher than expected to enact a progressive agenda with David Cicilline in City Hall, I noted the rise of a new force in city government:

THIS IS ANOTHER bone of contention for local progressives. Even though Cicilline has brought more diversity to the city workforce, and appointed boards and commissions, the upper hierarchy of his administration (chief of staff Mike Mello; director of administration John Simmons; police chief Dean Esserman; school superintendent Melody Johnson; director of operations Carol Grant; and policy chief Carolyn Benedict-Drew, to name six key players) is mostly white and heavy on people who live on the East Side. To some, the triumph of the "Sixers" (a reference to the 02906 zip code) marks a conflict with the kind of democratic spirit that Cicilline embodied, particularly on the city’s heavily Latino South Side, during his insurgent 2002 primary campaign.

The mayor, who could give Buddy Cianci a run for his money in his dynamism in painting an upbeat picture, hails his as "the most diverse administration in the history of this city. Of people who I have direct responsibility to hire, 65 percent are women or minorities." Such genuine accomplishments aside, though, it’s hard to entirely take Cicilline at face value when he says, "The kind of concentration of power you describe [with the core administrators] is not really the concentration of power in this administration. That’s a much broader group."

Making me somewhat prescient, Dan Barbarisi today reports on the preponderance of East Siders among the mayor's appointees:

PROVIDENCE — 02906. Covering most of the East Side, it’s long been known as Providence’s 90210 — the wealthiest and most prominent Zip Code in town.

Under the administration of Mayor David N. Cicilline, the three wards of the East Side are also wielding the most power on the city’s boards and commissions. In the five years since Cicilline took office, more than half of the 248 appointments he has made came from the East Side wards.

By far, the most come from Cicilline’s home ward, Ward 2. Between first-time appointments and reappointments, 34 percent of Cicilline’s appointments — 87 people — make Ward 2 their home, according to numbers developed by the City Council office. When Wards 1 and 3 are added, the total from the East Side comes to 130 appointments, more than half the total appointments Cicilline has made during his mayoralty.

When presented with the figures, the dominance of his home ward surprised the mayor.

“I have to confess that learning the numbers are that high from Ward 2 is surprising to me. That means we have to work extra hard to make sure other wards are as well represented,” Cicilline said.

Cicilline said that he is familiar with people from his home ward, of course, but he couldn’t fully explain why Ward 2 would be so overrepresented among the city’s 15 wards.

“It’s hard to know. I’m not sure why it is. There are a number of people obviously from Ward 2 that I know, there are some people from Ward 2 who are new appointments, there are some who are reappointments. It’s probably a combination of those things."