Noisy crowd calls on mayors to push for more accountability

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- With signs declaring "Take Back the city" and
"Mayor Cicilline, We will not be silenced," a noisy crowd of nearly 300
activists marched from Broad Street to the center of Kennedy Plaza
Friday night, calling on the nation's mayors to enact measures to make
sure federal stimulus dollars go into projects that will benefit the
poor -- instead of the pockets of corporations with political
connections.

The activists, working under the umbrella of Right to the City, a
national network of grassroots organizations, drew supporters from all
over the country, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami and New
Orleans, and organized locally by Olneyville Neighborhood Association
and Direct Action for Rights and Equality.

Although the city had originally planned to steer the demonstrators
to a separate fenced in area, the group took over the turf directly
opposite City Hall, and in an area just across from the Bank of America
City Center, where the mayors had come to enjoy a seafood dinner.

The emcee for the night -- the Olneyville Neighborhood Association's
Shannah Kurland -- said Mayor Cicilline would like visitors to see only
one side of Providence, but "in our Providence children graduate from
high school without knowing how to read. In our Providence,
corporations get millions of dollars in tax breaks to build
condominiums while some wealthy people are given assistance to buy
homes that poor people lost."

Gilda Haas, a member of Right to the City in Los Angeles, said she
and other activists were hoping to bring the message to the mayors that
the way back to prosperity is not to send more money to "people at the
top: but to the poor at the bottom...If you put the emphasis on the
bottom the market will take care of itself."

Reginald Munnings, a member of Power U in Miami, said the concern of
most of the grassroots groups is that there has been too little
accountability as to how stimulus money is being spent. More, he said,
need to be directed toward building up small businesses and creating
"quality housing" for people of poor and modest means. "Right now," he
said, "we have a country run by wolves, governed by pigs and full of
sheep."

Marisa Franco, a national leader of Right to the City, said the
problem is that federal, state and city have prioritized the "the
interests of big business for far too long" and that it's time for more
accountability. "We need that money tracked because it's our money.
Wall Street will not rescue us. It has bankrupted us."

Though the activists came from all over the country Kurland said the
group was standing in solidarity with the Providence Fire Fighters in
its battle with the mayor for a new contract. Paul A. Doughty,
president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 799,
accepted the group's words, adding that "We were given promises by
Mayor Cicilline that were broken.... All we ask is a seat at the table."

There is no question that sounds from at least part of the noisy
demonstration filtered into the white tent where the nation's mayors
were gathered, though drums from a regimental band drowned out some of
the sounds.

One mayor, from outside Chicago, said he hadn't expected "any of
this" and called a cab to take his family to a restaurant somewhere
else.

But Kip Holden, mayor of Baton Rouge, took it all in stride. "It's
America. People have the freedom to speak out. It is part of what our
country was founded on."