Alas, all you see is a list of budget articles but not the actual text. Crestfallen, you log off and decide it’s just not worth it to be an active citizen. Instead, you go look at cat videos on BuzzFeed.

Charlie Hunt and Katherine Gregg to the rescue!

Hunt, director of public affairs at the Mayforth Group lobbying firm, and Gregg, State House bureau chief of The Providence Journal, have mastered the strange digital customs of Smith Hill, and they shared with me two ways to read the text of the budget articles – that is, the actual taxing-and-spending legislative language.

Hunt’s method: go to the 2013 House Bill Text page and scroll down to H5127A – you’ll find all 26 budget articles posted as separate PDFs underneath the main PDF, which is just a table of contents. Gregg’s method: go to the House calendar for June 25, the day the budget will be debated next week, and you’ll find links there to all 26 budget article PDFs. Ah, the sweet smell of open government.

Well done, Charlie and Kathy!

• Related: Chafee loses on local aid, corporate tax in House budget (June 18)

It’s been six years since a 2007 feasibility study on the MBTA stop was published, and now The Valley Breeze’s Ethan Shorey reports growing momentum locally:

An environmental review and preliminary engineering have now been conducted by officials from the Department of Transportation, who have narrowed the possibilities for a future train station to a pair of Pawtucket sites:

* One is the P & W Railroad yard on the Goff Avenue side of the existing railroad tracks between the site of the former Union Wadding Mill and the Mineral Spring Cemetery.

* And the other, just over the tracks, is between Barton Street, Dexter Street, Weeden Street and the existing tracks, encompassing some commercial buildings diagonally across from the Lynch Arena.

[ ... ]

Construction of the project likely wouldn’t get started until at least 2017, if at all, according to [Stephen Devine, chief of Intermodal Planning for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation].

Read the rest here. There’s also a website with details about the proposal: vhb.com/pawtucketcommuterrail.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Rhode Island’s top lawmakers unveiled a proposed state budget Tuesday evening that would boost funding for education significantly without increasing broad-based taxes or fees, though they rejected a proposal by Gov. Lincoln Chafee to lower the corporate tax. It passed the House Finance Committee 12-0.

Read the rest of this story »

• PDFs: Chafee aides’ memo on 38 Studios bonds | Senate briefing on 38 Studios

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – City officials are calling on residents to assist police as they investigate a recent rash of shootings across several neighborhoods – including the one that took the life of a young girl over the weekend.

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COVENTRY, R.I. (WPRI) – The finally-strapped Central Coventry Fire District can keep its ladder truck, for now.

Read the rest of this story »

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Officials in Rhode Island’s capital city are accusing the court-appointed receiver of Providence’s largest public welfare agency of overbilling for his services, WPRI.com has learned.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Wall Street gave Rhode Island a sharp rebuke Monday as Moody’s Investors Service downgraded its rating on the bonds sold to benefit Curt Schilling’s defunct 38 Studios, citing a growing resistance among lawmakers toward paying back the bondholders.

Read the rest of this story »

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is swinging his support behind Treasurer Gina Raimondo as she prepares to run for governor, three years after the billionaire leader backed incumbent Gov. Lincoln Chafee, because of his admiration for her as well as his differences with Chafee.

Read the rest of this story »

A sample of Triedman’s most interesting nuggets:

There are over 400 stores, restaurants and coffee shops to choose from, with more on the way. Retail occupancy on the East Side is well above the national rate of 93%. …

An unnamed national retailer is close to inking a deal on the recently vacated Gabrielle store in Wayland Square. …

On North Main Street, a major fitness chain is opening a 40,000 SF facility in the old Sears building, which has been partially occupied or vacant for 15 years. The old Ethan Allen store has been demolished and the rumor mill has narrowed the new tenant down to either a CVS, auto parts store or a bank. The Shaw’s Plaza, below North Main Street, which makes up the majority of the vacant retail space on the East Side, has been sold to Ocean State Job Lot, which is a major draw and will likely change the complexion of the plaza.

Read the rest here. There’s also a sidebar about why some buildings are still vacant. It’s particularly good to hear something may finally be happening at the old Sears store, which closed back in 1993 and is a sad spectacle of decay on busy North Main Street.

Slate’s Matt Yglesias frequently writes that we are witnessing “the end of retail” in America, but the situation on the East Side suggests we may be seeing the end – or at least the decline – of big-box stores; maybe the right smaller establishments located in dense urban environments can still thrive.

• Related: Study: Providence commercial tax rates highest in the US (May 10)

(photo: ArtinRuins)

1. You probably haven’t heard much about what may be Rhode Island’s biggest policy undertaking this year: the local rollout of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. In a basement office, a small staff of true believers and outside consultants led by Christine Ferguson are working around the clock to set up the state’s new health insurance exchange – the marketplace where individuals and small businesses can buy coverage under the law – in time for enrollment to start Oct. 1. The exchange’s insurance costs should be finalized before mid-July, with announcements about its brand name and new call center, plus a big marketing push, to follow. (Policymakers also need to figure out how to fund the exchange’s operating costs locally once federal money runs out in 2015.) The Chafee administration is focusing more on business users than some states; unlike the federal government, Rhode Island’s exchange will let workers whose employers use the new Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) buy any insurance plan they want with their premium money. Ferguson is envisioning more than an Expedia for insurance – she wants the exchange to drive changes in how health care gets delivered in Rhode Island, with an eye on reducing costs and improving quality. The stakes are high: health care costs are strangling small businesses in Rhode Island, as elsewhere, yet health care also has been one of the only sectors of the state’s economy adding jobs.

2. Here’s something that may surprise you: Rhode Island’s economy grew faster than the New England average last year, expanding 1.4% to $43.8 billion, after barely treading water in 2011. The only state in the region that performed better was Massachusetts (up 2.2%), while the one often held up as a model for Rhode Island to emulate – New Hampshire – managed to grow just 0.5%. (Connecticut’s economy actually shrank.) Some of the outperformance, then, is the soft bigotry of low expectations for growth in New England: Rhode Island’s 1.4% expansion only placed 34th nationally. Also interesting is which three sectors were responsible for much of Rhode Island’s 2012 growth: real estate, finance and wholesale trade. Notably – and perhaps ominously – the biggest drag on the state economy was actually health care and social assistance, which had been growing steadily in recent years. Rhode Island’s real GDP was $41,678 per capita last year, just below the national average.

3. Speaking of health care, Governor Chafee made a key pick in that arena Thursday when he tapped Dr. Kathleen Hittner to succeed Chris Koller as Rhode Island’s health insurance commissioner, a powerful job that doesn’t exist in any other state. It’s an intriguing pick. Whereas Koller came out of the insurance industry as a former Neighborhood Health Plan CEO, Hittner was a top executive at Lifespan, the state’s most powerful hospital group; she’s best-known for her successful effort to revitalize The Miriam Hospital. Appointing as commissioner a physician with deep knowledge of hospital finance suggests Chafee and Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts want Hittner’s office to drive changes across the state’s medical sector, particularly since she’ll also play a crucial role in regulating the state’s Obamacare exchange. Think about it: there’s only so much the commissioner can do by squeezing Blue Cross and the other insurers – their ever-rising premiums are driven up by the prices Lifespan and other providers charge. To get a sense of how Hittner thinks, watch her September guest appearance on Executive Suite.

4. Cokie and Steve Roberts think Lincoln Chafee’s decision to become a Democrat is another death knell for the moderate middle in American politics. “His conversion … marked another significant step in the gradual extinction of an ancient and honorable political species: Progressive Northeastern Republicans or PNRs,” they wrote in their column this week, adding: “The PNRs are just about gone. And American politics is much poorer without them.” Meanwhile, The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza is writing off Rhode Island Republicans’ chances in 2014 now that Chafee has become a Democrat.

5. There was a late-breaking story Friday out of South County with significant implications: the National Education Association Rhode Island won a National Labor Relations Board election to unionize 27 custodians whose jobs were privatized a year ago by the North Kingstown School Committee. The janitors technically now work for GCA Services Corp., a private firm owned by The Blackstone Group, and thus have the right to strike. No question, this is a shot across the bow. “It sends a message that we won’t back down, that workers have a right to union representation and, to the extent [town officials] thought privatizing was going to take away that right, the NLRB has a different set of rules,” NEARI Executive Director Robert Walsh told me. “Let this be a message to anyone else that has similar ideas – we’re still going to be there, representing workers in the public schools.” Sounds like NEARI is following the “Fortress Unionism” model Rich Yeselson outlines in the new issue of Democracy.

6. My pal Tim White was in Boston this week to cover opening statements in the Whitey Bulger trial, and the biggest initial headline was the defense team’s admission that Whitey, now 83, profited from the drug trade. “While it might come as little surprise that mob bosses would make money any way they can,” Tim said, “it completely shattered the myth that Bulger chased drug dealers out of South Boston.” Although Tim has been reporting on Bulger since the 1990s, “it dawned on me that this trial was the first time I’ve laid eyes on him in the flesh. For years he was a ghost. For the opening statements he’d shaved his beard and wore a green long-sleeved jersey, blue pants and white high-top sneakers.” He arrived to find a massive media scrum outside the Moakley Courthouse, with national and international reporters lined up to cover the trial. “In fact,” Tim said, “I sat next to a correspondent from the Irish Times – who began typing furiously when the defense argued Whitey could never have been an FBI informant because it was against his heritage to be a rat.” Another big difference in Boston: reporters can tweet in federal court, unlike in Providence, which Tim says “is seemingly stuck in 1975. Nationally, federal courts still ban cameras in the courtroom – a real shame considering the Bulger trial is also about the erosion of public trust in government – but each court can decide its own policies on phones and computers. Maybe Providence’s Chief Judge Mary Lisi will have a change of heart.” Tim will have more updates on Bulger’s trial in the months ahead.

7. Angel Taveras and Lincoln Chafee are at odds over whether Providence’s streetcar proposal is ready for a $39 million federal TIGER grant; Chafee has thrown his weight instead behind an application for $10 million to fix up the roads in Apponaug. Greater City: Providence’s Jef Nickerson thinks Taveras has the better of the argument, yet in making his case Jef revealed just how tough it will be for Rhode Island to win any TIGER grants this year: the U.S. Department of Transportation says it received $9 billion in TIGER applications, “nearly 20 times the $474 million Congress made available to the program.” It’s going to be a challenge for either Providence or Warwick to get a significant chunk of change.

8. A dispatch from WPRI.com’s Dan McGowan: “The number one question I’ve received following Tim White’s explosive report on the Providence school accused of running a sweatshop with disabled students has been, ‘How did this go on for 25 years (and four mayoral administrations) without anyone noticing?’ It’s true that the Council of Great City Schools raised an eyebrow about the Birch School in 2011; it’s also true that the R.I. Department of Education asked questions in 2012; and it’s true that the city tried and failed to fire the school’s principal in April. But Providence Superintendent Dr. Susan Lusi said the city’s real mistake was failing to change with the times. ‘As I look at this situation, the standards of practice for [intellectually and developmentally disabled] students, as well as for all students, have changed over time,’ Lusi said Thursday. ‘Speaking for Birch and the Providence Public Schools, we failed to keep up with that change in practice and expectations.’ For what it’s worth, the federal government isn’t just focusing on Rhode Island; the Justice Department is currently taking on the state of Oregon after finding that 61% of the state’s developmentally disabled residents were working in similar ‘sheltered workshops.’”

9. WGBH Boston invited me back for this week’s episode of “Under the Radar,” Callie Crossley’s program about overlooked news stories across New England, along with the Cape Cod Times’ Paul Pronovost and WNHN’s Arnie Arnesen. I shared two Rhode Island stories: the Birch School revelations Dan mentioned above and the fiscal crunch in Woonsocket. The show airs Sunday at 6:30 p.m. on 89.7 FM and online – tune in!

10. Set your DVRs: This week on Newsmakers – R.I. Education Commissioner Deborah Gist. Watch Sunday at 10 a.m. on Fox Providence. This week on Executive Suite – Duffy & Shanley’s David Duffy and Jon Duffy. Watch Saturday at 10:30 p.m. or Sunday at 6 p.m. on myRITV (or Sunday at 6 a.m. on Fox). See you back here next Saturday morning.

Ted Nesi ( tnesi@wpri.com ) covers politics and the economy for WPRI.com and writes the Nesi’s Notes blog. Follow him on Twitter: @tednesi

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Education Commissioner Deborah Gist said the state recommended that changes be made at the Birch Vocational School in Providence a year before a federal investigation found it was operating a so-called “sheltered workshop” for developmentally disabled students.

Read the rest of this story »

• Related: State, city reach settlement over Birch School violations (June 13)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – When Rhode Island stops paying for the New England Common Assessment Program test in 2017, it will have spent more than $48 million over the course of 14 years on the controversial exam that is now tied to a high school diploma, WPRI.com has learned.

Read the rest of this story »

• Related: 40% of 11th-graders in RI in danger of not graduating (Feb. 14)

The former Rhode Island congressman will be the top interview on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” tonight at 10 p.m., likely talking about One Mind for Research, the nonprofit he cofounded to push for more research into brain science.

Kennedy isn’t the first Rhode Island politician to appear on Maher’s show: Lincoln Chafee was a guest on the program in October 2006 and again in October 2009, shortly before he kicked off his run for governor. (He got paid less than $1,000 for the ’09 spot.)

• Related: Bill Maher backs Taveras (and Chafee) on paring back pensions (July 16)

Ted Widmer, the former Bill Clinton speechwriter who ran Brown University’s John Carter Brown Library from 2006 to 2012, will reportedly serve as the ghostwriter for Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming memoir, according to a Showbiz411 story published Thursday.

The revelation isn’t a big surprise. Brown announced Sept. 12 – the day after the Benghazi attack, as it happens - that Widmer would become a senior adviser to Clinton, who was then finishing up as secretary of state. He is continuing at Brown as a special assistant to President Christina Paxson, too.

Clinton has a deal with Simon & Schuster for the new book, due out in June 2014, and was expected to pocket an advance of as much as $14 million. Bill Clinton also got some help from Widmer in writing his own memoir.

Widmer’s ties to Rhode Island are longstanding; his father, Eric Widmer, was on the Brown faculty and served as dean of students for a time. The younger Widmer has also quietly aided Lincoln Chafee on some of the governor’s key speeches.

(photo: Brown University)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – More than 85% of the fines issued for illegal dumping, uncontained trash and excessive sidewalk debris in the city of Providence since July 2011 have gone unpaid, WPRI.com has learned.

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That we’re now more inclined to question the national security state should not surprise anyone. “In the period immediately after the attacks of 9/11, the American people were willing to give the government broad power to keep them safe,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), one of Congress’s most thoughtful voices on national security, said in an interview. “Now, more than a decade later, it’s entirely appropriate that Americans are asking about the balance between security and privacy.”

Reed believes that we still need extensive surveillance programs. But he was also in the minority last December in supporting an earlier version of the Merkley proposal on the FISA court decisions. He also favored another amendment, proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), that would have required the director of national intelligence to submit a report to Congress and the public on the impact of the revised FISA law on the privacy of U.S. citizens.

This is a rare issue that divides Reed and his junior colleague, Sheldon Whitehouse.

Reed voted yes but Whitehouse voted no on the two measures from December that Dionne references – the Merkley amendment to disclose legal justification for surveillance and the Wyden amendment to require a privacy report. As I wrote in Saturday’s column, Whitehouse’s views may relate to his past service on the Intelligence Committee, his time in law enforcement and his general trust in the federal government.

• Related: Sen. Whitehouse defends Obama on surveillance programs (June 7)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – The organization that oversees the state’s pension system is considering seeking criminal or civil action against six disabled retirees that were overpaid $559,000 by the state, General Treasurer Gina Raimondo said Tuesday.

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Obamacare will largely use two programs – Medicaid, the long-established state-federal health program for the poor, and the new Health Benefits Exchanges, which I wrote about Monday – to offer subsidized coverage to most Americans who make less than 400% of the federal poverty level (FPL). This chart from a recent RIPEC study offers the clearest breakdown of who’ll qualify for what coverage in Rhode Island on Jan. 1:

(“HBE” stands for the Rhode Island Health Benefits Exchange, which is being created by Obamacare and will offer subsidies for insurance to roughly 83,000 people. “CHIP” is the federal-state Children’s Health Insurance Program, which covers uninsured children whose families make too much to qualify for Medicaid.)

Of course, nobody gets paid in FPL percentages – they get paid in dollars. To help you match the chart’s top row with actual wages, here’s the 2013 federal poverty level standards, also from RIPEC:

• Related: Study: Obamacare to subsidize insurance for 83,000 in RI (June 10)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – The high school principal at the center of a months-long federal investigation into the violation of disabled students’ civil rights was on the cusp of being fired in April before an outpouring of support saved his job.

Read the rest of this story »

• Related: Federal probe finds civil rights violated at Providence school (June 11)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – A Providence school that caters to developmentally disabled students allegedly violated the Americans with Disabilities Act for years by making students work manual labor for little or no pay and acting as a “pipeline” to a similar program once they graduated, the Target 12 Investigators have learned.

Read the rest of this story »

“The streetcar project is a promising concept but not ready to go,” Chafee spokeswoman Christine Hunsinger told WPRI.com on Tuesday.

Taveras has asked for $39 million from the federal government to fund a $114-million streetcar system in the capital. The grant would come from the competitive Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program, which has $474 million to hand out nationwide this year – meaning Providence is seeking about 8% of the national pot.

Chafee, however, wants a different Rhode Island proposal to win TIGER money this year: the state’s request for $10 million to build new bypass roads around the Apponaug Business District in Warwick, where Chafee was mayor from 1993 to 1999. Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian is also chairman of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, which is supposed to manage Providence’s proposed streetcar system.

Hunsinger suggested more work needs to be done before seeking money for the streetcar. “The governor supported the Apponaug project because it was ready to go (shovel-ready), had funding and was consistent with the criteria for the grant,” she said in an email. “The state also received clear signals from the feds that the state should be clear about what its priorities are and the Apponaug project is one of the governor’s priorities.”

The Warwick proposal also has its own website, ApponaugTiger.com (where Chafee’s name is misspelled).

The competing proposal to benefit Rhode Island’s second-largest city helps explain why Taveras’s TIGER application doesn’t include a letter of support from Chafee or R.I. Department of Transportation chief Michael Lewis, though it does have one from RIPTA’s new CEO, Ray Studley.

The two proposals could complicate efforts by the state’s congressional delegation to lobby the Obama administration for TIGER money for Rhode Island, not least because Providence is Congressman David Cicilline’s home base while Warwick is Congressman Jim Langevin’s. And, of course, Chafee and Taveras may find themselves competing in next year’s Democratic gubernatorial primary.

The Providence proposal also suggests using $15 million from the Rhode Island Capital Plan Fund (RICAP) to pay for the streetcar, an amount that would need to be appropriated by the General Assembly. House Speaker Gordon Fox wrote a letter in support of Taveras’s application.

• Related: Digging in on Mayor Taveras’s proposed Providence streetcar (June 11)

Streetcar geeks – like Greater City Providence’s Jef Nickerson – will want to dig into the city’s entire federal application (PDF). For the rest of you, here are some highlights from the Taveras administration proposal.

Let’s start with the most basic question you probably have. Where would the streetcars go? How often would they run? This map has a good basic overview:

Much more after the jump.

Here’s another view of the proposed streetcar route, imposed over a satellite view of the city:

You may be thinking, that looks cool but how much is it going to cost? The answer – $114.37 million:

There’s no disputing that’s quite a bit of money for a city that almost went bankrupt last year. How is Providence going to pay for it? The answer – mostly through borrowing and the U.S. Treasury:

Let’s say Taveras manages to piece together all that cash. When would streetcars actually start running from College Hill to Upper South Providence? About four years from now, according to the proposed schedule:

So that’s the plan. The mayor’s proposal makes another interesting point, though. According to the application, half of Upper South Providence residents live below the poverty level and 28% of them don’t have a vehicle; making it easier for them to reach jobs on the city’s wealthy East Side could allow more of Providence’s poorer residents to access the most economically vibrant part of the capital:

• Update: Chafee pours cold water on Providence streetcar proposal (June 11)

In a speech Saturday to the annual Portsmouth Institute conference, Tobin said he “received a letter from an angry individual who began, as harsh critics so often do, by establishing his Catholic credentials.”

The prelate quoted the writer as telling him: “Bishop Tobin, based on your pastoral letter and a review of your previous comments on this subject, I have concluded that you are evil, reprehensible, homophobic, and bigoted, and that you should be ashamed of yourself in general and in particular as a so-called Christian.”

Tobin said he also received an email that called him a “fat, old, conservative bigot.” His reply? “I am not fat.”

Tobin’s address, “Evangelization in a Secular Age,” reflected on the modern era’s challenges for Christians. He cited a Barna Group survey declaring Providence the fourth-most post-Christian city in America.

“Is it the failure of the leaders of the Church to adequately preach and teach?” Tobin asked in response. “Is [it] the failure of rank-and-file Christians to give compelling witness in their daily lives? Is it the secular agenda promoted by the leaders of our government? Is it the atmosphere created by the left-leaning media and the erudite academic communities of our area? Is it a combination of all these things? Probably.”

• Related: Tobin: Think ‘very carefully’ before going to gay weddings (May 2)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Officials in Rhode Island’s capital city have asked the federal government for $39 million to help build a street car system that would connect the Upper South Providence neighborhood near Rhode Island Hospital to College Hill on the East Side by 2017.

Read the rest of this story »

• Related: Nickerson: Why Providence needs a streetcar system (April 6, 2011)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Nearly 83,000 Rhode Islanders will be eligible starting next year to get federal tax credits for health coverage to use in the new insurance marketplace being created under President Obama’s health care law, a recent study shows.

The vast majority of those eligible for subsidies are working families and Rhode Islanders ages 34 and under, the study found. Based on federal income guidelines for 2013, the law will subsidize individuals who make up to about $46,000 and families of four who make up to around $94,000.

Read the rest of this story »

More coverage of the Affordable Care Act on Nesi’s Notes:

• Must-Read: 36 hours behind RI’s Obamacare health exchange (May 23)
• RIPEC: Obamacare means $3B windfall for RI health sector (April 30)
• Study: Obamacare could increase costs in RI, unlike elsewhere (July 6)
• It’s ‘full speed ahead’ in RI on health law after top court’s ruling (June 28)
• Q&A: Lt. Gov. Roberts on what’s next for health reform in RI (June 28)
• ‘Happiest day of my life’ for Ferguson, architect of ‘Chafeecare’ (June 28)

1. Warwick Rep. Frank Ferri offered a short-term solution to the 38 Studios bond-payment controversy at Thursday’s Finance Committee hearing: “Maybe we should pay this year’s payment,” he suggested, “and then do our due diligence to come up with a clearer answer.” That sounds sensible. It’s important to remember that lawmakers aren’t being asked to pay the whole $90 million this year; Governor Chafee’s request for this year is only for $2.5 million, which is just 0.03% of next year’s budget – and far less than the $12.5 million that will be required annually starting in 2014. Making the initial payment preserves Rhode Island’s options on the remaining $87.5 million; skipping it will put the state in effective default, with all the consequences that could follow. If lawmakers are upset about the situation, they should amend this year’s payment and require Chafee, Treasurer Raimondo, Speaker Fox and Senate President Paiva Weed to commission a formal study of the consequences of default, as suggested by MMA’s Matt Fabian. (In fact, why wasn’t that done months ago?) In this age of bailouts and austerity, it’s understandable that lawmakers don’t want to pay bondholders money to which they aren’t even legally entitled – but if the direct and indirect costs of default top $90 million, they shouldn’t cut off Rhode Island’s nose to spite its face.

2. Staff changes are coming to Congressman Cicilline’s office as he settles into his second term. Word from the Beltway is that Scott Fay, who’s been Cicilline’s chief of staff since the former Providence mayor went to Washington, is preparing to leave Capitol Hill. Fay has spent more than a decade working in Congress for Cicilline, California’s John Garamendi and the late Ted Kennedy. The pair are scouting for a new chief of staff to be put in place before Fay’s departure.

3. Senator Whitehouse’s unequivocal defense of President Obama’s surveillance programs during this week’s Newsmakers came as somewhat of a surprise, but perhaps it shouldn’t have. Whitehouse is a loyal Democrat who trusts the White House far more with Obama rather than George W. Bush in the Oval Office. As a former U.S. attorney and attorney general, Whitehouse’s deep familiarity with the tactics used by law enforcement may make him more sensitive than some of his colleagues to their side of the argument in these debates. The junior senator has also been displaying a hawkish streak of late, calling for more aid to Syria alongside John McCain. More subtly, though, Whitehouse’s opinions on surveillance may reflect the fact that he believes in a powerful federal government. In Britain, The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee has argued that liberals may undercut their own cause when they overemphasize civil liberties, which “turns the state into public enemy number one.” Toynbee wrote in 2007, “That is the traditional rightwing view, but many on the left who should know better are buying into this creed of individualism against the collective.” Perhaps Whitehouse agrees.

4. When Whitehouse isn’t defending surveillance or battling austerity, he can sometimes be found waving the flag of Rhode Island patriotism on the Senate floor thanks to his annual Gaspee Day speech. Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren happened to be presiding over the chamber Tuesday when Whitehouse delivered this year’s edition, which led to a funny moment as he compared the “rigid theocracy” of her home state with tolerant Rhode Island – watch the YouTube clip here.

5. Sorry, denizens of Smith Hill: it looks like the General Assembly’s 2013 session won’t be ending anytime soon. House Finance Committee Chairman Helio Melo looked at me like I had three heads when I asked whether legislative leaders’ revised budget might be released next week. “I don’t think so,” he replied, and his raised eyebrows said more. That suggests the finance panel won’t take up the budget until the week of June 17-21 at the earliest, and if the House waits the usual seven days before voting on it, they wouldn’t pass it until at least June 24-28. House Finance approved the budget on May 31 last year, so it’s taking considerably longer to finish it this session – perhaps because they have $56 million less to spend than expected.

6. Here’s this week’s dispatch from WPRI.com ace Dan McGowan: “Governor Chafee’s decision to extend Education Commissioner Deborah Gist’s contract may have left the teachers’ unions livid, but don’t expect the newly minted Democrat to find himself on U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s speed dial anytime soon. Chafee, who has long expressed concern about federal mandates put in place by the Obama administration, told WPRI.com in May that teacher evaluations and the NECAP graduation requirement were two issues where he saw ‘room for improvement’ in the coming years. Both Gist and Board of Education Chairwoman Eva Marie Mancuso deflected questions Thursday about whether either initiative would be slowed down or scaled back now that Gist’s contract has been renewed. However, Mancuso didn’t offer a ringing endorsement for the policies: ‘Whether they go forward the way they are or not, we’ll see what happens,’ she told reporters after the vote.”

7. A passage in Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s Princeton commencement speech last weekend stuck out to me. “Honest error in the face of complex and possibly intractable problems is a far more important source of bad results than are bad motives,” Bernanke argued. “For these reasons, the greatest forces in Washington are ideas, and people prepared to act on those ideas.” Both statements are true about Providence, as well.

8. One more update from Washington: David Cicilline got some attention from BuzzFeed this week in a front-page story about the growing House LGBT Equality Caucus, which he co-chairs. “What this year marks is not just that we’re here but that we’re here in a big enough number that we have a real caucus, with staff, so that now the work that we’re doing can be supported,” Cicilline told the site. His spokesman Rich Luchette reports the LGBT Caucus has 108 members total (107 Democrats and one Republican, Florida’s Ileana Ros-Lehtinen) and Cicilline is taking an active role in raising its profile. He also helped find its two staff members, an executive director and a fellow.

9. Did you know local lawyer and GOP activist Steve Frias moonlights as a journalist? His thoroughly researched Cranston Herald columns are consistently terrific – I read him each week, and almost always learn something I didn’t know – and his 2011 book “Cranston and Its Mayors: A History” is an essential primer on Rhode Island’s third-largest city. Steve is giving a talk about the book at the Cranston Public Library’s annual meeting on Tuesday night – the event is free, and he’ll be signing copies of “Cranston and Its Mayors” afterwards. Check it out and buy Steve’s book!

10. Set your DVRs: This week on Newsmakers – U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Watch Sunday at 10 a.m. on Fox Providence. This week on Executive Suite – Chairman Colin Kane and Executive Director Jan Brodie of the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission, with PBN’s Patrick Anderson joining me on the panel. Watch Saturday at 10:30 p.m. or Sunday at 6 p.m. on myRITV (or Sunday at 6 a.m. on Fox). See you back here next Saturday morning.

Ted Nesi ( tnesi@wpri.com ) covers politics and the economy for WPRI.com and writes the Nesi’s Notes blog. Follow him on Twitter: @tednesi

An earlier version of this post incorrectly said Rep. Frank Ferri was from Cranston, not Warwick.