Baldelli-Hunt Pits Her Leadership Against Fontaine's in Mayoral Race

Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt (D-Dist. 49), one year in to the two-year term voters granted her last November, makes her bid for Mayor offering leadership she says incumbent Mayor Leo Fontaine lacks.

Baldelli-Hunt has served in the General Assembly since 2007, when she ran unopposed for the seat vacated by Rep. David E. Laroche, who didn't run for re-election.

Her most conspicuous vote was an eleventh-hour change of heart against the Supplemental Tax bill championed by Fontaine and Council President John Ward, leading to its demise. Shortly after, the Department of Revenue appointed the Woonsocket Budget Commission, which was empowered to advance state aid for the Woonsocket School Department, keeping it running in the face of a $10 million deficit.  

The unpopular Budget Commission also supervised an intensive audit of school finances that uncovered inaccurate tracking of spending and increased school funding by $4.5 million. The panel also engineered a smaller supplemental tax for the city under the 5-year-plan that incorporates union and non-represented city employee concessions.  
 
Baldelli-Hunt also won $500,000 from the state to bring back full-day Kindergarten at Woonsocket Schools, but that was only a third of the funding needed to restore the program. Council President John Ward, a state-mandated appointee to the Budget Commission, said at the time the panel would not support raising taxes to come up with the additional $1 million. During Candidates Night at Chan's Sept. 24, Baldelli-Hunt alleged the program was not revived because of "some obstruction in the city."

Baldelli-Hunt secured $2.6 million to renovate World War II Park, but did not provide for its upkeep, which would also require new taxes to fund.

More recently, Baldelli-Hunt proposed eliminating the city's Economic Development Director position, taking on the duties herself, and using the savings to turn on long-dormant street lights. Economic Development Director Matt Wojcik is paid $16,000 for his work on that front, but the cost of turning the street lights back on, according to Woonsocket Patch reports from 2011 and 2013, is hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Baldelli-Hunt says Fontaine is doing a poor job of building relationships on the city's behalf. "I have not seen any relationship building that we can rely on to help build our city," she said. If elected mayor, Baldelli-Hunt said she'll re-brand Woonsocket, and advocate for the city with prospective businesses to attract them to set up shop here. 

Hunt would also take action on a plan she proposed in 2009 to use $1 million in federal funds through the state's Neighborhood Stabilization Program, acquiring abandoned buildings and razing them for use as open space. Instead, she said, the city used those funds for its housing assistance programs.  

Baldelli-Hunt lays the blame for the city's finances at the current Mayor's feet, saying he should have been involved in and aware of the school department's operation, and shouldn't have been surprised by the deficit that brought in the Budget Commission. "A strong leader would know if there was a problem in his or her school department," Baldelli-Hunt said.