Politics & Government

Fagnant Says He'll Fight for Woonsocket at State House

Editor's note: This is the fifth in a series of articles/videos in Woonsocket Patch's coverage of the Sept. 24 Candidates Night at Chan's, beginning with City Council Challengers.

Richard Fagnant, a regular at City Council meetings as a spectator and commenter, is running for a seat on the other side of the table.

Fagnant has lived in Woonsocket for 62 years. He's the owner of Fagnant's Impact Sportswear Screen Printing & Embroidery, a business he's owned for 18 years.
Fagnant has served as a Woonsocket Zoning Board of Review 2nd Alternate Active Member. He's a licensed securities & financial advisor with Citgroup and a member of the NASD Association.

The candidate said one part of his work as a City Councilman will be remaining active in state politics and lobbying for the city's interests at the State House, alongside the city's representatives. "So that's one of my goals if I'm elected, by the people, to be the next Councilman, I'll be down fighting for our city."  

Woonsocket Patch has also asked a series of questions of all the City Council candidates. Here are Fagnant's answers:

1) Assuming the Budget Commission is around for the duration, how would you work with the panel? I will not have a problem, they respect my efforts to help the City. Un-like the present council members.

2) The Budget Commission is governed by state law. How can you as a  City Councilor affect or change that law? State Laws are passed and approved by the General Assembly. The Constitution has a clause called nullification. (of no legal validity, void, to invalidate ) I will explain to the Council members and push it forward.

3) The Budget Commission still needs to raise $1 million for its 5-year plan, and that's proposed to come from trash fees. Do you support this, or, if not, do you have an alternative? I do not support this method, it's a sneaky way of raising un-needed taxes. I will not support spending $ .01 on outside attorneys. This will save us over $1 million based on the spending the last two City budgets.

4) Please list a reason you didn't mention at Candidates Night for voters to choose you over the other candidates. This the bottom line for my reason why I'm running for Councilman: I'm a businessman that brings 62 years of hard work and life experiences in many fields. If I can represent these people and the taxpayer for the next three years and be effective I can be proud that I served my City as a public servant.

5) What can Councilors do to improve the City's economy? By working hard to increase the revenue, this is our major problem in addition to the spending of the WED and City.

6) What would your alternative to the Budget Commission have been? The City Council members, they were elected by the taxpayers to do this job. Their excuses given Tuesday were sad and disturbing to the people. 


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here