Ward Offers Long-Serving Experience, Informed Ideas in Re-election Bid

Editor's note: This is the latest in a series of articles/videos in Woonsocket Patch's coverage of the Sept. 24 Candidates Night, now turning to City Council incumbents. This part of the series begins with Council President John Ward.

City Council President John Ward's prepared comments were ill received at the Sept. 24 Candidates Night sponsored by MyWoonsocket.com. Audience members interrupted several times while moderator Jeff Gamache read Ward's statement, sent in lieu of his attendance that evening.

In his remarks, Ward said his service on the Budget Commission, as a member of a team charged with assuming the legislative and financial duties of the Council and School Committee and many administrative duties of Mayor Leo Fontaine (also a statutory appointment to the panel) has been the most challenging aspect of his term. 

Ward said his biggest disappointment was the failure of Woonsocket's General Assembly delegation to get an elderly tax exemption passed as part of the Supplemental Tax Bill. 

Senators Marc Cote D-Dist 24 and Roger Picard (D-Dist. 20) included the tax exemption in their supplemental tax bill, S820, but that died on the desk at the State House. Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt's companion bill H6103, which did not include the tax exemption, passed the House and Senate. When the Senate approved the bill, Cote added a contingency allowing it to take effect only if Woonsocket realized $3.7 million in union concessions, but did not add in the elderly tax exemption from his own bill.   

"The City Council passed it (the elderly tax exemption) and the Budget Commission approved it, the change, to help protect our seniors from the changes that we knew were coming to the homestead exemption," Ward said in his remarks, but now seniors will have to wait a year to see the tax relief. "I will commit myself to seeing that happen," Ward said.

Ward, 58, was raised in North Smithfield as a child. He has lived in Woonsocket for 50 years. He has worked as Finance Director for Lincoln since 2006. Ward has served on the City Council since 2005, and was a member of the School Committee for 10 years before that. 

Ward is also a board member of the RI Government Finance Officers Association, Vice-Chairman of the Rhode Island Industrial Facilities Corporation, Chairman of the RI Municipal Insurance Corporation Board, a Certified Public Accountant, and Treasurer of the Woonsocket Lions Club. 

Woonsocket Patch asked each Council candidate a series of questions about their approach to the city's challenges. Here are Ward's answers:
1) Assuming the Budget Commission is around for the duration, how would you work with the panel? I would certainly not expect to have my communication with them limited to speaking in three minute segments at their public meetings! If I am not a member of the budget commission, I will actively communicate with them through email, telephone calls, and letters of position on matters they are considering. I would share those communications through comments at city council meetings and include their responses. I would also share any meaningful written responses on matters of policy with the media in order to promote public discourse.

2) The Budget Commission is governed by state law. How can you as a  City Councilor affect or change that law? I would not propose to eliminate the law, but their have been some possible suggestions for change that merit consideration. The important thing to remember here is that the General Assembly (huge cuts in aid while not controlling their own budget, a terrible education funding formula, binding arbitration, not passing local control initiatives proposed by both Governor Carcieri and Chafee) are most responsible for this mess while local control over staffing and negotiated benefits over many years combined with state neglect to get us into this mess. The laws that truly need changing are the proposals I have brought to the General Assembly that our delegation have not had the ability to get passed to help their city recover.

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 the $1 million fee increase, but in developing the five-year plan, I recognized that we had significantly affected every group of employees, retirees and taxpayers. Though the state is supposed to be the fourth contributor to our solution, we don't have any specific control over them, so they cannot be relied upon to provide the kind of help they should. Alternative trash collection contract terms are still being sought out and as the results of our changes in staffing and health care plan cost containment manifest themselves in documented savings, it may be determined that the fee increase may not be as high as projected or needed at all. Time will give us that answer. If we had more cooperation from the unions and retirees, our answer would be known sooner.

4) Please list a reason you didn't mention at Candidates Night for voters to choose you over the other candidates. Through my work and financial background, I am exposed to ideas and concepts successfully used by other communities that I can bring to the City Council for consideration and I am a tireless researcher on matters of legislation and law. One example I can refer to is our Senior Tax Exemption. Knowing that our homestead exemption was going to reduced significantly, I drafted, and the city council and budget commission approved, an amendment to the Senior Tax Exemption program to provide relief to senior homeowners to help them better afford to stay in their home. The exemption needed General Assembly approval to be put in place. The supplemental tax bill introduced in the State Senate included the Senior Tax Exemption authorization, but the House version of the supplemental tax bill authored by Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt did not. Unfortunately her bill passed and the seniors got left out. I sent an email to Rep. Stephen Casey and the rest of the local delegation on June 6, reminding them of the critical need for this legislation to pass and they did nothing to make that happen. That legislation needs to be passed as soon as possible in the next term and I hope to see Rep. Baldelli-Hunt there to correct that deficiency. 

I have also been fighting in the budget commission meetings to leave some measure of a homestead exemption in place for two and three family owner occupied homes as an incentive for those who may not be able to afford a single family home, or who are looking to buy their first home in a more affordable way, to invest in the city as a homeowner/landlord which we know promotes better quality neighborhoods.

5) What can Councilors do to improve the City's economy? The City Council should be more open to new businesses willing to take a chance in Woonsocket. We must also work closely with the administration to support initiatives that will work toward restructuring our comprehensive plan and zoning to promote more industrial and commercial development that will bring jobs into the city and provide tax relief to our homeowners through a broadening of the tax base. I have some specific ideas toward that end and will speak to them in the next couple of weeks (though I have already mentioned one before when I discussed my idea for the relocation of the high school athletic fields to Cass Park and the sale of Barry Field for commercial use, combined with the acquisition and redevelopment of World War II Park).

6) What would your alternative to the Budget Commission have been? My best suggestion for an alternative to a Budget Commission is a state government, specifically the General Assembly, that properly balances the resources of the state against the needs of the communities. One example that I have consistently fought for is a proper funding formula for education. Had the correct formulation for teacher pensions and state reimbursement for our non-taxpaying public housing been in place, Woonsocket would not have needed a budget commission.