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4.8.2001 00:16
Cianci's reign
By GREGORY SMITH and DOANE HULICK
Journal Staff Writers
1974
 November: Vincent A. Cianci Jr. ekes out a victory over Joseph A. Doorley by 704 votes , becoming the first Republican elected mayor of the city in 34 years. Doorley had been in office for 10 years. Cianci takes office the following January and sets out to broaden his power base, forming an alliance with disaffected and factionalized Democrats.
His first term as mayor is marked by a bitter power struggle with a City Council dominated by Democrats. Only two Republicans are serving on the 26-member council. Cianci and the council fight over appointments to key city positions and over the city budget. He accuses the council of engaging in obstructionist tactics aimed at preventing him from implementing programs and at discrediting his administration. Cianci eventually gains the upper hand and develops an agenda for downtown redevelopment and improvements at the Port of Providence.
1978
New Times magazine publishes an article saying a Wisconsin woman accused Cianci of raping her at gunpoint 12 years earlier while he was a law student at Marquette University, in Milwaukee. Cianci denies the rape allegations but, in court papers filed in a libel suit against New Times, he acknowledges having paid the woman $3,000 after she dropped her complaint. In 1981, Cianci settles the $72 million law suit for $8,500 and a letter of apology.
1980
Buoyed by his own popularity in the capital city, Cianci enters the race for governor and is trounced by the incumbent Democrat J. Joseph Garrahy. Within a few months a $26-million city budget deficit is found and new taxes proposed.
His administration is plagued by overspending, and in 1981 alone he is forced to increase the tax rate by $16. Cianci remains popular, however, and is reelected in 1982 after opting out of the Republican party and running as an independent.
1982
November: Cianci declares the city financially healthy and persuades the City Council to authorize short-term borrowing of $4.37 million to pay the city's share of the $100 million Capital Center project.
1983
March: Cianci and his wife, Sheila, are granted a divorce over "irreconcilable differences." after 91/2 years of marriage.
April: Allegations that Cianci assaulted his wife's lover, Bristol contractor Raymond DeLeo, with a fireplace log, become public.
May: Cianci is indicted on charges of assault and battery, assault with a dangerous weapon, kidnapping, conspiracy to kidnap, and two counts of attempted extortion in connection with the DeLeo matter.
August: The deputy director and an engineer in the city's Public Works Department are called to testify before a grand jury investigating a $1.2-million street paving contract.
October: Recall petitions are circulated in the city in an ill-fated six-month effort to oust Cianci. Former Parks Supt. James W. Diamond, part of the drive, calls it a "grassroots movement by people who have finally had enough of corruption and mismanagment in city government." He cites scandal in the Public Works Department, corruption in the Housing Authority and municipal finance problems.
1984
March 5: Cianci admits to two assault charges in Superior Court and receives a five-year suspended sentence.
April 25: Cianci resigns and City Council president Joseph R. Paolino Jr. becomes acting mayor. Eventually, 30 city employees and others in the Cianci administration are indicted on charges involving kickbacks for city contracts, the theft of road asphalt by a high-ranking mob figure to pave private driveways, the payment of bills for school building roof repairs that were never performed and an overtime scam involving a bridge repair job.
Twenty-two of the defendants are convicted and 16 go to jail.
"When something isn't being run right, it spreads like a cancer. That's not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of convictions in the courts," former U.S. Attorney Lincoln C. Almond says at the time.
1985
March: Cianci replaces former Congressman Edward P. Beard as a talk show host at radio station WHJJ.
1990
June: Cianci, who has remained in the public eye as a talk show host, begins his political resurrection by filing a declaration of candidacy for mayor. He electrifies admirers when he shows up at City Hall -- a place that he had vowed never to set foot in again unless he came back as mayor.
November: He runs as an independent and wins in a three-way contest by a margin of 317 votes against another independent, Fred Lippitt, and Democrat Andrew Annaldo. But there is a challenge by a local group called "Citizens to Uphold the Constitution." The group questions Cianci's qualifications to hold office, citing a 1986 amendment to the state constitution barring convicted felons from holding office until three years after completion of their sentence.
December: The Rhode Island Supreme Court rules that the 1986 amendment does not prevent Cianci's return to office.
1991
December: Cianci agrees to a legal settlement allowing retired nonteaching employees cost-of-living increases in their pensions -- 3 percent a year, compounded. The deal also allows retired police officers and firefighters increases in their COLAs to 6 percent a year, compounded. A subsequent decision by the Rhode Island Supreme Court, in a case that was pending at the time of the deal, shows he did not have to do it.
With actuarial projections showing the settlement could bankrupt the city, due to compounding, he tries to back out of the deal. The legal fight over COLAs is still unresolved.
1992
April: Cianci announces the Providence Plan, a nonprofit corporation to pull together a variety of programs such as housing rehabilitation, to ensure that Providence does not sink to the level of Newark, N.J., and New Haven, Conn.
1993
February: Cianci task force reports that the city faces insolvency within two years if it does not take drastic action such as selling the Port of Providence or the Roger Williams Park Zoo. The situation described in the report is emblematic of a series of fiscal crises during Cianci's first two reigns.
1994
February: After a spate of shooting deaths, including that of a patrolman, Cianci proposes that the Superior Court set aside special calendar to speed the handling of gun-related crimes. A gun court is created..
April: Ten colleges and hospitals in Providence unveil a plan to help city with money, manpower and other resources -- a campaign known as HELP. Initiative was product of Cianci persuasion and continuing controversy over effect of institutions' tax exemptions on city tax base.
November: Cianci enjoys landslide reelection victory over independent Paul V. Jabour and Republican Thomas J. Ricci.
1996
October: The City Council approves tax break essential to Providence Place mall, capping Cianci effort to revive shopping in downtown Providence. Part of the tax deal requires construction of a movie theater in the central business district. No theater has been built.
1997
February: Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, announces interest in building a football stadium somewhere other than South Boston. Cianci campaigns for a Providence stadium, but the on-and-off flirtation between Patriots and Rhode Island government ends without a deal..
April: Cianci announces that gondolas will ply the revived downtown riverfront, a typically flamboyant embellishment on the self-proclaimed Providence Renaissance that accounts for his enduring admiration.
1998
May: "Forget casinos," Cianci proclaims, after alternately encouraging and discouraging a gambling casino in Providence over the years. Casino discussions have been in part an effort to squeeze more financial aid from state government.
November: Cianci is reelected without opposition -- the first mayor to run without an opponent since at least World War II. Potential rival Pat Cortellessa failed to win a spot on the ballot following a challenge to his candidacy by the Cianci/Democratic political machine.
November: Fleet Skating Center, one of Cianci's more popular projects, opens. Despite promises that the facility will be self-sustaining, it ends 2000 with a deficit.
1999
January: Cianci announces the most ambitious urban renewal program in the city's history: New Cities. Three areas are to be revived in a long-term effort, including the harborfront, but money is lacking; more than two years later, the plans remain vague.
April: Operation Plunder Dome goes public; FBI arrests two members of the Board of Assessment Review and seizes documents from five city offices. Cianci denies the investigation will lead to him. "You're not going to find any stains on this jacket," he declares.
September: "It's been a hell of a ride," he tells a reporter as he becomes the longest-reigning mayor in local history, eclipsing 19th-century Mayor Thomas A. Doyle, who died in office. It's been 18 years-plus for Cianci.
2000
September: Cianci sells his home -- a historic carriage house on College Hill which he owned for 15 years -- for $1.1 million. He denies speculation he is liquidating his assets in preparation for being criminally charged in Plunder Dome. Moves immediately to rooms at the Providence Biltmore hotel, where he has remained.
September: There are no stains on the jacket, as far as Rhode Island voters are concerned. A Brown University poll shows 75 percent believe he is doing a good to excellent job.
2001
February: Channel 10 broadcasts a secret FBI tape that purports to show Frank E. Corrente, Cianci's former director of administration, accepting a $1,000 bribe in an envelope and putting it into his desk at City Hall. The mayor has no comment.
April 2: Cianci is indicted in Operation Plunder Dome, along with Corrente, his chief of staff, and a former tax board member, for allegedly operating city government as a criminal enterprise. The U.S. Justice Department charges that the four extorted cash and campaign contributions for city contracts, jobs, promotions and other benefits. Two businessmen also are indicted.
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