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4.5.2001 00:22
Cianci welcomed warmly
at mayors' conference
 "This is what we all worry about," says one prominent mayor. "Somebody under you doing something."
BY JOHN E. MULLIGAN
Journal Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON
-- Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. stood before his peers yesterday and accepted a rousing verdict: Hang in there, Buddy!
He picked up a newspaper to find his photograph and his wisdom on urban revival splashed across the front page, with nary a word about Plunder Dome.
He listened to ringing declarations of the principle that someone accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty.
Of course, the heartening words came not from the sort of panel that would judge Cianci's guilt or innocence at a trial of his alleged role in a criminal conspiracy inside City Hall.
It was his peers in the U.S. Conference of Mayors who rallied to say, in the words of Oakland, Calif., Mayor Jerry Brown, "People get indicted in this business. Buddy's a good guy."
The news article was in the mayors' conference publication.
If Cianci's back-slapping reception came from colleagues secretly thinking, "There but for the grace of God go I," and if it changed nothing about the long ordeal that still awaits when he comes home tonight, he welcomed the respite nevertheless.
"I'm going to need all the help and love and prayers from my friends that I can get" in order to fight the charges against him, Cianci said shortly after arriving here for the annual two-day convention.
The proceedings were modestly attended, with a few dozen mayors on hand, and mighty dry, with this year's discussions built around the title, "A Summit on Investment in the New American City."
With a cluster of Providence news cameras and reporters in his wake, Cianci added even more than his usual dose of zing to the seminars at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
Indictment queries from the hometown media dominated the opening news conference, with Cianci once more slighting the charges against him and slyly rebuking Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee for calling upon him to resign.
"Chafee had no trouble calling me up and buying me lunch and asking for my support in his election campaign -- at the height of Plunder Dome," Cianci said. He repeated the line at least twice and suggested that Chafee mind to business in Washington.
(Later, Chafee answered through a spokesman that the lunch meeting had also dealt with spending Cianci wanted for Providence projects and that Cianci never did back him.)
Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino struggled to change the subject at the news conference, and Mayor Brown, of Oakland, put a leftward-progressive spin on his warnings about the potential for abuse of federal prosecutorial power.
"Many of these things are overblown," said the onetime California governor and Democratic presidential candidate, who wore a stiff, white collar, buttoned, tieless and reminiscent of a priestly vestment.
"Nobody's perfect. Everybody hopes this works out for the mayor. We don't have a monarchy where we think anything the king does is right. We are skeptical of government power.
"The longer you are in as a mayor, the more things can happen to you, just because of what is. Power and capital -- that's a dangerous blend. But you can't get away from it."
Variations on those themes sounded repeatedly through the day, which included panel discussions at the hotel (one chaired with vivid good humor by Cianci) and a fancy hors d'oeuvres-and-cocktails reception in a handsome office building with a view of the Washington Monument.
Akron Mayor Donald Pasquellic leaned over to a colleague during one arid seminar and said, apropos of Cianci's troubles, "You know, the worst scumbag drug dealer in Akron that's been busted and convicted 27 times is still entitled the presumption of innocence the 28th time he's arrested.
"But in the public setting, with any charges like these that go out, you're automatically convicted in the press and the public's mind."
As always, Cianci seemed to draw energy and buoyancy from the people around him. Between times, as always, he drew ferociously on his trusty Merit Menthols.
As he waited outside the Ritz for the minibus to the evening event, Cianci kibbutzed with colleagues and paced in his shiny black penny loafers. He wore a gold-buttoned blue blazer, cuffed gray trousers and a smart red tie emblazoned with faux-heraldic lions.
"Hey, Buddy," shouted a curly-headed man in a passing Lincoln Town Car.
"Hey! How're you doin'?" the mayor shouted back. Then, under his breath to his sidewalk mates: "Who the hell was that?"
On the bus to the reception, mayors swapped war stories. The great convention last year at Key West. The tribulations of combined sewage overflow. The time Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke talked at a news conference about legalizing marijuana. "Boop! I got up and got out of camera range," said Cianci.
"Hey, they still got those prostitution houses out there?" Cianci asked, jokingly, of Jeff Griffin, the mayor of Reno, Nev.
"Six blocks from the state capitol," Griffin retorted.
One prominent mayor, speaking anonymously, said of the charges aganst Cianci, "This is what we all worry about. Somebody under you doing something."
Griffin, of Reno, empathized with Cianci -- although he didn't know the mayor had actually been charged until someone told him over the crab cakes and tiny blueberry tarts at the evening reception.
"I heard they were sneaking around there in City Hall," Griffin said of the FBI in Providence. "You know, every mayor, man or woman, in this room has had charges and allegations made, maybe not this serious. And quite frankly, you'll get a real sympathetic response and understanding from them.
"You do this job and you're going to get people mad at you," Griffin said. Then he paused for comic effect and added, "Sometimes the feds!"
Menino was drawn out only reluctantly on the topic of Cianci's woes. "We're here to talk about cities," he said somberly. "This is personal for him, and he'll deal with it on his own. But it's a tough thing," Menino said.
"Tough, tough thing."
Digital Extra:
Review this week's Journal coverage of the Cianci indictment and learn about the U.S. Conference of Mayors event he is attending at:
http://projo.com/extra/plunder/
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