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12.28.2001 10:40
Groundbreakers, news makers of 2001
In news terms, 2001 was a mixed bag in the Blackstone Valley. It was a year of comedy and tragedy, of change and continuity, of loose ends and issues neatly resolved.
In Pawtucket and Woonsocket, the two big cities in the region, it was pretty much business as usual. The same mayors, James E. Doyle and Susan D. Menard, gave speeches, cut ribbons and swore in firefighters and police officers.
In Cumberland, Central Falls, North Smithfield and Lincoln, by contrast, 2001 was a year of upheaval. Politically, the principle seemed to have been the smaller the place, the bigger the change.
In Lincoln, Democrat Jonathan F. Oster replaced Burton Stallwood, a Republican, ending Stallwood's 28-year reign as town administrator. Oster promptly called for an April referendum on a $35-million school improvement bond issue popular with the parents of school-age children who backed him at the polls.
IN NORTH SMITHFIELD,
voter dissatisfaction over unbridled development and a supplemental tax increase led to wholesale turnover in town government. Two of the five members of the Town Council -- Daniel Halloran and Steven Biron -- were denied reelection. The other three -- Daniel O'Brien, Michael Lemay and Marc Baillargeon -- decided not to run.
In Central Falls, a new era was ushered in with the election of Ricardo Patino, the city's first Latino councilman. In Cumberland, a new mayor, Daniel J. McKee, was inaugurated, promising to end the disarray in town finances.
But the change came too late to buoy the town's bond rating, which Moody's Investor's Service lowered from A3 to Ba2.
In Woonsocket, Mayor Menard easily won a fourth term, beating her challenger, the Rev. Reginald Turner, with 78 percent of the vote. But there was change on the City Council. Council President Roger G. Jalette Sr. was denied reelection. Councilman Vincent Ward, a persistent Menard critic, decided not to run. They were replaced by newly elected council members Brian R. Blais and William D. Schneck Jr.
The change meant Menard's supporters no longer have a majority on the council. However, the candidates stressed they wanted to end the bickering that has afflicted the council during the last two years.
IN PAWTUCKET,
although 2001 was an odd-numbered year, there was no election, the first time that has happened since 1953. Politicians hailed the change, a charter amendment that junked the city's half-century-old system of off-year, nonpartisan elections, predicting it would save thousands of dollars and boost voter turnout.
But on Nov. 6, an eerie quiet pervaded the school buildings and VFW posts that would ordinarily have served as Pawtucket polling places. School Committee and City Council members who would ordinarily have been helping to get out the vote sat handicapping races in neighboring communities or twiddling their thumbs.
The only real excitement in Pawtucket this year came during the spring, when the local newspaper ran a legal notice announcing that Brian J. Sarault was seeking reinstatement as a lawyer in Massachusetts. Sarault, 55, surrendered his law license in Massachusetts and Rhode Island after pleading guilty in 1992 to one count of racketeering. Federal prosecutors alleged he ran a bribery and extortion ring out of Pawtucket City Hall.
Sarault's reinstatement bid stirred up painful memories in the city, where many still wondered how a distinguished, well-spoken man who had what seemed to be a bright political career ahead of him could have fallen so swiftly and so hard.
But, if people were hoping that Sarault's October hearing before the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers would provide an answer to that question, they were disappointed. Testifying on his own behalf, Sarault seemed as puzzled as anyone about what caused the bad behavior that led to his downfall, drawing a big blank when his lawyer asked whether he had ever stopped to evaluate his misdeeds in moral terms.
That prompted a sneer from M. Charles Bakst, the Journal's political commentator. "It was fascinating to see Sarault & Co. suggest that his sleaziness had been a fleeting out-of-body experience, uncharacteristic of the man who'd been an honorable lawyer before, and, since prison, has worked as a truck salesman and volunteered for Catholic Church causes," Bakst wrote.
A ruling on Sarault's petition for reinstatement isn't expected for at least several months. It was one of many loose ends in a year of cliffhangers.
ONE LOOSE END
came from the Pawtucket Water Supply Board, which was so inundated with information that it put off until January a decision on which multinational company to hire to build the city's new water treatment plant, a $39.8-million to $46.6-million project that will take until 2004 to build.
Another loose end came from the Manhattan Development company, the politically connected firm that won city backing for a new 200-room hotel on the old Viking Chevrolet property at School and Division Streets. This fall, the company, which includes former City Councilor William J. Lynch, postponed the groundbreaking for the $20-million hotel project because the mortgage banker that promised to provide financing hasn't yet come through.
ON A MORE
tragic note, 27-year-old Robin L. Parker remained in critical condition at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, where she was taken after being severely burned in the Nov. 28 apartment fire in Pawtucket that claimed the life of Aaron Hotchkiss, her 8-year-old son.
The fire wasn't the only tragedy this year. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon claimed the lives of two Blackstone Valley residents.
Amy Jarret, 28, of North Smithfield, a flight attendant for United Airlines, was on Boston-to-Los Angeles Flight 175 when it was crashed by hijackcers into one of the Twin Towers. So was Shawn Nassaney, 25, of Pawtucket, a sales manager at American Power Conversion, who was on the first leg of a trip to Hawaii with his girlfriend, Lynn Goodchild, 25, of Attleboro.
IN OTHER
news about young people this year, two local stories gained prominence. Both occurred before Sept. 11.
In the spring, Meghan, Kate and Sarah Malloy, triplets who were about to graduate from Cumberland High School, began their search for a college that they could all attend together, eventually deciding on Wheaton College in nearby Norton, Mass.
It seems to have worked out. Sarah, at home for the holidays, said yesterday that all three will be returning to Wheaton next semester. "I love college, and my sisters do, too," she said. "We don't live together, but we see each other a lot."
Another story became a topic of great importance, at least among Rhode Island radio talk show hosts.
Last winter, Cumberland High School freshman Derek Dubois wrote a sexually explicit song about a teacher, then posted it on the Internet. Word got out around school, and Dubois was suspended. Because he had written the song at home and posted it from a computer in his bedroom, his parents, his lawyer and the state chapter of the ACLU argued that the school had no right to punish the teenager. They appealed the suspension, but to no avail.
The state Department of Education agreed with Cumberland school officials and said Dubois could be disciplined. Because the appeal stretched until the end of the school year, he served the suspension at the start of this school year.
IN LINCOLN,
controversy in the public school system involved grownups, not teenagers. After an Aug. 16 executive session of the town's School Committee, committee members Patricia A. Iannelli and Lucille J. Mandeville, who had been at odds over several issues, got into a tiff.
Iannelli accused Mandeville of grabbing her nose and twisting it. "What's the matter? Did you get your little nose twisted out of joint?" Iannelli claimed Mandeville said.
Mandeville's lawyer said the physical contact between the two women was way short of anything that would have caused physical harm, comparing it to a tap on the shoulder.
To avoid charges of favoritism, police arranged to have an out-of-town lawyer review the facts and recommend what charges, if any, should be filed. The result was a recommendation that both women be charged with disorderly conduct.
By October, the episode had become a statewide story. The two committee members had had enough. Iannelli announced she was dropping her complaint against Mandeville. Three days later, Mandeville said she was doing the same.
TWO BIG
development stories made news this year, one in Lincoln, the other in North Smithfield. In July, the state Energy Facilities Siting Board voted to deny the Indeck company permission to build a power plant along the Slatersville Reservoirs in North Smithfield.
And in September, in return for the promise that Lincoln Greyhound Park would build two lighted playing fields on its property, the Town Council shrank the old 800-foot development-free zone within the perimeter of the park, clearing the way for the track's owners to seek state approval to add more than 1,000 video slot machines. The State Lottery Commission has the slot machine plan under review.
By Journal Staff Writer John Castellucci with reports from Staff Writers Tatiana Pina, John Hill and Michael Smith.
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