Woonsocket Mayor Baldelli-Hunt Resigns

Woonsocket Mayor Baldelli-Hunt Resigns

Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, the long-serving and controversial Mayor of Woonsocket, has abruptly resigned.

Citing health issues, but under a cloud of controversy, Baldelli-Hunt wrote in a letter to Woonsocket residents on Thursday, “I am hereby resigning my office as Mayor of the City of Woonsocket, effective immediately.”

Baldelli-Hunt has had health issues in recent months. “The time has come for me to address my health and the well-being of my family. As much as I love the City of Woonsocket and all of you, I must reorder my priorities to suit the current circumstances. For the first time in my decade of service to the City, my health and my family must come first,” she wrote.

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Last week, WPRI reported that “a week after Woonsocket’s mayor claimed she’d never done personal business with the developer at the center of a controversial city land deal, Target 12 has discovered she once listed the man as her employer and borrowed $182,000 from him.”

“In an interview with Target 12 last Wednesday, Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt adamantly denied ever having a personal business relationship with Raymond Bourque, owner of R&K Building Corp. The question arose after she unilaterally spent $1.1 million of taxpayer money to buy five acres of vacant land from R&K, saying she planned to use the parcel for affordable housing,” reported WPRI.