Raimondo Administration: Public Profit Over Public Service

Name: Go Local Prov
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Thursday, December 01, 2016

EDITORIAL

It is wonderful that folks in business enter public service. Many know how to get things done. However, none of them were drafted to run for office or forced to accept an appointment. They did it of their own free will.

In Rhode Island, both Governor Gina Raimondo through her ownership interest in Point Judith Capital, and her Chief-of-Staff Brett Smiley through his founding and owning a political consulting firm, have continued ties to their respective businesses. As GoLocal reported, Smiley's firm is paid by the Mayor of Providence’s campaign $4,000 a month and has received over $80,000 cumulatively much of it while Smiley received a public paycheck.

When Raimondo decided to run for statewide public office in 2010, she should have sold her interest in the venture fund that the state’s retirement system had invested in. As GoLocal has reported over the years, Raimondo and her partners in Point Judith Capital II have earned millions in fees while state retirees have had significant real and lost opportunity by investing in her fund. It has been an under-performer for a decade.

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Now, Smiley is creating an even more perverse structure. When high level political officials need to negotiate with the Governor, the company he owns is being paid by those very people. As Common Cause’s John Marion told GoLocal’s News Editor Kate Nagle, ““Out of an abundance of caution Mr. Smiley could either sever his business relationship with the consulting firm altogether or seek an advisory opinion from the Rhode Island Ethics Commission.”

Others were far less restrained about Smiley’s economic gain and perceived conflict while serving as the top adviser to the Governor.

Many questions have arisen about President Donald Trump’s business interests and on Wednesday, he pledged to separate himself from his complex business empire. Few details have been shared. We will wait to see how it unfolds, but in Rhode Island the facts are clear.

Raimondo and Smiley have economically benefited from their personal business interests while supposedly serving the public. At best it is bad judgment.