Ban butts at the beach
For the sake of fresh air, clean sand and tender toes, beach operators need to draw a line in the sand against smoking. A bill before the Rhode Island legislature would accomplish just that ...
Moonlight Kingdom — priceless exposure
The skeptics — and there are plenty of them — who question why Rhode Island and Massachusetts should trip over themselves to shower film companies with tax breaks need only watch the trailer to “Moonlight Kingdom.”
Prayer banner's mixed messages
Before they next threaten a teenage girl or insult a judge, some defenders of that Cranston prayer banner would do well to read the thing.
Bridge tolls: Time for state to step in
Rhode Island can ill afford to cut off a county and its tourist attractions with bridge tolls, a fact that finally seems to have hit home upstate. Last week’s state intervention in the bridge toll mes ...
Police force — No place for bullies
Legal guilt or innocence rests with the judge, but no verdict will change what most know they saw on television again and again.
2012 — Here's hoping
With the optimism stirred by the start of a new year, here are a few Sakonnet/Westport wishes for 2012:
Filling the stockings close to home
Since nothing much is made in the USA any more, ’tis the season to enrich overseas factory owners who pay their employees a pittance. Except holiday shopping need not always be that way ...
Water authority's letter is out of line
The Bristol County Water Authority, and more specifically the chairman of the authority’s board of directors, needs to immediately end its “information-gathering” effort directed against four East Bay residents.
Tiverton gag order a bad idea — ask Westport
For a group that is supposedly all about efficiency and openness, the Tiverton Town Council’s move to muzzle town department heads is a contradictory and disappointing change of course.
Uncharted FTR
Tiverton has clearly outgrown its town meeting. It served the town well generations ago but is scarcely up to the challenges of $40 million budgets, binding contracts and state mandates. Sadly, there’s reason to doubt that the financial town referendum (FTR), concocted as a town meeting substitute, will make matters better.