Follow up to earlier Progressive Charlestown stories

URI nuke cited for safety violation….Raimondo wants to keep the award….Doreen Costa explains her economic development plan for South County

By Will Collette

URI Nuclear Power plant cited for safety violation. Read the earlier story here. The South County Independent reports that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued the report of its investigation after a student intern was exposed to radiation in a high radiation room in the facility. The NRC issued a notice of violation to URI for failing to ensure proper controls over access to high-radiation areas, but at the lowest level, Level IV. The student entered the room without authorization and was zapped with radiation the equivalent of what the average person receives in three month’s worth of exposure to natural and man-made sources. The 50+ year old, grossly obsolete facility – funded by your tax dollars – will be allowed to continue to operate. But at least it's not a wind farm!

Raimondo does not approve of many of the award-giver's beliefs, but will keep the award anyway. Read the earlier story here. Our DINO General Treasurer came under fire for going to New York to receive an award from the Manhattan Institute, a hard-right “think tank,” for her work in gutting public worker pensions. She was asked by several groups to renounce the award because of some pretty awful positions the Manhattan Institute has taken on race, gender and economic issues.

Raimondo said she condemned the Institute’s hateful positions, but said that going to New York to receive the award highlighted Rhode Island’s actions to deal with public worker pensions. NOTE: I believe her on that part – and it aligned her actions against public workers with the ideology of the Manhattan Institute.

Speaking of Hard-Right…. Tea Party State Representative Doreen Costa (R-NO Kingstown) fired back at critics of her efforts to line up a bail-out for the financially troubled Waterfire display in Providence. That action drew criticism from South County’s Independent newspapers who questioned how this action fit in with Costa’s staunch opposition to other public expenditures as well as why Costa was so concerned about a Providence tourist attraction when there were plenty of unmet needs in her own district.

Read the earlier story here and the original South County Independent editorial here..

Costa wrote that Waterfire helps the whole state. In fact, she knows a South County jewelry designer who hawks her stuff at Waterfire. Read the letter – I’m not making this up.

Costa goes on to say “As a proud member of the Tea Party and as a supporter of the Tea Party’s fundamental tenet of fiscal responsibility, I would never, ever support legislation that would have amounted to, as the editor has stated, ‘a bailout.’” Except this.

She responds to the Independent’s charge that she is neglecting economic issues in her own district by citing her co-sponsorship of Voter ID legislation. She does not explain how requiring Voter IDs will boost the economy of House District 31.