By Katherine Gregg By Jennifer Bogdan
January 10. 2016 6:00PM
Political Scene: Plenty of road trips for Raimondo in first year
The R.I. governor has traveled out of state at least 18 days since taking office last January, at a net cost to taxpayers of $23,739.07 for hotel rooms, air fare and train tickets.
Raimondo
Governor Raimondo has been out of state on trips to New York City; Washington, D.C.; White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia; San Francisco and other points in between at least 18 days since taking office last January.
And that does not count her occasional journeys to Boston, or the half-dozen or so road trips she made to Connecticut for Yale Corporation meetings, a New England governors' energy conference and a meeting at an undisclosed location on Thursday, July 30.
"Economic Development."
That was the explanation Raimondo’s communications director, Joy Fox, provided for the July trip, in the month after General Electric served notice that it was exploring a move of its headquarters and a potential 5,700 employees from Connecticut to another state with "a more pro-business environment."
This weekday trip was one of several out-of-state ventures that did not appear on Raimondo’s public schedule.
When pressed for details about this trip and others last week, Fox said: "As with everything she does, the governor's top priority is to jump-start our economy and create jobs. Every trip is taken with this primary goal in mind."
The governor and/or her top staffers took more than two dozen out-of-state trips last year, at an overall cost of $31,512.97.
Some of those expenses were reimbursed by the governor's "Friends of Gina Raimondo" campaign account, according to a summary report and related documents the governor’s office provided to The Journal. That included a mid-September trip that the governor and Fox took to New York City to do media interviews. The campaign paid the $147.98 Hampton Inn hotel tab for the state trooper assigned to her security detail to go down the night before, so he could meet her there.
The governor’s husband, Andy Moffit, reimbursed the state for the $501.77 cost of his travel with her to Washington in February.
Including reimbursements that the National Governors Association and the Center for American Progress provided for some staff trips, the net cost to the state for the governor’s-office travel this past year was $23,739.07 for hotel rooms, air fare and Amtrak tickets. (Fuel and mileage not included.)
Where did they go?
In early February, Raimondo and her new Commerce Secretary, Stefan Pryor, went to New York via Amtrak. Purpose: "economic development meetings ... I think it was mostly businesses, including with a real estate consultant to raise awareness about the vacant 195 land," said Fox.
Between Feb. 20-23, the governor and several of her staffers — including Jason Natareno, Matt Bucci, and Stephen Neuman, her chief of staff, went to Washington for the winter meeting of the National Governors Association.
While there, she ruffled some feathers back home in Rhode Island with her remarks during a side visit to Politico's fifth annual State Solutions Conference.
"For too long, what’s happened in Rhode Island — and it may happen in other statehouses — is the governor proposes a budget and then the General Assembly takes the budget and — often in the dark of night, in a quiet room — the lobbyists and the General Assembly get together and they hack it up every which way and out pops a budget. ... And that’s bad for everybody, as far as I can tell."
(House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello responded: "I’m disappointed the governor provided an inaccurate depiction of the budget process to her Washington audience." They later made peace.)
On Wednesday, March 25, Raimondo and the trooper who accompanies her on out-of-state trips returned to Washington. "She met with the U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker," Fox said. No other information was provided.
On Thursday, April 23, Raimondo was in Hartford, Connecticut, to discuss regional energy issues with other New England governors.
On May 28, Raimondo and staffer Gabe Amo were in Washington again, this time for meetings at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that is conducting a six-month privately financed analysis of potential economic development strategies in Rhode Island. (The $1.3-million project is being financed by a mix of foundations and private individuals. Recommendations for a "competitiveness strategy" are expected Jan. 19.)
While the state paid for Amo's expenses, Fox said, Brookings paid for Raimondo's travel. "Governor Raimondo traveled to the Brookings International Advisory Council meeting to speak about the importance of advanced industries to building state’s economy."
On a Friday in late June, there is a notation for a payment by Raimondo's campaign account for airfare to and from Nantucket for one of the troopers — Lt.Paul Sikorsky — who travels with her. While Raimondo clearly went, too, the reason is not evident. "It was a political trip," Fox said.
In July, Raimondo and two of her staffers went to West Virginia for the National Governors Association's summer meeting. The governor's travel budget also paid roughly $924 to bring author/motivational speaker Geoffrey Smart to Rhode Island to lead a seminar for the governor's cabinet. His online bio describes him as "chairman & founder of ghSMART, a leadership consulting firm whose credo begins, 'We exist to help leaders amplify their positive impact on the world.' "
In mid-September, the campaign paid for Raimondo, Fox and a trooper to travel to New York for a Fortune magazine interview.
In mid-October, she went to Washington to take part in Fortune magazine's "2015 Most Powerful Women" conference, where she talked about her responses to public employees angry about her drive, as state treasurer, to rein in the cost of the state's endangered pension system. Among them: "I'd be angry if I were you too, but don't blame me. Blame all the people before me that weren't honest with you."
(Asked what changed from her former life as a venture capitalist, she said: "The public element of it is very different. Every mistake is public. Every move you make is public. You just have to learn to maneuver around that. But I have loved it.")
In November she went to San Francisco for some Rhode Island-boosting with tech companies, and a speech at RSTP, which describes itself as a "technology growth equity firm."
Aide Matt Bucci and a state police trooper went with her at an overall cost of $4,057. "The purpose of the trip is to continue our efforts to build an innovation economy in R.I.," a spokeswoman said at the time. "To get that outcome, we have to meet with these companies and sell Rhode Island’s strategic location, world-class universities, and skilled workforce."
On Monday, Dec. 14, Raimondo and Fox were in New York again. Purpose: "Media." Her public schedule for that day did not mention the trip.
By way of comparison, the governor's office spent $27,420 on travel during then-Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee's first two years in office. He and his staff were out of the state 13 weekdays in 2011, 14 in 2012 and a total of 44 days, including Saturdays and Sundays, according to a summary provided by his office in 2012.
Puerto Rico trip
The Senate Presidents' Forum sponsored the expense-paid trip that Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed and at least one other state senator, Majority Whip Maryellen Goodwin, took to Puerto Rico late last week.
Details were still sketchy, but Senate spokesman Greg Pare said the organization plans an event in Newport in July 2017.
Past financial backers of the organization included GTECH, which effectively runs the Rhode Island Lottery.
Helping Hillary in N.H.
The state Democratic Party is hosting weekly bus trips to New Hampshire to help get out the vote for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
"Rhode Island — bluest of the blue states — came out strong for the Clintons in the past and even gave her the Primary win back in [2008]. That said, we will also coordinate bus service for other Democratic presidential candidates if there is demand," Rep. Joseph McNamara, the state Democratic Party chairman, said last week.
The buses will run on Saturdays from Jan. 23 through Feb. 6 and again on New Hampshire primary day, Feb. 9. Note: "A free box lunch will be provided."
Primary deadlines McNamara, D-Warwick, also got the word out about the deadlines for Rhode Island's own April 26 presidential preference primary.
Presidential candidates seeking to appear on the Rhode Island ballot must file their statements of intent with the Rhode Island secretary of state's office between Jan. 21-23. Those seeking to become state delegates need to file their declarations of candidacy between Feb. 24-25.
Voters have until March 27 to register to vote in the presidential primary. April 5 is the last day to apply for a mail ballot. The deadline for a voter to disaffiliate from one party, in order to vote in another party's primary, is Jan. 27.
And from the Boston Globe….
R.I. governor’s road show seeks to remake state economy
JOHN TLUMACKI/GLOBE STAFF By 2018, Governor Gina Raimondo wants to create 6,000 to 10,000 new jobs that pay at least $50,000 a year. Over the last year or so, she has visited New York, California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
By Megan Woolhouse and Jon Chesto GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 10, 2016 Gina Raimondo spent most of her professional career listening to pitches. But over the past year, the former venture capitalist has found herself on the other side of the table, selling a vision that seems only a little less far-fetched than some of the entrepreneurial dreams that came her way.
Raimondo, starting her second year as Rhode Island governor, has criss-crossed the country to recruit businesses, pushing the idea that her state, one of the slowest to recover from the last recession, could become a thriving technology hub. From New York to Silicon Valley, she has pitched lower costs, respected universities, smart kids, generous tax breaks, and personal attention.
To lure a small Florida lighting company to West Warwick, she offered to share business contacts built during a decade at the venture firm Point Judith Capital. In Boston last year, she told a gathering of business executives, “If anybody’s lease is up in this expensive real estate market in Boston, I want you to call me.”
Raimondo, a 45-year-old Democrat, is trying to do what her predecessors attempted with mixed success: reinvent the Rhode Island economy. The state, the former jewelry-making capital of the nation, has struggled for decades to find new economic engines to replace dwindling manufacturing.
Rhode Island was among the hardest-hit states in the recession that lasted from 2007 to 2009, with unemployment peaking at 12 percent, compared with 10 percent nationally and less than 9 percent in Massachusetts. Rhode Island shed 8 percent of its jobs — double the rate of loss in Massachusetts — and has yet to regain them all, according to the US Labor Department.
View Story After recession, Providence tries to get back its groove
Rhode Island’s capital is trying to meld its character, low costs, and innovative programs into renewed prosperity.
R.I. police still investigating Schilling’s video game company “We were overly reliant on manufacturing jobs for too long,” Raimondo said. “I’m trying to move Rhode Island to a place where our excellent hospitals and research institutions play a greater role in our economy, so we can have higher-skill, higher-innovation jobs.”
Many believe Raimondo is the person to do it. Born and raised in Smithfield, R.I., she is a Rhodes Scholar with degrees from Harvard University and Yale Law School, and cofounded Point Judith in Providence (it has since relocated to Boston).
She has connections to Silicon Valley, including Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs, and corporate leaders, such as Larry J. Merlo, chief executive of CVS Health of Woonsocket, R.I.; Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of the Hollywood studio DreamWorks Animation; and Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook Inc.
She also has the help of a generally improving economy; unemployment in Rhode Island fell last year to 5.2 percent from 6.9 percent.
JOHN TLUMACKI/GLOBE STAFF The redevelopment zone in downtown Providence has several vacant lots.
“Governor Raimondo is moving in the right direction,” said Edinaldo Tebaldi, an economics professor at Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I. “But the fundamental problems facing the state are still there.”
Those problems include a business climate viewed as unfriendly, a reputation for political corruption, and high taxes. Rhode Island residents pay the eighth-highest share of state and local taxes in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation, a Washington think tank.
Raimondo is trying to overcome these hurdles by positioning her state as an affordable tech hub where companies can tap Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and other local schools for skilled workers — all while paying reasonable office rents. She has doubled the size of the economic development staff and won legislative approval for a variety of incentives, including a tax break for Rhode Island firms that recruit other companies to the state and student-loan forgiveness for college graduates who start firms in Rhode Island.
She said she plans to spread the $100 million in tax breaks authorized by the Legislature among diverse firms and industries to avoid debacles similar to the one involving the video game company of former Red Sox star Curt Shilling. The company, 38 Studios, went bankrupt in 2012 after receiving $75 million in state loan guarantees. Not everyone is convinced the governor is on the right path. Brian Newberry, Republican leader in the Rhode Island House, said Raimondo is seeking quick fixes, instead of tackling fundamental changes, such as broadly lowering taxes, to improve the climate for business and investment.
‘That . . . attitude really struck me. She’s unique from the people I’ve met.’
Ed Bednarcik, Lighting Science Group chief executive
“She sees the state’s problems for what they are,” Newberry said, “but her solutions for changing them are not the ones I would have chosen.”
By the end of her term in 2018, Raimondo wants to create 6,000 to 10,000 new jobs that pay at least $50,000 annually. Over the last year or so, she has made recruiting trips to New York, California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, spending about $23,000 traveling outside New England, according to her office.
Those who have heard her pitch say Raimondo is straightforward, recalling her venture capital work to highlight her knowledge of how firms grow and succeed.
“That kind of attitude really struck me,” said Ed Bednarcik, chief executive of Lighting Science Group, the company that moved to West Warwick from Florida. “She’s unique from the people I’ve met as it relates to her understanding of business.”
So far, Lighting Science Group is one of Raimondo’s few tangible economic development successes. The company employs about a dozen people in Rhode Island and expects that to grow to about 50 in a year.
But Raimondo counts as a success last year’s decision by Citizens Financial Group Inc. to keep back-office operations and nearly 4,000 jobs in Rhode Island, where the bank is headquartered.
She also has her eye on a big prize. Rhode Island is among a handful of finalists, including Massachusetts, seeking the headquarters of General Electric Co., which is considering leaving its longtime home in Fairfield, Conn.
In the meantime, Raimondo keeps selling. She has made about a half-dozen trips to Boston to meet with prospects or tout her state’s advantages, including lower-cost housing. The median price of single family home in metropolitan Providence is about $258,000, compared with $420,000 in Greater Boston, according to the most recent data from the National Association of Realtors.
David Begelfer, chief executive at NAIOP Massachusetts, a commercial real estate trade group, said it will take more than housing prices to lure companies away. Ultimately, companies come and stay in Boston for its skilled workforce, major universities, and ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators.
“There are 49 states that are trying to attract businesses from Massachusetts,” Begelfer said. “You can offer less expensive spaces and tax incentives, but there are some clear reasons why companies want to be where they are.”
Mike Ritz, executive director of Leadership Rhode Island, a nonprofit that offers business leadership training, said Raimondo recognizes that rebuilding the state economy is a long- term proposition that will take years. But she is already creating a buzz in the business community that he hasn’t heard in a decade, Ritz said.
At Raimondo’s urging, civic and business leaders, unions and management, and Democrats and Republicans, have met to discuss economic issues. Just getting them to the table is a significant step, Ritz said.
“The difference with her is she says, ‘Get involved because I can’t do it myself,’ ” Ritz said. “She’s smart enough to know she can’t.”
Megan Woolhouse can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter@megwoolhouse. Jon Chesto can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @jonchesto.