City business can no longer be politics as usual

To the Editor:

At the Norwood Association meeting on April 12, Mayor Avedisian mentioned how Warwick still seemed broken up into villages and sometimes didn't seem like one city. Along those same lines, I say Rhode Island isn't really a state but is made up of separate distinct cities and towns.

I say this because it seems our spirit of community has become lost in the provincial mindset of it takes too long to get from Pawtucket to Westerly which seems absurd when in a state like Maine it takes a minimum of three hours to get anywhere.

So after Providence closes down 19 classrooms because of mold, why is nothing more immediate being done to solve the problem as it begins to unfold here in neighboring Warwick?

Not being able to test until the temperature reached above fifty degrees is the answer I hear which I find difficult to buy. Will it be the same old excuses? What affects one of us tends to effect all of us as a whole.

The school administration can no longer turn a blind eye. A hundred or so people turned out at the Norwood Boys and Girls club to hear the Mayor and Councilman Jeremy Rix speak on issues pertaining to the city and Ward 2. Many asked pertinent questions. Perhaps stung by the last cantankerous election cycle, citizens are reacting faster to what's going on around them than ever.

Thanks to the immediacy of social media and having a smart phone, everyone with a camera is a photo journalist taking pictures of the next train wreck. It should be all for one and one for all. United we stand. Divided we fall. City business can no longer be politics as usual.

Smoke detectors not working at Norwood and Holliman Elementary schools for a month shows nothing short of indifference, sheer incompetence and negligence that cries out for accountability. Especially after funding was requested from the City Council to fix among other things, school athletic fields. Thank you school committee member Karen Bacchus for calling on Superintendent Phillip Thornton to resign.

Warwick doesn't need another Station Fire tragedy. What is it they say about forgetting our history and being doomed to repeat it?

As a Warwick resident and parent who pays taxes and votes, I am concerned for my son who attends public school. How will being exposed to mold, carbon monoxide and raw sewage affect his overall good heath? What about the future well being of his friends and teachers who already work under adverse conditions?

What are the top priorities? Where is the transparency? Where is the open communication?

A public servant is accountable to the people and not the other way around.

Russell E. Gundlach Jr.

Warwick