Lucchino admits mistakes, re-commits PawSox to Pawtucket

LINCOLN – Nearly 500 attendees at the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce annual dinner received both a quick pep talk from Gov. Gina M. Raimondo and assurances from Pawtucket Red Sox Chairman Larry Lucchino that the team was re-committing itself to minor league baseball in Pawtucket.
Lucchino was the keynote speaker for the chamber’s 25th annual event, held at Twin River Casino, and his remarks began with an admission that the team was in the process of digging itself “out of a hole,” the result of the team’s aborted attempt to have a new stadium built in downtown Providence, leaving its long-time home at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket behind.
Part of the ownership that bought the team a little more than a year ago from the family of long-time owner Ben G. Mondor, Lucchino said the vision of the late James J. Skeffington, who was president of the team until his death in May, was one built on his love for his home state of Rhode Island. But the passionate resistance to the plan to move the team eventually derailed it, and Lucchino said that he has “felt the passion.”
He went on to say that he was learning to love Rhode Island and its quirks. From afar, he said, it looks like a small state that must be consistent in its views across such a small area. But he has since found out that people from Woonsocket don’t visit Pawtucket, that a trip from Pawtucket to Providence is considered a long one and that residents “never leave Aquidneck Island.”
He emphasized the new vision the team has with the city of Pawtucket, reading from the letter that he and Mayor Donald R. Grebien co-signed and made public at the beginning of the month and which characterized relations between the team and the city as “open, candid and collaborative.”
Lucchino concluded his remarks by laying out the four fundamental obligations of team ownership going forward:

  • Create a comfortable, hospitable and intimate ballpark experience for our fans throughout the region, one that is second to none in Triple-A baseball
  • Construct on- and off-field teams that are worthy of the community’s support
  • Be fully engaged in the charitable and civic life of the community
  • Serve as a stable and productive cog in the Red Sox player development machine to ensure long-term competitive success at the major league level

Lucchino was preceded by the chamber’s presentation of its annual awards. Central Falls Mayor James A. Diossa received the Barbara C. Burlingame Award, which goes to an elected official who has “made outstanding contributions to the business community.”
Brian and Roberta Hunter, the owners of Hunter Insurance Inc. of Lincoln, were given the Ben G. Mondor Award for their philanthropic efforts in the Ocean State.
The evening began with Raimondo recounting successes in the first year of her administration, including the creation of 8,400 jobs in 2015, the largest single-year job growth since 2000. She touted new state business incentives – crediting chamber members with “rolling up their sleeves” to get them enacted – that already have had an effect on economic development in the state, with more projects in the offing as a result.
Raimondo was followed to the podium by Twin River Chairman John E. Taylor Jr., who noted that so far the slots parlor in Plainville, Mass., has not siphoned off as much revenue from Twin River as had been expected – just under 6 percent since it opened in the summer, compared with an expected decline of 12 percent. And, he added, revenue at Twin River in January actually showed a slight increase over the same 2015 period.
Taylor also took time to talk up the company’s plans to build a casino in Tiverton to replace Newport Grand, a project that he says should contribute anywhere from $47 million to $70 million per year to state coffers, depending on how many casinos come to southeastern Massachusetts. Newport Grand currently sends $27 million to the state, an amount that has declined steadily for years. Taylor is looking for the General Assembly to pass legislation allowing the creation of the new casino to be put on the November ballot, with a hoped-for opening of the facility in 2018.
In his remarks, Chamber President and CEO John C. Gregory noted that the organization’s formation 25 years ago through the merger of the Blackstone Valley Chamber and the Greater Woonsocket Chamber has been made stronger by the merger in January of the Northern Rhode Island Chamber and the North Central Chamber of Commerce, with membership in 13 communities that include roughly 30 percent of the state’s population.

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