Providence voters approve ‘zombie bond’

PROVIDENCE CITY COUNCILOR Samuel Zurier was one of the councilors who tried to urge voters not to approve the $40 million infrastructure bond. / COURTESY PROVIDENCE CITY COUNCIL
PROVIDENCE CITY COUNCILOR Samuel Zurier was one of the councilors who tried to urge voters not to approve the $40 million infrastructure bond. / COURTESY PROVIDENCE CITY COUNCIL

PROVIDENCE – Providence residents who voted to approve the $40 million infrastructure bond on Tuesday might be surprised to learn it passed, but won’t be used.
Providence approved Question No. 8 with 86 percent of the vote, authorizing the city to float bonds to pay for the cost of fixing some basic city infrastructure, including streets, sidewalks and wastewater systems. But the bonds will not be sold, as city leaders leading up to Election Day failed to agree on a required spending plan, effectively killing the measure, garnering the nickname “zombie bond.”
The decision came too late for the question to be removed from the ballot.
“The ordinance said [we] had to have a plan before Election Day,” said Councilman Samuel Zurier on Wednesday.
So how did this happen?
City Council leadership withdrew support for the bond on Oct. 20, citing concerns about taking on new debt in a city that’s already financial strapped. But other city councilors said the rationale was a thinly masked excuse for having not received full autonomy over about half of the $40 million.
Originally, $1.3 million was earmarked for each councilor to spend in their wards, respectively, but Mayor Jorge O. Elorza was unwilling to allow the money without first receiving specific plans from the councilors. Such plans never materialized.
“Instead of investing in our city and sending a message that Providence is open for business, we are allowing petty politics to get in the way of supporting safe and secure infrastructure,” Elorza said in October.
Leading up to Election Day, a group of city councilors, including Zurier, tried to urge voters not to approve the measure.
Given Tuesday’s overwhelming support, however, the message appears to have failed to get out in any impactful way.

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