- There's no players union, there's no advocacy organization, there's no parent group, nothing that can compel a head coach who they put on the field.

The idea that those kids took the field under the lights in Smithfield, what we do know is that they admitted to the hazing incident itself, that should disqualify those kids from participation.

- People will find excuses in life to do the easy thing instead of the right thing, and that will translate later in life.

And you have to stop this right here and now.

- Energy is obviously vital.

It's like food, you can't just say "Forget about it" and live reasonably comfortably.

So it's a tough moment for a lot of people, everybody.

I mean, who wants to pay more for their basic needs?

(bright music) - And thank you for joining us for this episode of "Lively."

I'm Jim Hummel, Joined this time by Bill Bartholomew, host of "The Bartholomew Town Podcast," and former Rhode Island State Representative Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung.

If you are worried about energy costs as we head into the winter months, you have got company.

At the same time, Rhode Island Energy is asking for a significant rate increase to cover what it says are higher distribution costs.

Barbara Ann, let's start with you.

We've got a lot going on here.

There was a survey done by the University of New Hampshire.

78% of the people around here are worried, probably including all three of us.

- All three of us at the table here.

And there's so much going on in the energy field right now and why, I mean, it's not just our energy bills too, everything is more expensive, whether it's our insurance, whatnot, and everything seems to kind of pile up on each other right now.

What was really interesting in the past few weeks is that, I don't know if you caught it, right before Thanksgiving, all of a sudden the federal government gave up their fight against the wind in the Revolution Wind Project.

Now there's a lot going on.

We're looking at how are we gonna actually provide energy to this region?

Even with the environmental push for more electrification, we have some headwinds there.

One, our grid is incredibly old, okay?

When we're looking at what we're gonna need when we bring more of the artificial intelligence online and the amount of electricity that requires, we're gonna need to do massive infrastructure upgrades.

And we all know that those are expensive.

So we've got that.

Also too, in New England, almost 87% of our electricity is generated by fossil fuels.

And with the volatile price of natural gas, there's a lot going on pressure-wise that way.

Now, that is not excusing Rhode Island Energy in any way, shape, or form too.

They knew all these headwinds were coming, and I think we have to do a much better job when we're preparing, how are we gonna fund our infrastructure?

And that's what a lot of these bills are, is looking at how to pay out the infrastructure grid updates.

But also too, how are we gonna make sure that those who are elderly, those who are on very fixed incomes, don't get priced out of their house, and unfortunately, you know, become unhoused.

- Completely agree.

And it's part of a much larger concert of economic problems that people are facing right now.

And energy is obviously vital.

It's like food, you can't just say "Forget about it" and live reasonably comfortably.

So I think, look, the reality is the prices aren't what they were, what was it, five and change, just a couple of years ago/ So we have seen the costs in traditional oil and in propane go down from a couple years ago, still, purchasing power is down, it feels down.

So it's a tough moment for a lot of people.

All of everybody.

I mean who wants to pay more for their basic needs at this point?

- Yeah, and so when we're looking at, okay, everybody wants to make sure they have their four iPhones in the house being charged, and everybody's got two TVs going on, there's a whole lot of demand.

And when we're looking at how, right now, this region is still heavily dependent on natural gas.

There's that interesting project coming out of the New York area where they're trying to get the Constitution pipeline to come up this way.

The cynic in me wonders if there's an interesting timing between trying to get the expansion of that pipeline by the Trump administration and then backing off on the Revolution Wind, almost like a, well we'll let you do this if you let us come by.

The timing seems interesting anyway on that one.

But also you just got a really volatile natural gas market right now.

So you've got a lot of headwinds in the energy thing.

It comes down to though, when you're trying to pay your bills and say all right, how much gonna have to kind of like budget each month, Rhode Island Energy needs to do a much better job at making sure that those credits come online, come online faster, and that we have realistic conversations about how we're gonna maybe share the costs of all these infrastructure upgrades, which for you guys in Barrington, in East Providence, you guys lose power all the time.

- You sneeze and the lights go out.

But it's interesting, and people should know this, when you get your bill from Rhode Island Energy, formerly National Grid, I go back to Narragansett Electric, cost of the power and then the distribution costs.

And that's what Rhode Island Energy is saying, we need to make upgrades on our infrastructure that you were talking about.

The timing couldn't have been worse.

They've said it's been five or six years since they've done this, they filed for a rate increase for next year.

And it's pretty significant.

5% on the electric side, 20% on the gas side.

So I mean that's three, $400 we're talking about potentially.

This has gotta go through the PUC, but I mean, I think most people out there, the Public Utilities Commission reviews this.

They don't view them as any backstop at all.

It's just, it goes through.

- Absolutely, that's exactly right.

Look, the United States is an outlier in the way that we have a hodgepodge of utility commissions around this country that don't necessarily work well together or talk together at all.

We have a changing dynamic.

You mentioned artificial intelligence, that's one part of it, but just an overall changing dynamic of what energy is gonna be used for and the water involved there.

So we're looking way into the future, but quickly, I'll just say this, I remember there was a campaign, I dunno, maybe four or five years ago when it was still National Grid, nationalize the grid, that was the argument.q - So these regional hodgepodges, wyeah.

- And nationalize it where it becomes a function of the government, you don't have Rhode Island Energy anymore.

You don't have a profit model in energy.

On paper, that makes a lot of sense.

And it would seem to be the right thing to do.

The question you have to ask yourself is do you want the Peter Alviti of energy running electricity or is this better in the private sector's hands?

- You just turned off everybody in Rhode Island, right?

There're like, "Not happening."

- Nationalize the grid.

I'm just saying that that - That was more discussion.

- That was a discussion and it brought up that question of, oh yeah, what kind of society do we wanna have?

And is there a way to function better locally and nationally?

The answer is yes.

It's probably not the extreme of the government takes over the grid, but I don't like what we're seeing right now.

I don't think anybody does.

- Well, and you just take supply and demand economics.

So if we have so much demand for natural gas, you know, they can jack up the prices easier, okay?

Now the argument by the environmental caucuses will be like, "All right, well we need to bring more solar, more wind, and diversify that in order to help create more competition and drive prices down."

It's more complex than that.

It's certainly not that simple.

But when you take a step back, we're talking about the academic view.

If you're sitting in your house today in Central Falls, if you're sitting in your house today on the west side of Providence, you're trying to think, I mean, we have people who, I work at the hospital and they come in and they're heating their home by turning on their ovens.

And there's a reality to that right now, I'm really frustrated the federal government, the way they've really hurt LIHEAP.

There's amazing organizations here locally, like the Catholic diocese, they keep their heat on.

They just had their concert.

There's different funds trying to help people, and there's certainly resources out there.

But the bigger picture is having a discussion of how, you know, the regular family in Rhode Island cannot afford these types of energy costs on top of health care costs, which we talked about.

- But going back to what you said about Revolution Wind, it's interesting.

We haven't heard anything, and we're really banking, Rhode Island and Connecticut, you know, 80% done, Trump steps in, now they back off, you know, it's a crisis a week.

So maybe we're kind of out of sight out of mind, but that's really going to help the grid in the long run when it comes online.

- It's gonna be part of sort of a series of different methods to produce energy, right?

And we have a unique situation here with the opportunity to do offshore wind.

And we have a workforce that is now trained for it.

And we have an economy that has in large part been staked on this blue economy notion.

So it's not just the implications on the electricity, these are broad economic ripple effects that come from the back and forth on whether or not we should have offshore wind.

I think there's arguments to be made all over the place on how much we should be doing that versus other methods of renewables or non-renewable.

But the bottom line is we have to diversify and we have to start with the infrastructure- - But it seems like a no brainer here because look, people talk about the high rates initially because you're bringing it in from offshore and the net metering and all that, and the promise, the pledge is it's gonna come down.

These projects were so far in it made no sense to stop them ultimately.

Now, I don't know about permitting on the new ones, they're talking about some of them offshore in other spots, and certainly under this administration, probably not going through.

- No, but I would just kind of seeing the timing here with the Trump administration, there always seems to be like, let's make a deal, let's make a deal somewhere- - Kathy Hochul in New York, right?

- Completely, and so you start, and I think Connecticut's moving a little more that way too.

So again, I'm just a cynic, all right.

You see one thing come through, and all of a sudden, the federal government backed off on revolution.

- The final thing is, in the short term, there's been a whole discussion about potential rate relief.

January, February, March.

Rhode Island Energy had pledged to something, they yanked it back.

The governor has a competing plan.

Do you have any confidence that the rate payers are gonna get some type of relief this winter?

- Not at all.

Also, these effects, this is 2026 that the rate increases.

But for now, right here, right now?

I don't think so.

I mean, we'll see.

- You think so?

- It's an election year.

I think so.

- Oh, election year!

- I think that they'll find some money, they'll find some money, - All right, to be continued.

- Absolutely.

- How should school districts handle hazing among students?

Disturbing incidents this fall in Smithfield and Newport have one lawmaker calling for a zero tolerance policy.

Bill, I know you've been talking a lot about this on WPRO radio.

So set the table.

They are two, I would say significantly different, I mean, one rose to the level of assault, others are hazing, but it's, you know, it's not just boys being boys.

So tell us, for people who are not familiar with this, the two incidents and what's going on.

- Sure, executive summary, Smithfield high school football team, you've got a scenario where five seniors evidently locked an underclassmen in some kind of locker or bathroom and filled that space with Lysol.

Sprayed the kid with Lysol.

Now the student is Jewish, the student who's the victim, and alleges that this was an anti-semitic act, and that has drawn the ire of many, many people, including outrage from the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and from the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center among anybody that just heard this story.

Now the travel there is initially those students suspended for the rest of the season by the superintendent in Smithfield, Dawn Bartz, only to be reinstated without explanation.

So there's a communication snafu no doubt.

But here's the thing.

In that scenario, let's just say you don't want to take the student at their word.

You don't want to take Wendy Joering at the Sandra Bornstein Center, anybody at their word that this was an anti-Semitic act simulating a gas chamber, okay?

Let's just say that's not the case.

Parents in Smithfield, they're saying, parents of these students that are accused are saying, "Well you know what, it was just regular hazing."

- It's as infuriating.

It's infuriating.

- They locked the kid in the locker and sprayed him with Lyson.

Let me tell you, those kids should have been arrested on the spot.

And that program should have been, Dan McGowan talked about in the Boston Globe talked about the death penalty for programs.

There should have been a death penalty for the program.

- So we'll get to Newport in a second.

So Smithfield, thoughts on that?

- No, and I think the two incidences are different, but it comes to a larger problem, right?

Where we excuse, if you excuse the little stuff, then the big stuff happens, okay?

And so getting to Newport, I mean, that's kind of where I'm from, down on Aquidneck Island.

And the island is absolutely abhorred by this entire incident.

And the fact that it happened down there, and we usually police ourselves on the island and- - Rogers High School.

- Rogers High School, an incident where it was caught on video where different students were physically assaulting another student with special needs.

And I mean, people in my family, people in Alan's family, like we have very close family members with special needs.

So this really hit us upside and backside.

One of the things that, I kind of agree with Dan McGowan, you do have basically the sports death penalty for incidents like this, because you have to set a standard.

Maybe it's not being set in other parts of their life, but you absolutely just say, this is not gonna be accepted by society.

And not only that, say, all right, your season's over right now.

And it was towards the end of the season.

So it's unfortunate.

But then the next season too, I would suspend them again.

And those kids have to spend a year, whatever, whether it's anti-semitic, whether it's against kids with special needs, they spend a year down in Newport, they should be running the Special Olympics team, okay?

And I know there isn't one at Rogers, no unified team, but there's one through the YMCA there.

They need to go and lean into these situations that for some reason they're acting out against.

And again, use it as a teaching moment.

Use it as, look, we've taken away your ability to participate in these sports.

And for a lot of these kids, that's a huge deal.

But we're gonna make sure that you go into these communities and that we're gonna try to use this as an opportunity to make this better.

- The Rogers incident is one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen, and it really made me go home- - And the fact it was videotaped.

It's like, what are we doing?

I mean, thinking how much stuff went on when I was growing up, nobody knew about it, because you know, nobody had an iPhone.

The idiocy of taping it and then somehow it getting out, and that's what really sunk them.

Not that it wouldn't have gotten out some way or another, but it just, to me, it's like, what are these kids thinking?

- It rattled me to go, I saw that video and I actually had to take a break and ask myself what world I'm living in, because it's that unbelievable to see that student athlete being whipped across the face with a belt, put into sexually compromising positions while other students on that team laugh.

You wanna talk about a leadership vacuum, the idea that that program should be terminated, that coach should not, start to finish.

- [Jim] Shouldn't be allowed to coach.

That program should be, it's not, well, you know, these kids are suspended for a JV, literally one JV game against Tifferdin, that was the Thanksgiving game, it's a di minimus suspension.

It means nothing.

These incidents, you think these are the only two incidents of violent hazing happening?

I played in the interscholastic league.

I was a two sport captain.

I officiated in the interscholastic league for nearly two decades.

I've been a follower and observer of the interscholastic league closely.

This is one of the biggest fall downs in leadership that's happened in this community.

It's happening all over the place, by the way, I can't prove it.

I'm telling you for sure, that's just scratching the surface.

And what we saw here should have been, by the way, the only incidents of the United States Olympic Committee, the governing body in youth sports, the only time a death penalty has ever happened where a program has gone away and then the entire organization is replaced, happened here in Rhode Island in the early 2000s.

If your kids play soccer in Rhode Island, they play for Soccer Rhode Island, SRI, that's the organization.

There used to be an organization called Rhode Island Youth Soccer Association, which received the death penalty from the United States Soccer Federation for shenanigans.

What does that mean?

Program goes away, the people go away, it's replaced with something new.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be football in Newport or Smithfield.

I mean, how about the coach in Smithfield, even after those kids were reinstated by the superintendent, Dawn Bartz, put back on the roster.

Sure, she can compel them to be on the roster.

A court could probably compel them to dress.

- Sit them.

- There's no court in the world.

There's no players union, there's no advocacy organization, there's no parent group, nothing that can compel a head coach who they put on the field, maybe compel him to dress them.

The idea that those kids took the field under the lights in Smithfield, forget it, you wanna say it wasn't anti-semitic, all right, you be that guy then.

What we do know is that they admitted to the hazing incident itself, that should disqualify those kids from participation.

And that the idea that this head coach, I'm not gonna say his name, put those kids on the field.

So what, so you can go out and beat North Smithfield?

You win the Super Bowl, who cares?

Your season's tainted, your career's tainted.

- The leadership would've been like, "We are right there, we could win this, whatnot."

And I'm taking my kids out because- - [Jim] That's how serious it is.

- That's exactly how it is.

And if for some reason the adults aren't showing that leadership, it's an opportunity to try it for other people to come in and say, "Hey look, kids, this is really what's supposed to go on here."

Because if they don't get taught this now in school, it turns into things.

Look, we see politicians actually badly all the time because little things get excused and whatnot.

And it means something to step up when everybody else is saying, "Oh no, we need to win this."

There's always an excuse.

People will find excuses in life to do the easy thing instead of the right thing.

And that will translate later in life.

And you have to stop this right here and now.

And I would've gone even further than Dan McGowan.

It's crazy.

- Well, we'll see.

And don't hold your breath on the interscholastic league.

We'll have to see what happens there.

The race for governor got a little more crowded this week as Aaron Guckian announced he'll be running as a Republican, this after an unsuccessful race for Lieutenant Governor in 2022.

Barbara Ann, you have your ear to the ground.

This kind of took me by surprise.

I thought he was maybe gonna run for Lieutenant Governor again.

Were you surprised or had you been hearing this?

- No, I think over the past year, he was trying to figure out which pathway to go.

And Aaron has been the Executive Director at the Rhode Island Dental Association.

He felt he could take a bigger path.

Now, I think Lieutenant Governor, that race is starting to get very, very busy and whatnot.

And I think that would've probably been more realistic for the simple fact that no one's gonna take you seriously as a candidate for Governor yet unless you came out and already had 400, $500,000 in the account, knowing how very large the accounts are on the other side.

You've got Helena and Shekarchi who are, you know, Shekarchi hasn't jumped in yet, but I mean, he's sitting there with $4 million.

- And there's only so much money.

They have big accounts, but there's only so much money to go around when you start dialing for dollars.

- And Aaron, I think he admitted he has about $2,000 in his account.

So the bigger players aren't gonna take you seriously unless you have that, there's just a reality.

Money is what drives your message in politics.

And grassroots, yes, that's a good thing, and you need to have some of that.

But unless you have coming out of the gate a couple hundred thousand, it's hard for you to get that momentum because no one's taking you seriously yet.

- Yeah, I had Aaron on "Bartholomew Town" this week and you know, look, he's outlined, he wants to be the compassionate conservative or whatever that is.

And I'm not even sure that there's a lane for that.

I think it's trued out over time in Rhode Island and Reese, as you well know, that the Republican base is still drifting towards the right.

And Democrats don't often say, "Hey, you know what, I don't like my options.

Lemme go with Aaron Guckian."

That doesn't seem like a realistic thing.

So where his ultimate base of support comes from as a center right person for governor, I'm not sure that lane exists anyway, but here's the thing, we're gonna see this race change dramatically.

I'm sure we're gonna see at least one or two more Republicans get in.

I'm sure we're gonna see at least one or two more- - Named Republicans?

I mean, there are a couple players who we've never heard of and probably won't get any traction, but people who can make a name and make a race?

- I think so.

And I think that we're gonna see someone else get into the Democratic primary and I don't think it's gonna be Joe Shekarchi.

- Really?

- Very interesting.

- [Jim] Do you wanna, is that a tease?

Do you want to- - No, I know, right?

I know what we're gonna tease in for the show today.

- So what about on the Republican side?

- You know, Ashley Kayla keeps making overtures- - She keeps nibbling around, but do you think she'd run as a Republican or maybe- - She's... She has said very much on the background that, you know, she was looking at the Democratic run for Lieutenant Governor, you know, she wanted to try to partner with Shekarchi.

That was going on a lot in the background and it wasn't very quiet.

- [Jim] So is that what your tease is leading to potentially?

- That's one name.

I think that there's some other names that are out there.

I think people are gonna wait for a while right now.

I mean, we've seen the, we were just talking backstage about the UNH poll.

Okay, McKee according to that, he has like no chance.

He may as well not even exist.

And Helena's not that popular, whatever, forget about the polls.

The reality is, I think this is probably so far the most boring governor's race as someone who's been following this stuff since Myrth York took out Sunland back in whatever, '92.

- But you know what the problem is?

So McKee lost his spokesman, campaign manager, or whatever it was, they've hired somebody from out of state and it's all talking points.

You could plug it into North Dakota, Miami, or Washington State, when I read that woman, and she's not, you know, she's got the out of state area code, right?

First red flag, don't jump a 401 phone, and it's just, you know, prescription drugs, prescription drugs.

I'm sitting in traffic on the Washington Bridge.

What are we talking about here?

You're writing this press release from out of state, drives me crazy.

- I see that and I see McKee kind of like, to your point, almost a boring, quiet campaign.

And that might prove successful.

As somebody who's been through these big statewide races, I don't put much stock on the UNH poll.

I don't put stock on a lot of these out of state polls.

They tend not to be any type of reality when it comes to what you're doing with internal polling.

- You mean the candidate's internal polling, and he sees something different, right?

- He must, he must.

And I think the other candidates do too, because you don't see them taking victory laps.

Like if that was matching, you don't wanna give out your internal polling, but if that was matching it, they would be waving that all over town.

I don't think that is the reality.

These academic polls are run differently than the polls that cost us tens of thousands of dollars to poll.

- Yeah, and look, I mean I even saw here on Ocean State Media a reel from the great Ted Niecy.

I mean, let's get it straight, Ted Niecy knows this business as well as anybody.

But also the reel starts with, you know, who's more popular in Rhode Island, Donald Trump or Dan McKee?

Okay, I don't know that Donald Trump, okay, maybe the UNH poll shows that, you really think that more people are Trump supporters than McKee supporters at the end of the day in Rhode Island?

Come on guys, let's be honest about it.

- What about Helena Foulkes, got a lot of money, when does she start spending that?

- She should have been spending right out of the gate, I think because- - She has to reintroduce herself.

- Reintroduce herself too.

But the opioid message is seeking into people who are not part of the everyday political conversation.

- [Jim] Do you think that's gaining any traction?

- It is, I hear it at the hospital and they're like, "Oh, isn't that the woman that sold all the opioids?"

We hear it all the time.

Now she's got other problems.

- It just felt like she was out there, I think of the cashier and there's the opioids.

- When they're not coming out with a different message, whatever's going on in the background, that propagates, and now she's got a Larry Sumner's problem.

She's been tied to some of the big tobacco with her fundraisers.

So she's starting to get associations that if I'm writing ads, these are easy ads to write.

They are low information ads for sure.

But you'll see some of those pop up.

- You were convinced last time you were here, which has been a while back, you think the speaker's gonna run?

- I still do.

He was a little quiet.

- What's holding him back?

- I don't know, I see that he got quiet for a little while, now he's starting to pop up again.

I saw him at the Westward Christmas tree lighting.

He's at a few different events again.

- Was he at the opening of an envelope this week?

- He was at a lot of things.

I think he's starting, you know, again, whatever his internal numbers show.

But you know, if McKee for some reason steps aside, Shekarchi would be a very formidable camp.

I think that's the if.

- Well, yes, okay, so the scenario is if Dan McKee doesn't complete this campaign, then yes, Shekarchi becomes the guy.

And I think there's only a couple of scenarios, the worst case scenario for the governor, which let's hope nothing like medically or anything happens, but here's where it really happens.

Local 271, the laborers union, Sabatoni says, "You gotta get out, you're not gonna win."

- And the dominoes fall.

- We're shifting our support, and we've made the decision that we're gonna anoint Joe Shekarchi is the next governor.

That's the power broker here.

Local 271 makes the decision to pull away from McKee, then Shekarchi gets in.

Otherwise, I think from what I'm hearing, and again, there's a lot of people who say the same thing, different things, the same for whatever.

I don't think Shekarchi primaries McKee.

I really don't think that happens.

I think that it only happens if McKee makes, maybe McKee says, "You know what?

Daughter's doing some cool stuff with music.

I'm gonna focus on-" - I got two grandkids.

- I got two grandkids.

I'm 75.

- I'm done with this.

Depends on how nasty it gets early.

I think that could play with it.

And I think your point too is the laborers union, and that's why we still see Peter Alviti in the position.

- Of course.

- Al right, let's do this.

We've got a couple minutes left.

Let's do outrages and/or kudos.

Bill, let's begin with you this week.

- Let me give a kudos right now.

I was a part of a really cool event this week on Tuesday night at the Uptown Theater.

A broad kudos, that's the old Columbus Theater.

The group that owns the Comedy Connection just bought it, revived it, it looks great in there, it sounds great.

But the event was bringing in a couple of really well-known national podcasters that have a podcast called "The War on Cars."

There's a packed house and this is imagining a future without cars.

Now I'm not giving up my car anytime soon, but I was on stage with them.

It was the three of us up there.

And really just one of those conversations that provokes the imagination where you say, "Yeah, we could do a lot more in Rhode Island."

If we start thinking about rail, if we start thinking about like an effective transit system, we may have a future that looks like that here.

- Well Europe's done very well, in many, many major cities.

- What do you have, Barbara Ann?

- So bringing back to our kind of conversation about what we can do better when kids in the high schools get into these hazing situations, when we're talking about kids with disabilities, intellectual and whatnot, there's a wonderful new coffee shop that opened in Providence called Bitty and Beau's.

And all they do is they employ kids with intellectual disabilities.

- How cool is that?

- And they're actually, so they open every day, seven to three, it's right across from Mills Tavern.

This is how we start teaching the kids early that you know, everybody has a life of dignity, a life of work, and that we should be, I would encourage everybody to go to that coffee shop and again, show the kids and show your family early on that everybody's life has a tremendous value.

- That's a nice way to end the show.

Thank you.

It's quick, we could do another half hour, but I know you guys gotta go, and so do I. Thank you for joining us.

Be sure and check us out on Facebook, X, Instagram, and on the Ocean State Media YouTube channel.

We'll see you next time right here on "Lively."

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