- Ted, welcome back, it's good to have you.

Let's start with the departure of the now former CEO of RIPTA, Scott Avedisian.

He resigned after police in Warwick, where he used to be mayor, say that he crashed into another car at a McDonald's drive through and then drove off.

This is quite the fall from grace for someone who's been in public office in Rhode Island for a long time.

- Yeah, Michelle, I mean, people should remember, Scott Avedisian was seen as one of the bright rising stars in the Rhode Island Republican Party for many years.

A lot of us thought he would someday seek higher office, but he wound up staying on as mayor for 18 years in Warwick, never took that step to seek higher office.

And then in 2018, Governor Gina Raimondo asked him if he wanted to be the leader of RIPTA and he took that job, and he's been there until this fiasco.

- And he was involved in another car crash back in 2022, a rollover crash in which he suffered injuries, did not face charges.

This time around, he was charged with leaving the scene of an accident with damage and two drivers pointed out that Avedisian appeared intoxicated at the time of this crash.

- Yeah, I think those comments by the other drivers were pretty devastating for him politically.

Also, the fact, Michelle, that in the police report, police said they went to Avedisian's home after he allegedly left the scene.

They found the engine of his RIPTA vehicle, which is allegedly in the crash, warm, and then when they knocked on the door, no one answered.

I just think all of those facts really hurt him in the court of public opinion.

- And it's telling that he chose to resign and accept a settlement.

I thought this quote from a RIPTA board member was interesting.

Normand Benoit said, quote, "Many would have invoked their contract right "and fought this and tried to drag things out."

He added, "Scott took the high road to his credit."

What do you make of that?

- Well, I think, I can see that argument.

I also just think this was not probably survivable for him politically after everything that had come out about the accident and the questions about his behavior, and then I think you have to look at it in the larger context of the situation at RIPTA.

Remember, Scott Avedisian had no public transit background when Governor Raimondo recommended him for this job.

That was a complaint among some activists, transit activists and RIPTA has been in crisis frequently throughout his tenure.

Right now, they've had a driver shortage.

They're making service cuts.

They have big deficits they're worried about, and then there's just this larger disagreement, I would say between transit advocates who will have one vision for what RIPTA should be and state leaders who don't necessarily share it.

So now I think the question is, "Will RIPTA's board go for some kind of national search "for a transit expert "or will they pick another political insider "to lead the agency?"

- Sure, we'll be monitoring that.

Let's turn to another scandal, this one concerning Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos and those disputed signatures that were collected last year when she was running for Congress.

The Attorney General has now charged one man with falsifying nomination papers.

Someone else is also being investigated.

You've described this as a political purgatory for the Lieutenant Governor.

What do you mean by that?

- Well, we should say first, there's no evidence that the Lieutenant Governor herself had any knowledge of the signatures that were apparently forged or knew someone was doing that, but that said, the headlines are brutal, right?

For any public official, to have your name attached to this kind of chicanery, which Rhode Island, unfortunately, has a long history of those kinds of things.

And so I think, her fall from grace, we talked about that with Avedisian, you can see it here too.

She was the front runner.

You remember Michelle?

In that congressional primary last year through this into the summer, and then she came in fourth place to Gabe Amo in the end.

So she really took a fall in public opinion last year.

And so I think, since then we just, we haven't been seeing a lot of her She does go to events, but she's not doing long interviews.

Her profile, I'd say, is a lot lower.

- Yeah.

Many people thought at the time it was her race to lose and clearly that's changed.

So she has two years, she's up for reelection in 2026.

She has some time to repair her image.

It's two years away, but she clearly has a lot of work cut out for her.

You're talking about how she's really not doing a lot of hard hitting, long-form interviews, how do you think she can go about repairing her image over this year?

- Well, as you say, she has a lot of work to do.

She had at the end of 2023, only $2,000 in her campaign fundraising account.

Now, again, she has time, as you said, and she can rebuild that, but she's starting from a bad place in terms of showing she'll have the resources to mount a campaign next time.

I also just think her public standing took such a hit.

There was a internal poll late in the primary by Gabe Amo's campaign, one of her rivals, but still, it showed her favorable rating with the primary voters, this was Democratic primary voters at 27%.

That is a bad place to be in your own party electorate.

So, her advisors are hopeful, as you said, that with time when she can get the criminal investigation of the signatures fully behind her, she can keep her head down, get to work, and sort of rebuild her standing with voters and frankly, they hope, scare off any major primary or general election challengers remains to be seen.

- Ted, thanks so much for being here.

- Good to be here.