As an young Providence parent interested in the future of our city, I was interested to see what John Lombardi did when he was mayor for the couple months after Buddy went to jail.  I am a big Bob Kerr fan and I was alarmed to find the following article about Lombardi.  I posted this link in two other blogs so that I could hear a response from the Lombardi supporters on this website but I only got personally attacked and never got a response.  What does this article say about the police's future and the citys future under a Lombardi administration? 

A mayor turns giddy on the job
Providence Journal - Providence, R.I. by BOB KERR Oct 9, 2002

 

So you're a cop, and a good one, and you go to work and deal with all the misery, cruelty and madness that people can inflict on one another. And after a day of it, you count on some relief back at the station, a break from the human circus.

 

But not in Providence, where cops can head back to the spanking new public-safety complex at the end of a shift and have no idea if what awaits them on the inside will be crazier than what they left behind on the outside.

 

Take last Friday, for example. That was the day the tiny little car pulled up at police headquarters and more clowns than you can imagine spilled out all over each other. If there is one thing this Police Department did not need, it is this kind of dippy frolic with the people at the top.

 

But acting Mayor John Lombardi has chosen to behave in the way of the woman dressed like a fruit salad and competing for a pair of his- and-her mopeds on a TV game show. Lombardi has three months left as the four-month mayor, and he seems in full squirm at the goodies within his reach, because he was in the right place when former Mayor Buddy Cianci left office.

 

Rather than just be a custodian of the office and try to leave a little stability behind, Lombardi has chosen to sit down at that big desk in City Hall and play with the same mayoral toys as his predecessor.

 

Such as the Police Department.

 

It has gone on for so long now that the cops in Providence seem to work under a permanent cloud of doubt and suspicion. The police have been badly used, and the men and women who actually do the job on the streets every day seem the last ones considered when city officials decide to put their personal stamp on the department.

 

There have been too many embarrassments, too much resistance to letting the sun shine in. And there have been too many really dumb moves such as the one Lombardi pulled last week that leaves officers with yet another load of uncertainty. A day after forcing Public Safety Commissioner John Partington out on Thursday, Lombardi demoted Police Chief Richard Sullivan.

 

Then he turned zany. He named Thomas DiLuglio as the new commissioner. And Major Who as the new chief. DiLuglio used to be lieutenant governor and once filled a seat on The Lively Experiment. His law-enforcement credentials match those of Patrice Wood. And Major Who, or Major Guido Laorenza as he's known at home, seemed to come out of nowhere to take over the top spot.

 

And what are the cops on the street left to wonder? They are left to wonder if all this will be undone in three months when a new mayor takes over and makes appointments of his own.

They are left to wonder if there will ever be real stability at the top of their department. What they are not left to wonder is whether they have again been caught in the squeeze of grubby politics. Of that there is no doubt.

 

Lombardi had an opportunity to create a real break in the action, to impose four months of thoughtful, constructive caretaker government between Cianci's exit and a newly elected mayor's arrival in January.

 

Instead, he seems to have turned a little giddy and a little goofy at all the things and all the people he gets to play with.

 

And the working cops, who have so often had to face the consequences of really bad decisions at the top, are again left to go out and do the job without knowing what surprises will await them after a day of fighting crime in Providence.