Archive - News Article
March 18th, 2013
WOONSOCKET – In a victory for Mayor Leo T. Fontaine, a Superior Court judge has ruled that former Highway Supt. Robert Harnois was not wrongfully terminated nearly three years ago and has no right to pursue a grievance to get his job back.
At issue was a settlement agreement that Harnois reached with the city days after he had been fired on May 19, 2010. The agreement was a swap, essentially – the city would refrain from pressing any criminal charges against Harnois and allow him to resign voluntarily if he agreed to drop grievance proceedings challenging the termination.
March 17th
BLACKSTONE — The Blackstone-Millville Chapter of the National Honor Society held its seventh annual “Empty Bowls Project†dinner recently in the high school cafeteria.
The room was set-up to look like a soup kitchen where soup, bread and desserts were served. Each of the 33 NHS members was required to sell tickets to the community, while faculty and staff members from the five schools in Blackstone and Millville bought tickets from designated faculty.
NORTH SMITHFIELD – Work on the new Aldi supermarket at Dowling Village is wrapping up and Town Administrator Paulette Hamilton said on Friday plans are in the works for the store’s grand opening the morning of April 4.
Hamilton has been invited to the store’s ribbon-cutting ceremony that morning and noted there will be grand opening giveaways and other activities at the store.
“We are very excited about that; the only other Aldi's I am aware of in Rhode Island is in Providence,†she said of the Germany-based supermarket chain’s arrival in the Blackstone Valley.
BLACKSTONE — Never give up.
Those were the three words Cory Gaudet lived by every day; words that not only inspired him to forge during his 19-month battle with a terminal brain tumor, but also inspired the family members and friends who shared his short, but remarkable life.
March 15th
CUMBERLAND – Students at Cumberland High School on Friday had Aydan Nyberg in their hearts – and on their sleeves.
Aydan, an eight-year-old student of the Cumberland Hill Elementary School, has been battling cancer since age 3 and has inspired the school to show support for him in a variety of ways, including wearing orange-colored clothing -- because orange is his favorite color -- and holding a number of fundraising projects.
March 14th
WOONSOCKET – A sentencing reform bill sponsored by the controversial parole of convicted thrill-killer Alfred Brissette Jr. has been passed by the state Senate.
The measure would require individuals convicted of first- or second-degree murder to serve at least half their sentence prior to becoming eligible for parole, provided they haven’t been sentenced to life, which normally requires a minimum of 15 years behind bars.
WOONSOCKET – California-based Prime Healthcare Services submitted its amended application to buy Landmark Medical Center to state regulators Thursday – a day after the hospital employees union ratified a contract with a rival company that complained it has been unfairly shut out of the bidding.
The United Nurses and Allied Professionals Local 5067 unanimously approved a five-year collective bargaining agreement with Landmark Hospital Holdco LLC of New Jersey on Wednesday.
State Rep. Lisa Baldelli Hunt (D-Dist. 49, Woonsocket) presented Woonsocket High School senior Kyle Mulvey with a citation for rescuing a woman who accidentally drove her car onto the ice on Cass Pond in Woonsocket in January. Baldelli Hunt invited Kyle and his family to the Statehouse to be honored by the House of Representatives recently.
WOONSOCKET – Residential foreclosure deeds dropped 11.4 percent statewide in 2012, but Woonsocket, Central Falls and Pawtucket still have some of the highest foreclosure rates in the state, a new survey says.
The HousingWorks RI survey says 86 foreclosure deeds were filed in Woonsocket in 2012, nearly 20 percent fewer than 2011. But the rate of foreclosures represented 1.7 percent of the city’s overall housing stock, the third highest in the state and nearly double the statewide average.
March 13th
LINCOLN – Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Rep. David Cicilline are teaming up to reverse what they say is a perverse incentive in the U.S. Tax Code that provides a tax break to companies that move American jobs to other countries.
