Leave it to RI to hire another states outcasts. We follow MA lead on so many things we might as well join them and become one state. The govenor has never even had a 40% approval rate in my eyes so it's no surprise that I don't agree with his latest moves.

Why are people who have not done a good job in the positions they previously held, i.e. Beverly Najarian as Director of DOA and Jerome Williams who was in some financial position at DOA(finances being his background - not engineering) got the Director of DOT position and now the the Director of DOA, continuing to get high paying and authoritative, positions in the State system? They are doing everything they can to get rid of hard working rank and file employees! This is an outrage.
If either of them had done such great jobs since they were hired by Governor Carcieri then I would think the state would not be in the fiscal mess it's in!!!!

Egad. For all of the Governor's rabid attacks on the House, to see that this man would actually hire an individual who was fired for concealing 1.4 BILLION dollars in cost overruns is far beyond my all too naive idealism.

What a joke Carcieri is- he lacks the foresight to anticipate that someone might view this appointment negatively. It'll be great to see how the I-Way project goes with Lewis' leadership.

I'd like say that I agree with Kathi's suggestion of joining with Massachusetts.
We are too small of a state to be able to attract jobs and big businesses. We can't afford to give the tax breaks those businesses want. Although, I don't think they should get tax breaks anyway, because in the end it only benefits the business and a few high paid officers of the company (but that's a different subject). We've got too much of a financial burden put on the middle class of the state. The tax dollars that do come in are spent on political favors. Even the state retirement fund has been dipped into to make loans to businesses. Now, we've got individuals who haven't performed well in their previous posts still being given high paid positions of authority. A friend of mine (whom I agree with) believes that Michael Lewis is being given a state job as a favor to Romney, whom Carcieri was supporting and hoping to get a position in Education in the Romney administration, should Romney have stayed in the race and won. Now, of course, Romney has thrown his support to McCain, and who do we see standing beside McCain all smiles?????

Jerry Williams is a great guy and does a good job. There isn't anyone more hardworking or honest in state government. He makes Carcieri look good.

Everyone who has had any dealings with Jerry Williams knows that he's always the one assigned to clean up the biggest messes in state government. He's the kind of guy who is knowledgeable, brings everyone to the table, holds them to the highest performance standards and gets the job done. No, he doesn't stand for any nonsense, and that's what makes him so effective. He's exactly what this state needs to turn things around.