By Steve Klamkin WPRO News
Gov. Gina Raimondo launched her general reelection campaign Monday at the RI Mushroom Co. in West Kingston, a small business that tapped a loan program initiated during her term in office.
“We wanted to come down here to a local small business to highlight what’s at stake in this election,” Raimondo said, inside a packing room where a half dozen workers pulled freshly grown mushrooms from a walk-in cooler and weighted and packaged them for sale.
“There’s risk on the ballot in this election,” Raimondo told reporters. “There is risk. I talk to Rhode Islanders every day. They don’t want to go back to the old way of doing things, which is what Mayor (Allan) Fung represents.”
Her campaign says nearly 70 small businesses have benefited from the Rhode Island Small Business Loan Program, which claims to fill a gap in financing small and middle sized businesses. It provides up to $500,000 for working capital to existing businesses that promise to create new jobs.
Leveling a blast at Fung, the Cranston Mayor and Republican gubernatorial nominee, Raimondo said, “The facts are, he’s raised taxes nine times, schools are falling apart. Cranston East High School was closed for almost a week because it was falling apart this year and the toilets were literally exploding off the wall because they’re in such disrepair.”
Burst water pipes during a January cold spell forced closure of the high school and Edgewood Highland Elementary School for several days.
“Perhaps this happened at a school in Providence or Iceland, but it didn’t happen in Cranston,” said Fung campaign Press Secretary Andrew Augustus of the exploding toilets claim.
“While she’s out there making up nonsense, Mayor Fung is hard at work planning how to take the exploding economy in Cranston statewide,” Augustus wrote.
“Just a few days after the pipe burst, in a meeting with the Governor and other superintendents and mayors – including Mayor Fung – Cranston Superintendent Nota-Masse told Governor Raimondo that the pipes that burst at Cranston East were pipes in the urinals,” said Raimondo campaign senior advisor Michael Raia in a statement.
