My theory: Stupid is the strategy. Not knowing or caring liberates them. Getting stupid stuff passed by legislatures and allowed by courts frees other dopes to give stupid, illegal, cruel and popular but harmful policies a whirl.

And at Education, Gina selected the pugnacious Angelica Infante-Green to bust the Providence Teachers Union with a state takeover. Then Gina bailed for DC. Five years later, scores are still low, morale is the pits, teachers and students are running from PPSD.

At Transportation, she installed Peter Alviti who has taken policy back to 1965 with pro-auto and anti-bus and -bike agendas and massive spending. He's still burning our money today as he takes advantage of the opportunity created by letting the Rt 195 bridge fall apart.

At Human Services, Elizabeth Roberts famously and fabulously screwed up the UHIP benefits system to the point where thousands of poor Rhode Islander just didn't get their medical and cash benefits for months.

See Mark van Noppin's thorough explanation of why Providence can't have cheap housing and business space. One reason: newer ultra-safe housing standards are unaffordable for locally-owned builders and owners. Mark notes: most of us live in older, pre-code homes, but we're not dying in them.