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In reviewing election results, at first my thought was that unless an incumbent pisses people off, they win. But the Morales campaign just went out and beat Smiley. Maybe Providence voters were pissed off but compared to what the voters thought of McKee, it didn't seem like much anger at Smiley.

I think the people who were angry at him don't garner coverage the way other constituencies do. But on the Palestinian flag, on bike lanes, on PVD Fest, on the Council homeless shelter, on the first police academy... he picked a lot of needless fights that did nothing to help his position in Prov.

Oh, and the big ones were rent stabilization and Flock cameras. Just always picked the wrong side of issues.

That also seems to be what did in McKee. If in the week after the bridge closure, he went scorched Earth, fired the whole DOT, sued everyone, maybe he could have survived it. Hard to say.

I still think tearing down the bridge was a mistake.

Was it reparable?

The reason they decided to tear it down was the unusual deck design made maintenance ongoingly challenging. Both RIDOT critic Casey Jones (the bridge engineer) and one of the original designers offered perspectives on reuse that wouldn’t have required a whole new bridge. Viz