Big Mess in a Little State

PROVIDENCE, R.I. has never had much of a reputation. As capital of the most diminutive state in the Union, and home of Brown University--which shrewd young people recognize as an ephemeral fad and old folks remember as the school you went to if you couldn't get in anywhere else--it even lost its minor-league hockey team, the Rhode Island Reds, a few years back.

But a few pretty neat things have happened in the last few days down in Providence enough to merit a broad reconsideration of the city, in fact. Because if you like good civic scandals. Providence's current brouhaha is about the best in recent memory.

To put it simply, it all started with Ray. Raymond Del co. a contractor from Bristol, R.I. is having an affair with the major's wife, Sheila. The mayor, Vincent A. Cianci Jr. in a fit of anger that ultimately would make him ex-mayor and Sheila his ex-wife came over to Ray's house on March 20, 1983 and beat him up with first, his fists, then an ashtray, then a fireplace log, and finally a burning cigarette.

Ray, of course, was irritated about being punched, bashed, whammed and scorched, and took Cianci to court, where the mayor was convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon a felony. He got a five-year suspended sentence last Monday, April 23.

And whatever else you might say about Providence, it doesn't let felons hold office. The city council indicated just minutes after Cianci's sentencing that it would seek to boot him. Cianci announced a few minutes later that he would resign. Once he did, every festering sore in Providence City Hall opened up.

To start off, the flap with former Police Commissioner Sanford H. Gorodetsky erupted Sandy, ironically, was both the city's Top Cop and major target in a probe by the police over corruption in City Hall Sandy doesn't like the Police Chief. Anthony J. Mancuso and so he fired him minutes after Cianci said he would resign.

Tony said what Sandy did to him was illegal, and so he stayed put Meanwhile. Tony called the cops to guard City Hall to make sure Sandy didn't dump any incriminating documents in the building. The city's outgoing personnel director had, of course, already been caught earlier in the day in the midst of as he put it, "clearing out some old junk" by feeding it through a shredder--behind a locked door.

Just to make Tony even more angry. Sandy appointed his friend Vincent J. O'Connell Jr. to the rank of police major-over Tony's heated objections. Vinnic is a private detective who had helped out Mayor Cianci during his trial for assaulting Ray.

And then, facing a Wednesday, 6 p.m. deadline after which he would be out of a job. Cianci appointed his buddy Charles Mansolillo to a $13.500 part-time job with the Providence licensing board.

To add another confusing tidbit. A city councilwoman on that same Monday tossed a number-two man at the city's Department of Public Works from the payroll. The DPW has been revealed as a swarming hive of iniquity by Chief Tony Mancuso's probe, and its deputy director. Edward Melise, lost his DPW job a while back when he was convicted of extortion Mayor Cianci had been nice enough to put Eddie on $503-a-week paid leave, but the council didn't figure that was the right punishment.

Finally, on Tuesday, the next day, city officials discovered that weekly city payroll records for 1976 to 1979 were missing from the archives. But the city controller maintained that janitors there routinely loss out old records to make room for new ones. If anyone wants the information in those records--say. Tony Mancuso looking into corruption in city government--it can be reconstructed from other permanent sources, he added.

Now, Cianci officially left office--with state police combing through all his memorabilia before it left City Hall forever--at 6 p.m. on Wednesday night, and Joseph P. Paolino Jr., the city council president, took office a little after 8 p.m. Paolino had to get special permission because he's only 28 years old Paolino vowed that, upon assuming the office of 90-day temporary mayor, he would fire Sandy Gorodetsky and reinstate Chief Mancuso Unfortunately. Sandy resigned on Tuesday to avoid being fired by Paolino, along with the chief of the disreputable DPW.

Chief Mancuso, then, gets to keep office--but Paolino and Mancuso will have a hard time kicking private-eye. Vinnic O'Connell off the police department, because state law requires them to have a solid cause for rescinding an appointment made by a city official--who was, in this case, old Sandy Gorodetsky.

Three days after Paolino moved into his temporary home, more than five men had announced they will run for mayor in the August election. Another five or so more candidate are expected soon--and one of them, according to intimations from the former mayor, might just be Vinnie Cianci. Stay tuned for more of Providence's best story in a decade.