Newport needs new people with fresh ideas to run for office

Newport, having approved next year’s $153 million budget with little analysis or questioning from a chronically apathetic public, needs an infusion of new elected leaders. Our crusty protectors of the status quo need to be retired.

Yes, at long last, there are encouraging developments:

◆ Cautious excitement over the Sheffield incubator project, hired gun InfraLinx Capital looking at options for Newport’s north end, and the cyber skills program at Rogers High School called P-TECH.

◆ 2,900 jobs turning over at the nearby Naval Undersea Warfare Center (our 21stcentury equivalent to the 20th century’s Torpedo Station on Goat Island).

◆ Thousands of skilled people needed to support $75 billion-plus worth of submarines at Electric Boat.

Unfortunately we are hobbled by a set of realities that rarely get public mention:

◆ The absence of a public conversation about the urgency of boosting a shamefully low math achievement (a paltry 25 percent of students are proficient).

◆ The total failure of Newport School Committee members to actively promote a STEM educational vision as urged by the consultants from the Brookings Institution.

◆ The “soft bigotry of low expectations” as practiced by Newport and state leaders who refer to “those people” when offering their anemic excuses for chronically poor academic performance.

◆ Tiresome, bullying tactics used to silence engaged, informed residents who offer constructive suggestions and who have no financial self-interest at stake (or social group to protect).

◆ The many Newport officials with 20-plus years in office, who practice parochialism and lead others through a myopic lens.

◆ A city strategic plan, already 10 years late, now quietly delayed until after the November elections.

◆ Nil evidence of city staff fashioning a written “strategic interlock” with the Newport schools that would show investors that Newport is promoting an integrated economic development plan that includes a robust pipeline of skilled talent ready to take on this century’s economic opportunities.

Newport has once-in-a-lifetime economic opportunities that run a high risk of being squandered by members of Newport’s old guard. Only through the introduction of new DNA from “carpetbagger” candidates for City Council and School Committee will Newport be able to make its long-overdue pivot into the 21st century.

Mike Cullen, Newport