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West Warwick Going Off the Grid
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 Taxpayers in West Warwick, R.I. have decided not to pay the town's electricity bill anymore - and we helped them do it. Here's how -
During the spring we ran a bond referendum campaign asking voters in the Town to buy three wind turbines to power all town buildings, including schools. Seventy five percent of the voters said "Yes." Now, West Warwick will be the first community in Rhode Island to go completely green.
Taxpayers will make an initial investment of $18 million to purchase the turbines, but that investment will be tens of millions of dollars less than their electricity bill would be over 25 years.
It was exciting for our firm to be part of such an important "First." Now, we'll be interested to see how many other communities follow West Warwick's lead and "Go Green to Save Green."Best, 
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More Communications Lessons
from West Warwick...
Introducing the Counter-NIMBY
The response? A great deal of discussion on the campaign's social media about how placing the turbines somewhere else was somehow detrimental to the Town, and the project - a discussion that we found simply amazing.
Amplifying the News with Social Media
- On Thursday, we helped drive voter turnout in West Warwick with the Facebook page;
- On Friday, we sent out a press release highlighting the win;
- On Saturday, the story was widely reported, including on the front page of the Providence Journal;
- Later on Saturday, we used social media to amplify the coverage we secured about the big win
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Nice Ink! - Introducing Barbara Fields
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| Barbara Fields,
Executive Director at Rhode Island Housing |
Recently, Barbara Fields assumed the role of Executive Director at Rhode Island Housing - the state's housing finance agency. After leading the agency in an interim capacity since January, Barbara was officially named to her post in April.
Since then, we have worked with Barbara to share her vision for the agency and highlight her expertise on local and national housing issues with a statewide audience.
We look forward to working with Barbara and Rhode Island Housing to tell their story as the agency builds on its track record of making our state a better place to live, work and raise a family.
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United Way of Rhode Island Offers an
Easy Way to Help our Community
 I'm on the board of the United Way of Rhode Island so I'm obviously biased, but they are onto a good idea - having local agencies that are seeking funding engage in a competitive process to secure it. The process just simply makes everyone better, but it also engages the larger community by having volunteers actually review the grant proposals. This is where you come in - if you have some time over the next year why not join the Volunteer Grant Review Committee? Volunteers will learn about community issues and receive unique training. If you are interested in reviewing proposals for the United Way's next grant cycle, you can find more information and apply online, here: http://www.uwri.org/volunteer/grant-reviewersThe deadline for applications is next Friday, July 3rd.
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There's no shortage of bad ideas out there, and the decision to remove Alexander Hamilton from the $10 bill is just the latest one. I certainly agree that it's about time we saw a heroic American woman on our Nation's currency, but it would be more appropriate to remove Andrew Jackson from the $20 bill to make that happen. 
