Dying city, dined with sinatra, spent five years in a federally funded gated community, and lived to tell the tale. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to present mayor vincent buddy cianci. [applause] Vincent Cianci thank you very much, andrea. Thank you. Thank you all very much for coming. Andrea, you left an awful lot out of the introduction, ill tell you. Ive been introduced many different ways. Think about introductions, i remember being introduced one time, i used to be mayor and hen i stopped being mayor. Then i became mayor again. In 1990 i got reelected and ill never forget before the inauguration but after the election i was invited to go to a dinner i think at the biltmore hotel. A lot of people were there. Ill never forget walking in and the person at the podium was excited to see me there. And he got on the microphone and he said, oh, ladies and gentlemen, i want everyone to welcome the two timing mayor of the city of providence. Right . [laughter] Vincent Cianci i remember that one. Then i remember another time when another time when i was marry got a call from the white house. It was 1981 right after resident reagan had won. The call was about bill casey who was the head of the c. I. A. They said he was coming to Brown University and wanted to know if i could pick him up at the airport and if i could escort him through the city and take him to speak and drive him back to the airport. I said yeah. I knew who he was but never met him before. I dutifully got in the car. We used to have those big, long undertaking cars then. It looked like they were from the funeral home or someplace. We dutifully went to the airport. We put the car on the tarmac and we did that. About 10 minutes later the plane came in, a white plane with no numbers on it. Typical c. I. A. The plane landed and speaking about introductions, the gate came down or the steps came down, and this guy just had a skiing accident or something and was bill casey and he was on a crutch and he came down the stairs slowly. He got on the tarmac and he looked at me and he said, who are you . And i said, and youre supposed to be the head of the c. I. A. Another time in 1980 i was running for governor, the only election i ever lost. I had a party, a Birthday Party at my house. It was a fundraiser. Henry kissinger was in town. We made arrangements for him to come to the Birthday Party. He came and i was honored to have the secretary of state in my home on blackistone boulevard. He came in and i introduced him. He had a couple hundred people. A tent in the back yard and all that. I said, ladies and gentlemen, i am honored to introduce a great peace maker, unless of course you are a north vietnamese peasant, right . Id like to introduce a great peace maker, the whole thing, and i kept going on and on with these tremendous accolades. He got up to the microphone and he said in his own voice, no one could imitate him, he says, mayor, i dont know why you stopped. You were just getting in stride. You know . [laughter] and then there were other embarrassing introductions. We used to share, whoever the governor is, and ive been through a few of those, we would alternate the welcoming to the city of different conventions. Ill never forget, when i was 1979 k in maybe 1978 or about 9 30 at night, probably my last stop at the marriott hotel. We had these small convention thast would come in town like the basket weavers from idaho, anybody could come in and they didnt know who i was but part of the deal was the mayor would welcome them. That was one of the reasons i guess we had to throw in so theyd come. Ill never forget i walked into the marriott when it was smaller, about a hundred people, 150 people. I walked in and they had a head table up on the riser and i walked in. They had the table was all set with candles, wine, everything. When i put my foot up on the riser where the head table was the whole head table fell right down on the floor in front of me with all of the dishes and food and everything. So i went up to the microphone and i said, ladies and gentlemen they were all from idaho or someplace. Ladies and gentlemen, the mayor asked me to tell you hell be 15 minutes late. Those are some of the funny things that happened to me when i was mayor. Then not so funny things happened. But i remember when i first got elected back in 1974 it was a democratic primary that really the democrats were fighting and i was a republican. And that was not a good word in those days. Probably some people think its a not a good word now. I was a republican in those days. Eventually changed parties. There was a fight going on and i decided to run for office. And i did. And i would won. And there was, before that i was a prosecutor. I was assistant attorney general and we prosecuted the whole crowd that was running a lot of the criminal activity in the city at that time. Used to run with the state police and that was a lot of fun. Judge weisberg was the presiding judge in those days. Every so often we had to go secure the tapes. We had to go the Hospital Trust bank and then unlock the we had two keys for the safety deposit box. Just a little flavor there was two girlfriends of two book makers on the phone and they were talking. You know, my boyfriend says theas wires might be tapped. They may be listening to us and the other one says may boyfriend wont worry about it. I know exactly what to do if theyre listening. She said my boyfriend said when they come to see me im supposed to tell them that im taking fifth commandment which as, i thought, kind of humorous. Okay . Then there was you know, i look at the three different types. There were three different ones. The first time i was mayor it was kind of like being a social worker. We all know the story of the American City back in the 1950s and 19 the 60s and the roads were built and veterans came home and the federal government picked up every kind of mortgage. Who was left in the cities but elderly and increasing number of minorities . And the downtown was dying. The downtown was in tough shape. So we wanted to rebuild it. We used all kind of economic tools. First in those days we were going through voluntary desegregation. I dont know if you remember that or not but that was tough. And also what was tough was the fact that the city was dead. You could take a bowling ball and throw it down westminster street. You wouldnt hurt a soul. Even the Bible Society moved out of town. Thats tough when they want to sell their bibles somewhere else. And the first day that i was in office ill never forget getting a call from the Parks Department saying that the monkeys had escaped from the zoo. And that was the monkeys running around the 8th ward downtown. But they said what do you do when the monkeys escape . I said they never taught me that in mayor school. I have no idea. Do what you normally do. Then of course we built a whole network of social work systems with the Different Community centers we built whether the Da Vinci Center or federal hill house. And then on top of that, we also thought that we also, the next part of the mayoral team was being a risk taker. Risk takers, we decided to invest a lot of money nah the infrastructure of tearing the Railroad Tracks down. That wasnt original with me. They talked about tearing those Railroad Tracks down for years. Talking about a lot of years. We had tried to have the fortitude and get the political will by everybody to get it done and we did. We were tearing those tracks down and we realized it was on the money. Waterways and transportation and we could locate the three rivers. The providence and the other two. Of course my friend who was governor at wasnt governor at the time but game governor later, we kind f dedicated water place park, we kind of thought they were like like clot andns, and so we did that, we were kind of risktakers, and then the third part was being entrepreneurial because we decided to invest in the mall and the whole thing. Like a storks preservation as economic tools, and we used the Arts Community as a real tool also because we created the first Arts District in america that really, truly was an Arts District because artists do not have to pay taxes if they live in that district. They do not pay taxes on our income on anything they create. That was replicated all over the country later. Those were the kind of things we try to do, build skating rinks, but mostly the challenge was trying to bridge the gap between being a man for everybody, you know, and i will never forget the very first appointment i had know, providence is a nice place. High ceiling, fireplace, it is a gorgeous place. Even better after we restored it. But the fact is let me tell you something. In 1974, if i knew what it was really like to be mayor at that time, i probably would not have voted for myself because i did not know enough to be mayor in 1974. I was a prosecutor. I ran on all these wonderful promises, and i was going to be the most transparent, open mayor you could possibly find. It was a great office. The first appointment, i thought i was going to meet some philosopher or some great urban planner, and my first setintment was a big, heavy man from the seventh ward, silver lake. There is no water, no yacht district,s a tenement more or less. So he walked in, and the days of 1975, he walked in the office and he sat down, and i knew he was there i was naive, but not that naive to not know he was coming there to get something. So he sat down on the chair, and he said, can i help you . In the office was a little guy, and he a midget climbed up on the chair. You . , what can i do for he said, without me, you would not have carried the seventh ward. I said, probably not. Him . D, see barely in those days, you could. [laughter] it was not political correct in those days. He made a buck and a half a week, and i said to do what, and he said i dont care, make him an ink roller on your desk. Job, fasthim a forward 25 years, tweak five years later, i am sitting in the same office, and everyone expects me to be there, and the little person by this time, they have become a little person, climbs in the office, climbs on the same chair, legs, and he said, they are really screwing he said i know im getting my pension, i what my disability pension. That is why we hired you, because you are disabled. Why do you think you get a disability pension when you are not hurt on the job . It, it know if you got dont think you got it. But as time went on, we had a lot of fun. Parties by my definition are nothing more than a group of people organized for one purpose, they take over the government by nonviolent means. That is the political party. And i did not have the support of the city council on first ran, but i had enough to veto anything they wanted to do, so i try to use all the methods i had to try to go above that, to go above the fray, and i attended more events than you could possibly imagine to gain public support, because if you have money, doing bazooka marie doing , andasino and all that wonderful was the trip we had with gambling in the city. Roger stone represented one client at the time, and he came inand said i am interested the gaming community, and he that . I said who is wynn. E said stephen when he said a call anybody. So everyone says is that she is a wonderful man. Ok, fine, slime met with him, and he flew in a big plane, he came to my house, we had dinner, and he looked pretty good. This guy owns the mirage hotel in a list appeared as it turned out, we got along, and i said we need money, and i do not know if i am for gaming or against it. Why dont we do a poll . So that is what we did. Was not that thats i was maintained we would get any gambling business when we lost money, and is probably what we are doing now. [laughter] pollt anyway, we have the done, it looked good, and it came back a second time, and the spottedho ran the place us having dinner, and the next thing you know, it was in the providence journal, the mayor is for gambling, not for gambling as it turned out, i ended up be doing gambling, but before i did, i went down to see the native americans, made an appointment to see the tribal council. I said we cannot let this opportunity come by go by, so i met with them, 11 members of the tribal council, and i said if we build a casino in the city of providence, you guys are doing 800 million at that point 400 we will take 300, 300 million, 400 million from the appeared why dont you pay us not to build a casino iag . They looked at me, they looked much . They said, how maybe 50 million. A good investment for you to keep a casino out. 1 million a week which would be good. They said how long will we not have gambling in providence . I said take a Million Dollars and take up one of those ponies and we will be fine. They voted 65 not to do it. Imagine that they had voted the other way, we would have had 52 million a year all those years. Anyway without building a casino. It was not in the press for a while and then i was on imus, the radio show. One of the reporters in the journal picked up on it i got to be a celebrated kind of thing. But it was fun trying to do that. We almost did it. Then of course there were other interesting stories that came about in the city concerning the performing arts center. I tried to be a big supporter for the Arts Community, and ill never forget in 1977, maybe 1976, i got a call from some Business People in the city who said do you know mr. Dario . I had never met him. This guy named dario, his real name was and he owned the ocean state reader at the time which was and they said he wants to tear the place down. That would be terrible. Do you know him . I said i dont know him. Could you call them and make an appointment to convince them not to tear it down . I said why do you think i can do that . They said because you are italian. I said oh that is real sensitive, you know. [laughter] so i did call and i made an appointment and i went to see them in his house in lincoln. I will never forget going up in a dig carb and when i got out of the car these two german shepherds came lunging at me and i got back in the car. I said to the cop, why dont you ring the doorbell . What are you nuts, mayor . [laughter] he finally came out and he put the dogs down, they were healing. So i went in the house. He invited the dogs into the house. [laughter] so we started talking and we went out to dinner. I gave him the soliloquy is why he shouldnt tear the theater down. He said mayor do want to do me a favor . Give me a demolition permit. I said you would not tear the theater down. He looked at me and he said have you ever heard of the rko . I tore that went down. I said you mean business so i convinced him to come to my office on monday. His lawyer was and i said we can not put dario in the same room with bill miller and these people because they hated each other. So, he said okay, so he won over negotiated the deal the city ended up putting a lot of money at that we didnt know we were going to do that much at that time. We finally agreed. And dario was sitting in my office and i was entertaining him. Finally they all said yes. And then dario said to me after we agreed on the price of the deal is going to be done, dario said what about my other 40,000, speaking in broken english. I said what 40,000 . He said they promised me 1000 a day to negotiate and it has been 40 days. I picked up the phone and called miller. I never heard miller swear in my life except then. Forget about it, forget i even called. The deal is off. I will handle it. So i said dario that is why i can trust them to get the deal, the whole thing. I said what if i can give you some of it. He said what you mean . I will give you 20,000. He said how can he do that . I will make you the city consultant on the arts. I wanted to hire a racetrack owner to be the city consultant on the arts, right . He said you can do that . It said make it 25,000. Ok, 25,000. That is one of the recently got the performing arts theater down there today. Those are some of the stories you have probably never read about in the providence journal, but you can read about them in the book. One of the other funny things that happened was when we did the mall. The Providence Place mall. We have relocated the rivers and we need to be entrepreneurial. The whole thing about the mull depended on whether not we got nordstroms to be an anchor tenant there. They were a class a number one retailer in the country and all that stuff. The guy who owned him, who was the developer and eventually sold his interest, but the guy who wanted us to be very much involved with him was a guy named khan jill. He owned a lot of malls around the country. We had to go, myself and the governor, had to go to seattle , washington to meet with the Nordstrom Family. We walked into the Four Seasons Hotel i think it was and we register, and this desk clerk says governor, mayor cianci. Of course the governor felt like he was a world figure, that they knew him. The guy went back to get room keys and i said dont get all impressed. The kid probably went to johnson and wales. [laughter] so the kid came back and i said by the way where did you go to school . He said johnson and wales. [laughter] morning, we end up going to meet with the Nordstrom Family in their offices and we are sitting there in the governor goes first. He says well you know you must have heard we have some budget problems. But dont worry, we will be able to straighten that out and i will broaden the tax base. Im going to start taxing clothes and shoes. That is all nordstrom is clothes , and shoes, right . [laughter] so the nordstroms are looking at us, and they have their heads tilted like a st. Bernard, just confused. I kicked him under the table and i stopped him and i said doesnt our governor had a wonderful sense of humor . He knows how to get your attention. [laughter] and we ended up coming, we ended up coming back and then we had to go see, we had to meet with the developer at his headquarters. So, we went up to his headquarters and it was independence day. Not the fourth of july but may first, rhode island independence day. We flew up there and we went to this guys office. He had an office that was there was an Old Post Office that had palladium windows and if you press buttons, shades came down and screens came down to show us how rich he was with all the multiyear bill. We were putting money in and he was p