Warwick teachers target mayor to vent anger
For the first time in decades, the Warwick Teachers Union targeted City Hall and the mayor to demonstrate their frustration in failing to reach a contract and what they consider the department’s waste of money pursuing arbitration and mediation.
But as an estimated 250 teachers, who were joined by parents and kids, paraded on Post Road in plain view of the mayor’s office, Mayor Scott Avedisian was not on the premise or to be seen.
That had Norwood School parent Carol Carr angry. Carr said she attempted to talk with Avedisian, however, she said she never received a follow-up call. (Her open letter to the mayor appears in today’s paper.)
“Where are you? You’re not there. I haven’t seen him once,” she said of Avedisian.
Billed as an “information picket” by the union, the rally was orderly and confined to the sidewalk in front of City Hall. There was a heavy presence of police, who had placed cones in the breakdown lane and were prepared to stop traffic at the crosswalks. A video camera manned by a city employee was at the ready from a second-floor office in the event there was any disruption; There wasn’t.
Read more: http://warwickonline.com/stories/teachers-target-mayor-to-vent-frustrations,123490