Government
Providence serves as Rhode Island's capital, housing the Rhode Island General Assembly as well as the offices of the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor in the Rhode Island State House.
Providence's city government has a mayor-council form of government. The Providence City Council consists of fifteen city councilors, one for each of the city's wards. The council is tasked with enacting ordinances and passing an annual budget. Providence also has probate and superior courts. The U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island is located downtown across from City Hall adjacent to Kennedy Plaza.
David N. Cicilline finished his term as mayor in 2010, 8 years after taking office as the first openly gay mayor of an American state capital. (notably, the second was elected 8 years later in neighboring Hartford, Connecticut.) Providence was the largest American city to have an openly gay mayor, until Sam Adams took office in Portland, Oregon on January 1, 2009.
The city's first Latino mayor was elected in 2010, Angel Taveras, who assumed office January 3, 2011.
Read more about this topic: Providence, Rhode Island
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“Chile consents to do all we can reasonably demand. My regret is that our Government blustered and bullied. President [Benjamin] Harrison argued in his message like a prosecutor—made the most of the case against our weak sister. Forbearance, charity, friendship, arbitration should have been in our words and thoughts.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms.... Only in superstition is there hope. If you want to become a friend of civilization, then become an enemy of the truth and a fanatic for harmless balderdash.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)
“I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain success, can set up dictators.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)