To the Editor: To the people of Jamestown, Newport, and the State of Rhode Island: Questions to Jamestown and Newport residents: 1. Would you like to bring back the ferry to replace the Newport Bridge and its toll? 2. Do you remember why RITBA was created and the toll implemented? 3. Did people you elect and the General Assembly lie to you about this? 4. Were you and your elected leaders told, if the toll was not be placed on the Sakonnet Bridge, that the toll on the Newport Bridge would go up, and is this why you were quiet on the Sakonnet toll fight? I was told by some state representative that although the Sakonnet toll was not right, they could not ask their constituents to pay for my bridges. Well how do they feel now that the toll chickens are coming home to roost on their constituents? And what about those who told me the Sakonnet toll did not affect them because they didn’t
use the Sakonnet Bridge?
Remember the lies told about the lottery paying for education, or a one percent increase in the sales tax to pay for the banking crisis bond?
If we don’t ban together to protect each other from self-serving politicians, we will all be the losers, as we have been for the past 60 or so years.
Rhode Islanders need to understand that, “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” James Madison, Fourth President of the United States and “Father of the Constitution”
I urge everyone to go to Stop- TollsRI.com to educate one’s self and join the fight.
Antone Viveiros
Chairman Sakonnet Toll Opposition Platform (STOP) Committee
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