The Rhode Island Red Awards

The best dubious moments of 2007: the dumb criminals, clueless politicians and misbegotten animals who remind us why we love living in our fair state.

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Six reasons to love government bureaucrats:
They’re friendly…
Six state troopers were suspended for forwarding e-mail porn from state computers to DOT workers. Some e-mails included obscene slide shows entitled “How to Find a Preferred Contractor” and “Wet T-shirt.”

They’re entrepreneurial…
Two clerks at the state’s Division of Motor Vehicles were charged with falsifying dozens of driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and mid-level drug dealers, who paid up to $3,000 per phony document.

They’re tidy…
A District Court clerk was fired after he put vital documents in a recycling bin instead of the appropriate court file.

They’re thrifty…
The General Assembly passed a law allowing seventeen-year-olds to be tried as adults, saying it would save the state $3.6 million. The law was quietly repealed after they figured out it actually costs more to send teenagers to the ACI than the Training School.

They’re candid…
Mayor Susan Menard said she seldom gives speeches after it was discovered that the majority of a speech she gave to the Woonsocket High School Class of 2007 had been lifted from one given a month earlier by the lieutenant governor of Alaska.  

They’re determined…
A Providence camera system designed to nab motorists running red lights not only did not reduce traffic accidents, but apparently cost as much to operate as the fines it brought in. Police said one reason for the shortfall was that 20 percent of the tickets were mailed to incorrect addresses.

Quotables

“The governor was not personally aware that the Department of Transportation owned a building that included a strip club as a tenant.”—Jeff Neal, Governor Carcieri’s spokesman, admitting that taxpayers owned a Providence building that housed a strip club with lap dances, private booth dances and a full-nude room.

“I’ve basically been wading around in this water for three days in my underwear.” —Providence bicycle shop owner Jesse Bushnell, who with two friends sent New York City into a one-day panic when they floated a replicated Revolutionary War wooden submarine in the harbor.

For the right buyer, a four-bedroom, two-story house in Hopkinton could “make an excellent bird-watching bed and breakfast establishment.”—Real estate agent Patrick Murray about a property known as a year-round roosting spot for vultures.