Cranston Forward

Cranston Forward We are residents across Cranston organizing and advocating to ensure people are engaged by city government, and responds to their needs in creating policy.

05/27/2026
Cranston Forward's latest statement on the budget crisis:
05/13/2026

Cranston Forward's latest statement on the budget crisis:

Slide 1Slide 1 (current slide) Slide 2Slide 2 (current slide) Slide 3Slide 3 (current slide) Slide 4Slide 4 (current slide) Slide 5Slide 5 (current slide) Slide 6Slide 6 (current slide) Slide 7Slide 7 (current slide) Slide 8Slide 8 (current slide) Slide 9Slide 9 (current slide) No Blank Check for Ma...

05/07/2026

Join the Community Conversation: What We Should Do About THE BUDGET
Thursday May, 7 6pm
William Hall Library Auditorium

Sponsored by Cranston Forward & Edgewood Rising
(Edgewood Rising meeting to immediately follow at Edgewood Congregational Church)

What we know:
The Mayor wants to balance the budget on the backs of ordinary Cranstonians—including the most vulnerable—with a 7.4% tax increase and big cuts to Head Start and senior services.

What we are thinking about:
Where’s the time for community involvement, with only a 2 day notice to pass amendments and a budget in one night and no calendar for hearings and amendments as in previous years?
Where’s the audit to explain how in just two years Cranston drained its reserves and developed a $10M structural deficit?
Where is the accountability?
We Expect Competence, Transparency and Accountability.

9-0. The Cranston City Council unanimously rejected Mayor Hopkins' budget last night. Here's an explainer of what happen...
05/01/2026

9-0. The Cranston City Council unanimously rejected Mayor Hopkins' budget last night. Here's an explainer of what happened — and what comes next. 👇

The Mayor proposed raising the property tax levy by 7.4%. State law caps it at 4%. The Council had no legal choice but to reject it.

Now he has 15 days to come back with a legal budget — which means real cuts to what he originally proposed. The deadline is May 15.

Before the vote, the administration tried to call this a "shared failure." It isn't, and we explain why in the slides.

The next two weeks really matter. The cuts being decided right now will hit schools, senior services, parks, sanitation, and all city services. We want our city to protect what matters and cut the political patronage that doesn't, while making cuts equitably.

Cranston deserves better. Swipe through, and please share — neighbors knowing what's actually going on is how we start to do something about it.

Imagine you are the Mayor of the 2nd largest city in RI, and after submitting a catastrophic budget with massive tax inc...
04/24/2026

Imagine you are the Mayor of the 2nd largest city in RI, and after submitting a catastrophic budget with massive tax increases, you leave for a golf trip to Florida and South Carolina for a week, and upon return your first reply to anything is this.

He scapegoats our teachers and students, and says they need to take a cut now, and that's in fact what we the residents of Cranston should be advocating for.

This is the not the behavior of a mature adult. A leader ready to get us out of this crisis.

This is quite literally the Mayor lashing out at the people he is elected to represent.

Also point of fact, he is already effectively cutting the schools in his initial budget proposal.

WPRI 12 Cranston Herald

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Providence, RI
02901–02912, 02918, 02919, 02940

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