Mayor Scott Avedisian Talks at St. James
On Mon., Nov. 2, the mayor of Warwick, R.I., Mayor Scott Avedisian, spoke at the St. James Armenian Church in Watertown, at the invitation of the Men’s Club.
Avedisian thanked Bob Semonian, the chairman of the Speaker’s Bureau, for the invitation, and began by talking about his background and how he got started in politics. He told the story about his first run for the Warwick City Council at the age of 24, and how both the Democrats and the Republicans tried to recruit him. He recounted a particular incident when the Democrats of Warwick called him and said that they had picked an Irish American candidate to run for Warwick City Council, and they did not want him to run. Avedisian then told them that he was a Republican and would be running for city council. He talked about how he campaigned in the city of Warwick door to door, where he had to explain his long last name to residents and what nationality he was. He told a story about how on one door he knocked on, a woman asked him if he was a Christian; he said that he was an Armenia Christian emphasizing both his nationality and his spiritual faith.
Avedisian won that race to become a council member for the City of Warwick. It was at this time that the Democrats called him back and asked him to switch from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party. Avedisian flatly refused and said he would remain with the Republican Party. He served on the Warwick City Council for five terms until he got the opportunity to run for mayor of Warwick. This opportunity came in the year 2000 when the current mayor of Warwick, Lincoln Chafee, was appointed as U.S. Senator of Rhode Island upon the death of his father, John Chafee. Avedisian happened to be good friends with Chafee, who encouraged him to run for the mayoral position in a special election. He won that election with 58 percent of the vote in a five-way race and was re-elected with nearly 70 percent of the vote that November. Avedisian has been mayor of Warwick for five terms (the past nine years) and has plans to eventually run for the U.S. Senate in Rhode Island.
Avedisian also talked about his past accomplishments and his future plans for the city of Warwick. He spoke about the new railroad station at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, which will open on Oct. 1, 2010. This Amtrak railroad would go from Boston to the T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, benefiting those travelers in Massachusetts attracted by cheaper tickets and less congestion. He talked about the budget of Warwick and how his administration created surpluses for the city rather than deficits. He mentioned that his principles of fiscal conservatism as well as the Armenian custom of not spending money you don’t have brought about these surpluses. He then talked about the casinos in Rhode Island and how they have proposed putting them in the wrong land areas of the state. Finally, Avedisian spoke about his future plans in beautifying the shoreline of Warwick.
Following his talk, Avedisian took questions from the audience that ranged from the current economic state of Warwick to the Armenian Genocide and the signing of the protocols in Geneva. Avedisian stated that unemployment is still very high in Rhode Island (close to 13 percent) and that the stimulus package from the Obama Administration has helped the economy in Warwick and Rhode Island to a very small degree. In regards to the recognition of the genocide, he explained how Aram Garabedian, the former state senator of Rhode Island, had brought the issue to the forefront in the state legislature and made it law that all public schools within Rhode Island be taught about the genocide as part of their history curriculum. He then talked about the signing of the protocols in Geneva and how the media was portraying the Armenian community as divided on whether to support or not support the terms.
The event concluded with Avedisian specially recognizing a young Armenian American, Michael Bohigian, who is running for a seat in the Watertown City Council. Members of the audience then took pictures with the mayor and had the opportunity to ask him questions on a one to one basis. On the whole, the event was successful and allowed a couple of hundred people to learn about the only Armenian American mayor in New England.
