Rent stabilization clash heats up after Smiley follows through with the veto he warned would come No one was surprised after the Providence City Council voted 9-6 last Thursday night to pass a rent stabilization ordinance, sending the measure to the mayor’s desk. On Friday morning, Mayor Brett Smiley vetoed it. Then came his Democratic rival’s rebuke.

Providence mayoral race’s first forum brings Democratic party fault lines into focus Rhode Island’s capital of Providence often serves as shorthand for the state itself. A four-candidate forum for the city’s mayoral race held Wednesday night at Brown University gestured toward even larger forces, ones comparable to those reshaping Democratic politics elsewhere. Three of the candidates — incumbent Mayor Brett Smiley, state Rep.