Fighting Back from a Knockout

01 Mar 2003

Fighting Back from a Knockout

Re: Steve Laffey (MBA 1986)

Topics: Communication-Media Economics-Public Sector Government and Politics-State Government

Politics can be a thankless game — to the victor go the spoils, but so too the headaches. Consider the case of Steve Laffey (MBA 1986), the newly elected Republican mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island. Last November, three days after winning the city’s mayoral contest, Laffey saw his prize take on a bit of tarnish. Thanks to years of mismanagement by the administration he was voted to replace, Cranston’s bond rating was reduced to B, the lowest of any municipality in America.

In an opinion piece in the Providence Journal (November 30, 2002), Laffey, a Cranston native, pulled no punches: He described the rating as “a knockout blow” and vowed that his administration would fight for its constituents and would turn the city around. Declared Laffey, who teaches a college finance course and is a former president and COO of Morgan Keegan, a Tennessee financial services firm, “The city’s core services must be protected over and above the interests of Wall Street, and they will be.”

Featured Alumni

Steve Laffey

MBA 1986

Featured Alumni

Steve Laffey

MBA 1986

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