Projo Politics Blog

Two state Senate committees, in recent weeks, have boldly ventured where no senator — or at least no Senate committee hearing — has gone before: the State House subbasement.

Below the basement level, there is a subbasement, with a complex of offices now occupied by Senate staff including Policy Director Kenneth Payne and Constituent Services Director John Baxter.

The space housed the state’s emergency-management operations until 1996. More recently, it held offices for some of the secretary of state’s staff.

Peter Kerwin, who was director of communications for Congressman Langevin when Langevin was secretary of state, affectionately recalled the office suite’s low-hanging pipes and other quirks, in spite of the occasional bumped head. (Kerwin is now comfortably ensconced in a high-ceilinged office on the State House’s first floor, as spokesman for General Treasurer Frank T. Caprio.)

Some secretary-of-state functions that were in the subbasement space moved to a leased building on West River Street in Providence. Others moved upstairs, in a State House office shake-up that ensued after last fall’s election, and resembled a vast game of musical chairs.

The Senate offices now in the subbasement were previously on the first floor.

It can be a chore to give directions to the committee room labeled SB-27: Walk to one end of the basement. Go down the stairs and through the wooden revolving door. Turn right.

The committee room itself is well-appointed, with a modern table, comfortable chairs, green-shaded lamps and an exposed brick ceiling. But it lacks seating for observers and witnesses.

“I will not be having any more meetings in that room,” said Sen. Daniel J. Issa, D-Central Falls, who chairs the Senate Committee on Education. Issa called the committee room poorly ventilated and hard to find. “I don’t want anybody to ever even infer that I held a meeting that was hard to find,” he said.

The hearing room does have the sole window in the entire basement office suite. (Yes, even in the subbasement, there is a window.) The window — which is nearly at ground level — is not exactly gargantuan, at 1 foot by 2 feet, and is partially covered by cement latticework, but it’s a window nonetheless.

Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski, D-South Kingstown, said she enjoyed the meeting her committee, the Senate Committee on Environment and Agriculture, held in SB-27. In the past, she said, a shortage of meeting space forced her committee to set up a table and chairs in the center of the Senate and meet there (once the full Senate adjourned, of course).

Meeting in SB-27 was, Sosnowski said, “a new and different experience.”

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