East Providence swears in first mayor

January 8, 2019 11:55 pm

By Jordan Mazza

EAST PROVIDENCE, RI (WLNE) — East Providence has been around since 1862. But Tuesday night it finally swore in its first elected mayor, Bob DaSilva.

“Being the first mayor, you want to make sure you get it right, do what’s right by the community,” DaSilva said. “And there’s a lot of people looking and watching to see how we do things. And I feel that we’ve put together an incredible team. We’re going to be in good shape.”

In 2017 voters opted to switch to a full-time elected mayor form of government from a city council-appointed city manager.

“In this case it didn’t work,” said city council president Robert Britto. “We went through a number of city managers in the past. And this form of government is different.”

DaSilva is no stranger to the community: the former Pawtucket police captain served as a state representative and ran for state senate.

Now he’s serving his hometown.

“It’s really nice to see so many elected officials who are from East Providence originally coming back and giving back and excited about this revival,” said Dr. Elizabeth Gomes of East Providence.

DaSilva says he plans to get to work on a new state-of-the-art high school, and a rec center.

“It’s a historic time for our community,” he said. “And I want to ensure that the people feel at the end of the day that they did the right thing by electing me to be the mayor.”