Providence Bulletin Journal June 30, 2001

Governor names Traficante to airport oversight board
Governor Almond has appointed former Cranston Mayor Michael A. Traficante, a fellow Republican, to the Rhode Island Airport Corporation board of directors, according to a statement from the board's chairman, Colby Cameron.

Traficante will fill the term of Ronald Coia, whose promotion within the Rhode Island Laborers' District Council prompted his resignation from the board, Cameron said.

The board oversees T.F. Green in Warwick as well as the state's other airports.

Traficante was elected in 1978 to the Cranston City Council. He became acting mayor in 1985, when then-Mayor Edward DiPrete was elected governor. He then won an election to finish DiPrete's term, the first of four successful mayoral races.

He was mayor during a 1992 kickback scandal involving several contractors and city officials, and in 1994 won reelection despite pleading guilty to nine misdemeanor counts of filing false information with the former state Conflict of Interest Commission and the state Ethics Commission. He was sentenced to a year's probation and fined $2,000.

He announced in 1997 that he would not seek reelection in 1998, later saying that he may have retired too soon. He talked about a run for Cranston School Committee last year, but did not enter the race.

He is currently the governmental affairs liaison for the New England Laborers' Health and Safety Fund and the New England Labor-Management Cooperation Trust, and represents the New England Region of the Laborers' International Union of North America.