Incoming Pawtucket Mayor Adam Greenman

Adam Greenman on winning the Pawtucket mayoral primary and what residents want next

Adam Greenman, the presumptive next mayor of Pawtucket, talks about his upset primary win over longtime Mayor Don Grebien and why he got into the race in the first place. The conversation centers on what voters were saying on the ground, from affordability and city services to the loss of Memorial Hospital and the need for stronger local-state collaboration.

Key topics

• In this episode, Adam Greenman explains that his campaign grew out of a widespread feeling in Pawtucket that things had gone stale after 16 years of the same administration.
• He describes his background, including Teach for America in Camden, work at United Way of Rhode Island, and eight and a half years leading the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island.
• Greenman says early conversations in living rooms and backyards confirmed that residents were frustrated with rising taxes, declining services, and a city focus that seemed too centered on the soccer stadium and train station.
• He says the biggest issue voters raised was affordability, especially for renters, homeowners on fixed incomes, and seniors worried about staying in their homes.
• Education came up repeatedly, not just school buildings but what is happening inside them, along with frustration that City Hall was not listening closely enough to neighborhood concerns like traffic around the new high school.
• He says public safety and quality-of-life issues mattered too, including bulk trash pickup, rats, and general bread-and-butter municipal services.
• Greenman says the campaign’s door-to-door operation was decisive, with about 2,500 individual conversations after knocking on close to 15,000 doors.
• He argues that the biggest long-term loss for Pawtucket residents is Memorial Hospital, saying that people felt the impact of losing a nearby hospital in their daily lives, not just as a headline issue.
• He connects the hospital closure to the broader problem of paying more while getting less, and says local officials need to think seriously about options like ambulatory or non-major emergency care.
• Greenman outlines a plan to bring Pawtucket’s state delegation together for regular conversations with city leadership, so municipal and state officials can coordinate on funding, emergency services, special education, and multilingual learner support.

Timestamps

00:00 - Greenman’s primary win and the significance of the race
 00:20 - Why he entered the mayoral race
 01:29 - Background: Teach for America, United Way, and the Jewish Alliance
 02:19 - Why Pawtucket felt ready for change
 03:00 - Conversations in living rooms, backyards, and on doors
 04:24 - How 15,000 doors and 2,500 conversations shaped the campaign
 05:35 - Affordability as the top issue for renters, owners, and seniors
 06:04 - Schools, traffic concerns, and residents feeling unheard
 07:01 - Trash pickup, rats, and other quality-of-life complaints
 08:11 - Why the stadium and train station were not the real focus
 09:00 - Memorial Hospital as the biggest loss residents feel
 09:55 - Exploring possible local care alternatives after the hospital closure
 11:58 - How service loss and crowding reinforce the affordability problem
 13:26 - What a new mayoral era could mean for collaboration in Rhode Island
 14:11 - Plans to bring together state reps, senators, and city leaders
 16:33 - Working with Mayor Grebien during the transition

Transcript

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Bill Bartholomew 0:00

Adam Greenman, you just won the Democratic primary, defeating longtime Mayor Don Greby in Pawtucket. Adam, welcome back to the show. And first of all, congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Thanks so much, Bill. I really appreciate it. Good to be with you.

Bill Bartholomew 0:11

What made you jump into this primary to begin with?

SPEAKER_00 0:14

You know, uh I had been feeling what many uh voters in Pawtucket had been feeling, that after 16 years at the time, after you know, 14 and a half years, it really felt like um things were getting a little stale, that things were not um that the quality of life stuff was not being addressed in the same way that it was before, that our taxes kept going up, but our services seemed to be going down, that all the attention was on a soccer stadium and a train station. But when you know you talk to your neighbors, when you when you have a snowstorm, that it just felt like the little things weren't getting done. And, you know, I looked around and sort of surveyed the political landscape, and a lot of folks that I respect said that they had no plans to run, and I felt like if nobody was gonna run, it was important for somebody to get in there. And so, you know, talked it over with my family, uh, talked it over with my employer at the time to make sure that, you know, uh I was giving them a heads up, but also that they would be okay with me, you know, kind of exploring this and and then sort of did the exploration and threw my hat in.

Bill Bartholomew 1:20

Well, j for anyone who doesn't know your background, just the executive summary, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yeah, sure. So uh my wife and I met when we were doing Teach for America in Camden, New Jersey back in 2004. Um when we moved to Rhode Island in 2009. Uh I went to work for United Way of Rhode Island. I worked first on their education initiatives and then uh eventually led all of their community-based work. Um, and in 2017 had the opportunity to go over to the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island as their president and CEO. And that's work that I did for eight and a half years, really leading the Jewish community, um, running the Jewish Community Center in Providence, but uh working on uh building community within the Jewish community and and statewide, and left that role in February so that I could run for mayor full-time.

Bill Bartholomew 2:10

Yeah, a lot of people will probably know you from that spot. And then look, I mean, I think the Pawtucket mayoral race, it kind of fell under the radar just a little bit, um, or a lot of bit, depending on your perspective, when we were talking about statewide or major races, obviously the governor's race, the Providence Mayor race, it was known to be a legitimate contest, I think, within political circles. But when you talk to people on the ground in Pawtucket, there was really no surprise. This was this was a major event and there were a lot of people engaged. So how quickly did sort sort of your your feel, if you will, for the fact that there were services, there were city services, and just an appetite for change, how quickly did that manifest into on-the-ground support in real time?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Yeah, I think that um, you know, I started meeting people, talking to people in their living rooms and backyards in, you know, July and August of 2025 as I was deciding whether to do this and get a sense of whether there's going to be a base of support here. Um and and those meetings and those conversations were a lot of confirmation that what I was feeling other people were feeling too. And then when I got into the race and when we started knocking on doors in um in April, I mean, I think that those early audiences were kind of self-selecting audiences. So it was people that were probably um had similar thoughts to me. But when you start knocking on doors and when you start getting a more random sample, and that's when we were hearing the same thing again and again. Um, you know, and for a lot of folks, honestly, it was just as simple as um, I mean, I heard a lot, you know, the mayor's a nice guy, but 16 years is too long. And um and that was a refrain that I shared as well. Um and so that was uh kept hearing that again and again. And so April, May, June, and then certainly in July and August when we really started picking up our door knocking. I mean, we had a lot of volunteers out there. Um we were hearing it pretty much from the beginning, and uh and it just kept becoming more and more. I mean, by the end of the campaign, we had something like 2,500 individual conversations on the doors after knocking on close to you know 15,000 doors. And so um that was a pretty good random sample. I mean, 7,000 people voted and we talked to you know about a third of them. So we felt pretty confident going in, but you just never know. I mean, we were hearing the same thing that other people were saying across the state. Nobody's gonna beat a 16-year incumbent. You just can't do it. And um, so I remember saying to my campaign team over and over again the data is telling us one story, and the only time we're gonna find out whether it was right or not is on election day. And we just need to keep working hard right through.

Bill Bartholomew 4:57

Right. Well, I think what it comes down to is specific issues as well on a neighborhood level. I mean, there's so many of them. I wonder if you were to kind of summarize, what would you say are the major issues you heard on a specific basis? I mean, look, you know, there's tidewater, there's Morley Field, all of these things kind of create uh interest in pockets or maybe en masse, but you know, you also can look at it from the standpoint of, hey, you know, infrastructure or the this particular storm, we didn't like the way that the storm was managed by the city. So I guess what were the top issues specifically?

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Yeah, and and and it probably will come as no shock, probably the same issues that they were hearing in in Providence as well. Um affordability by far number one. And I would hear it from renters who were worried because their rent is going up. I would hear it from longtime homeowners, seniors who are on a fixed income, that for them it's they're on a fixed income and their property taxes keep going up and what mechanisms are in place to allow them to stay in their homes. And so that idea of affordability, I heard again and again. Um the education system, not the buildings themselves, but the what's happening inside them was something that I heard again and again. And uh quite honestly, a little bit with the buildings too, there was there was this idea that folks in City Hall weren't listening, that the new high school is great, but the neighbors in that neighborhood are so worried about traffic, and nobody's talking to them about traffic, right? So it it was just a lot of the consistent um feeling that after 16 years, the kind of community engagement wasn't happening at the same level. And here was somebody who was knocking on their door, who was listening to their concerns, who was distilling that and you know, sharing that others feel the same way that they do, and it, you know, it slowly becomes that that buildup. Um I also heard a lot about public safety, um, quality of life issues, um, bulk trash not getting picked up, the rats um i in the city, the rat problem and how it's grown over the years. Um it really was the kind of bread and butter municipal government type stuff. Um you'd you'd be surprised. You know, I think I when I talk to folks who are more on a statewide level, um, you would think that the train station and the soccer stadium would come up in every conversation, but it really didn't. It really was focused on these more day-to-day issues for for Pawtucket residents.

Bill Bartholomew 7:28

Yeah. I mean, that makes all the sense in the world. And I think when you when people talk about Pawtucket on a statewide basis, of course they say Hasbro, and you know, there's look, that that movement and when Hasbro made a decision to leave Pawtucket and all that, we can rehash that there's a million different I have my take, which is that it was a it was a a fall down on the part of the state from an economic development standpoint long ago to not engage the creative professional community in a way that made Providence an undeniable I'm part, pardon me, Rhode Island, Pawtucket Province, whatever it may be, France and who knows. That's a separate conversation. But I think in terms of tidewater, you know, now you get the oh, Kawhi Leonard and all this business. I mean, forget all that, just the general notion of it, that has dominated a lot of Pawtucket. And there was, I've I kind of have been saying on the radio almost indefinitely in a sarcastic way, you the Grebbian administration and then the McKee administration, and to it to an extent also the prior to that, the Raimundo administration sold us on the idea, hey, the Pawsox left for Pawtucket, and if you want to save Pawtucket, there's only one way to do it. You've got to build a minor league soccer stadium for a team no one's ever heard of, a league no one's ever heard of, players no one's ever heard of that's not connected to any kind of major league franchise or his or history or anything like that. And if you don't like it, you're not standing with Pawtucket. That's been Pawtucket's statewide and regional major story. Meanwhile, all those things that you just identified, that's the real story.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah, and and the one that came up more than any. So I I mean, obviously in my campaign I talked about all the things that we've lost, and and that was a major piece of it. You know, I talked all the time about my daughter Nora, who's almost 15, and the last time Pawtucket had a new mayor, she wasn't born. And now the hospital where she was born is closed. Baseball team we used to root for is in Worcester, Mr. Potatehead statue at Hasbro is next. And um, you know, and I would say that's just the big stuff. But when it comes to what residents cared about, the biggest one out of that grouping was Memorial Hospital, the loss of having a hospital, because it's something that they used every day. And and when I talk with the, you know, obviously I was really, really grateful to have the endorsement of the firefighters. They did incredible work uh on our campaign. This win is just as much for them as it was for me. Um and they would talk about, you know, when you have an emergency, minutes matter. And families really understood that too. And so that really is, you know, when I think about what are the what are the challenges ahead, or if if Potega residents could choose one thing to get back, it would be a hospital. And obviously the economics of that are really um really tough. But I'm having conversations with experts in the medical field about is there an opportunity to create some sort of ambulatory care or you know, non-major emergency care that for routine stuff or for small emergency stuff, we have the opportunity to bring something like that back. Because um, you know, this is it's a crazy sort of election night story, but m my dad actually on election night, my dad and my sister came up for it, uh, got out of the car, they were carrying their bags up into my house, and my dad tripped and fell, and he's fine, but ended up having to go to the Miriam and he was there for seven hours. Um because, you know, nothing other than it was um, you know, we're down emergency beds and we're down, you know, it's it's a it's a little bit of an issue in our in our state and in our city. So um, you know, he I spent the last half hour the polls were open with him in the emergency room. Um and uh you know, you see firsthand how busy the Miriam got after Memorial Hospital closed.

Bill Bartholomew 14:15

That's that is such an important what you just said right there is so important. And and yeah, we're seeing this all over the state, you know, the the concerns about what uh closures at Newport's hospital, whether it's the birthing center or beyond, what that does and the strain that it puts on on um you know fire apparatus and ambulance, and now all of a sudden those ambulances have to take someone to women and infants, and that's one less ambulance on the island in Newport. These are this is the challenge in real time. So the big ticket sort of sticker shock issues get headlines. But the reality, like you're painting here, uh this is a real struggle, and this is this is the the the bread and butter of a win like yours, I bet.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

And it and it feeds, you know, uh the affordability bucket is a big one. And and the sort of feeling like you're getting less and less, even as you're paying more and more, the hospital piece goes right into that. So, you know, it if and Newport's probably uh just as good of an example as Providence, if not a better one. If you're losing these services locally that you've come to rely on and depend on, and all of a sudden you have to go further for them, and then when you get to those services, because it's more crowded, because your your hospital closed, the the service is less, and not through the fault of the great doctors and nurses and everybody else at the Miriam, they treated my dad incredibly well. It was great, but um but there's only so many of them. And so you feel like the service you're getting is less. It feeds into this narrative that um the service is getting worse while the costs are going up. And and that's something that all of us as elected leaders, whether it's at the uh municipal level, the state level, the federal level, this is something we all need to work on because I think it's a huge, huge problem. Um and and I'm excited. My hope is that, and and I I see it, I've had a lot of conversations with other um, you know, mayors over the last couple of days, with folks at the state level as well. There's a lot of folks that understand the problems and are ready to roll up their sleeves and solve them or try to solve them. So um that's something that excites me.

Bill Bartholomew 16:24

You know, it's a new day for mayors as well in Rhode Island. For much of the last, I don't know, 15 plus years. It's there's been this notion of the Northern Rhode Island mayoral peer group, right? With Dan McKee at kind of the center of that, his Cumberland mayor, then Lieutenant Governor, he's kind of been the centerpiece of that, Charlie Lombardi in North Providence, Don Grabbe in Pawtucket. Somehow, some way Providence hasn't quite aligned, but there's always just been this natural partnership there, um, Winsocket, etc. And that's been shaken up now as well. McKee will be out of office, um, obviously a change in Providence that a change in Pawtucket. So I wonder what collaboration on the mayoral level, what what can mayors do that they're not doing right now to help help the state move forward?

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yeah, it it's a great question. I think it's it's um making sure that we're partnering, you know, with uh with our state elected officials as well, um, at the legislature and at the um at the uh in the governor's office and and the other general officers. One of the things that we haven't done here in Pawtucket for a long time when I talk to our state reps and state senators is bring that group together. Um, you know, just have a conversation. Here's what are your priorities at the State House and how can I as mayor, you know, advocate for those or work with you on those? And then here are the real issues that we have here in Pawtucket, whether it's you know, funding for multilanguage learners and special education students that you know we're woefully underfunded on, or emergency services, you know, um, all of these kinds of things, having that open dialogue and saying, you know, here's what we can do on the municipal level, but here's what we can't do without your support at the state level. And how can we work together to address the issues that you care about and that you're working on at the state level? And then how can we all, as the Pawtucket delegation, work on the issues that are really important to our, to our um local, uh local municipal governance as well. And so one of the things I'm I'm already planning, I've talked with a bunch of the state refs and state senators is sometime in October, just bringing them all together and starting to have that conversation and then making sure that those are regularly scheduled meetings that are always on the calendar. And obviously you're not going to get everybody every time, but just making sure that that time is carved out for those important conversations. Um, I've reached out to all of the general officers. I've spoken with just about all of them. Um again, it's about we're all collaborating and hoping to get toward the same goal. And let's just keep the lines of dialogue open, let's keep the open communication going, and um let's find areas where we can work together.

Bill Bartholomew 19:03

Adam Greenman is going to be the next mayor of Pawtucket. How about that for a title right there for now, a temporary tell. Definitely gonna be the next mayor of Pawtucket. We'll say that. Um, congratulations again, and I look forward to seeing that Pawtucket delegation. That seems I I think there's probably some people that optimistically think that that happens in every municipality, in every place, every single week or every single night, that there's a huddle of sorts. And it's it's not something that happens uh all the time, that's for sure. So leadership there is um that that's a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Yeah, no, I'm I'm excited for it. I'm you know, I I wouldn't have run for this job if I didn't want to do the job. Uh it's a lot to run for office. As I I I've learned that even more than I anticipated. And um I'm just really excited to get the to get going. And um obviously we have one mayor at a time, and I'm looking forward to working with Mayor Grebbian over the next couple of months to make sure that I'm ready to take over. And I'm here to you know make sure that he can continue to do his job for the next couple of months. But um but I'm excited. I'm excited to bring together our legislators, I'm excited to bring together community members, and I'm excited for the new day in Pawtucket and the new day in Rhode Island. And so uh just appreciate your time, Bill, and uh you know, happy to come on anytime. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.