Pawtucket might have a serious mayoral race on its hands.
Adam Greenman, the president and CEO of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, confirmed that he plans to challenge Mayor Don Grebien in the Democratic primary next year. He opened a campaign account and launched a website to begin fundraising last week, and hopes to bring in $150,000 to run a competitive race.
His campaign website points out that the hospital where his daughter was born is closed, the baseball team his family rooted for moved to Worcester, and the Mr. Potato Head statue he measured his kids’ height against could come down soon if Hasbro leaves Pawtucket.
“So much has changed about Pawtucket in the last 14 years, but the leadership hasn’t,” Greenman told the Globe over the weekend.
The bigger picture: Greenman is not a pushover, even as a first-time candidate. He’s a smart and thoughtful community leader who shouldn’t have trouble raising money, and his wife, Erin, was on the school committee for a decade.
Then again, Grebien is having a bit of a moment right now.
The new Rhode Island FC soccer stadium is beautiful and the train station parking lot seems to be filled every day, so Grebien has real accomplishments to run on. Democratic insiders have even floated his name as a potential challenger to Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos next year.
Greenman acknowledged that he faces an uphill battle against Grebien, who is generally well-liked by the voters and his colleagues in government. It’s also never easy to beat an incumbent, as Grebien learned in 2008 when he lost to then-mayor James Doyle.
But Greenman maintains that “there has never been a campaign about competing visions for the city” in Grebien’s 14 years in office. It’s true. Grebien has won every election by comfortable margins.
“I think this is about the past versus future,” Greenman said. “Being nice isn’t enough to move the city forward.”
This story first appeared in Rhode Map, our free newsletter about Rhode Island that also contains information about local events, links to interesting stories, and more. If you’d like to receive it via e-mail Monday through Friday, you can sign up here.
Dan McGowan can be reached at dan.mcgowan@globe.com. Follow him @danmcgowan.