(gentle music) - [Pamela] Tonight, Rhode Island's house speaker weighs in on one of the state's most pressing issues.

- And it's been 30 years of a housing crisis and it's only gonna get worse.

- [Michelle] Seeing sounds and hearing colors, how a rare condition sparks creativity in local artists.

- Without it, there would not be the magnificent art that we get to have all around us.

- [Pamela] And a magical miniature world in Providence.

- Santa's coming.

(train bell dinging) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) - Good evening.

Welcome to "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

I'm Pamela Watts.

- And I'm Michelle San Miguel.

On January 2nd, lawmakers will return to Smith Hill for the new session of the General Assembly.

- They plan to tackle housing, education, and the Rhode Island state budget.

Contributor Steph Machado sat down with how Speaker Joe Shekarchi to ask him how he and the legislature plan to take on these issues.

- House Speaker Joe Shekarchi, thanks so much for joining us.

- It's my pleasure, Steph.

Always enjoy sitting down with you.

- We continue to have a significant housing crisis here in Rhode Island.

There's not enough units.

Rents are going up.

According to the most recent Zillow report, it costs more than $2,000 to rent an apartment in Providence.

And the city, the Providence market's experiencing the highest year-over-year increases in the country.

What is your plan to address housing in the upcoming session?

- Well, it has been a front and center issue since I became speaker, and it's gonna continue to focus on our efforts to do that.

We have three ongoing commissions right now, the Affordability Commission, the Land Use Commission.

We're gonna see what ideas that those commissions produce and turn them into legislation, hopefully pass them.

It's not going away.

We are last in the country, last in the country, Steph, regarding building permits and new housing production.

The package is intended, which goes into effect in January, less than 30 days from today, is all about production, production and production.

We need more housing.

That's the only way you're gonna address this issue is to create more supply.

- It seems like local zoning is one of the biggest barriers to more production.

Does the state need to take a heavier hand here?

- It may have to.

Not right now.

We're gonna continue to hopefully work with the League of Cities & Towns, they have so far proven to be a good partner, we're gonna continue to do so.

But we're not afraid to take more drastic measures or more drastic action if needed.

But we're not there yet.

And I'm continue that the dialogue and the education.

And I'm hopeful that people will understand, when I say people, local cities and towns will understand, this is a crisis that is not going away.

That we have to do things differently.

It's been 30 years since we've updated any land use regulations and it's been 30 years of a housing crisis and it's only gonna get worse.

And I'm gonna tell you that I personally fear as interest rates start to go down, that prices are gonna continue to rise, if not significantly rise, creating a bigger problem in our state.

- I know you're saying we're not there yet, but what would drastic measures look like?

- We have to wait and see, but we have to, all zoning comes from the state.

Cities and towns have no constitutional right to zoning.

It's given to them by the state of Rhode Island.

So we can look at that and modify that.

We can pass more stringent laws, we can do a lot of different things.

General Assembly has under our state constitution a lot of authority to do that.

But that would be done in a very public process working with our partners in the Senate and the governor's office as well.

This is a problem that touches everybody in every community and every community needs to step up and do their part.

- Do you have any specific legislation you plan to introduce?

- We're gonna continue to push ADUs.

That's accessory dwelling units, granny flat.

That's the number one priority for ARP.

It's a very significant piece of legislation.

The house passed it last year.

We're gonna pass it again early this year.

I look forward to getting it over to the Senate and working with our partners in the Senate to get that over the goal line this year.

That has proven to be a significant tool that is being used around the country in other communities and cities and towns and states and it has had success.

And what that is, Steph, so people understand What's an ADU that don't understand.

It's basically an in-law apartment.

It's something that exists right now.

We have a lot of multi-family dwellings in Providence.

We have a lot of multi-family dwellings.

This just makes what we already do in Rhode Island easier to get done.

People who are afraid of this, who oppose this, do not understand it.

I've heard the arguments that it's gonna create more Airbnbs and that's not true because it's specifically written in the legislation is a prohibitation of that.

So you cannot turn an an ADU into a Airbnb.

So people who are posing this haven't read the legislation, don't wanna read the legislation, don't understand, maybe don't wanna understand it, but it is something that is very important for ARP and it's very important for the housing crisis in Rhode Island.

- What's stopping people from building these units now?

- Nothing is stopping them other than a lot of red tape and regulation and expense.

- How much money are you willing to put in to the housing crisis?

'Cause we know in Massachusetts, Governor Healey proposed a $4 billion housing package.

Of course, that still has to go through the legislature there.

Rhode Island Housing Secretary Stefan Pryor is proposing a $100 million bond in his budget proposal.

Is that enough?

- It really depends on what we can afford in the state of Rhode Island.

You could take any issue and people always say we need more money.

So we need to look at what we're doing, what are the outcomes, what's effective, and what we can afford.

But I think that what's been proposed is generally in line of what we need at the moment for this year.

- I wanna ask you about rent control, which is always a thorny topic.

We hear about dramatic rent increases, especially in the last couple years.

At what point should the state restrict how much rent can be increased year over year?

- Well, you are asking the state to, you know, basically regulate a private contract between a landlord and a tenant.

We've made some changes around that.

We've got a little bit of application fees and we looked at it.

I will tell you that I've talked to Mayor Smiley about this in Providence which has the most number of apartments.

He's adamantly opposed.

He said it doesn't work.

If you look around other particular communities, it hasn't had a lot of success.

While it sounds good and it feels good, it has sometimes the opposite effect of limiting the number of units.

So you actually, you have less units and you have more of a demand.

The way to solve that problem regarding rent control is to create more units.

If you create more units, then you have competition and prices will come down.

Prices for rent will come down and prices for purchase will come down as well.

- So you're not interested in regulating what the rents can be, but you believe building more units, they will naturally come down.

- Absolutely.

That's the answer.

- Back in September, "Rhode Island PBS Weekly" reported on a crisis in the early intervention system for infants and toddlers with developmental delays, hundreds are waiting months, or even more than a year, for state services in violation of federal law.

While state officials have directed American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA funds to early intervention providers, it hasn't been enough to clear the backlog.

The program is run out of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, EOHHS, which is proposing a Medicaid rate increase to try and help.

I know child advocates have been lobbying you for more funding.

What is your plan here?

- Well let's go back to say what we did with the ARPA money.

We made significant investments.

The CARES Act money was a significant investment in ARPA money.

We passed $22 million the first day of January about two years ago as well.

We commenced a rate study to see if we need to do that.

Those results are in, they've given to the governor.

We're waiting for the governor's budget.

We'll listen to what he asked to say.

We're gonna have a public hearing and a process and we'll listen to all the advocates and we'll make adjustments as we can, as we need and as we can afford.

- The advocates say that the rate increase proposed by EOHHS is good, but it's not enough.

This is a imminent crisis.

I mean, will you go farther than what the governor proposes?

- If, after we go through a public process and vetting, yes, that's our jobs, the general assembly, is to listen to this and listen to what the governor has to say.

I don't wanna predispose, 'cause I don't know what the governor's gonna propose, but I wanna point out that money in and of itself isn't always the answer.

That we've made significant investments across the board.

We have a labor shortage in every part of state government.

It's not just teachers.

It's in the nursing home system, it's our doctors, it's our nurses.

We have a labor shortage everywhere and we need to do this.

And when we talk about raising rates, we're talking about increasing tax dollars.

And I understand that education is critical, it's important, but we've done that and we're gonna continue to do that here in Rhode Island.

But we have to also be cognizant of what we can afford.

- Public school enrollment continues to drop significantly.

- Significantly across the state.

And that's a trend over the last many, many years.

- And this could be problematic because state aid is tied to enrollment among other factors in the formula.

Are there any changes that you're looking at for school funding?

- We have increased funding year-over-year overall so we are increasing funding in less and less population, school age population.

That means the cost per pupil, as far as state aid, has gone up significantly.

And unfortunately, I don't see a lot of results.

So we need to look at this.

I don't think money in and of itself is the answer.

- What is your top priority when it comes to education that you think will come up this session?

- We'll just continue to fund it adequately to make sure that we do the right thing around it.

Certainly early intervention we're looking at, certainly about, you know, teachers and school, making sure that we get more people into the system and absenteeism as well.

You know, we need to find solutions or ideas to get people back into school.

- Shekarchi said lawmakers will once again consider reforming the Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights.

A controversial police accountability law that critics say protects officers accused of wrongdoing, including by leaving major disciplinary decisions up to a panel of fellow officers.

This is something that seems to be a top priority at the start of the session for the past few years, but then doesn't make it over the finish line because all of the sides can't agree.

Is this a top priority this session?

- Yes it is.

And I expect the house will act on it very soon because we've worked on it all summer long.

I think this is the year.

- The second-term speaker said he has not yet decided if he will run for reelection for his house seat in Warwick.

He says he will make that decision early in the new year.

Up next, imagine living in a world where music is not only heard, but also seen.

Where words have flavors and colors have a smell.

As we first reported in September of 2022, that is a reality for some people with the rare neurological condition, synesthesia, and some local artists are using it to expand their creative limits.

- I think that we're all lucky that it exists, because without it, there would not be the magnificent art that we get to have all around us.

- [Michelle] Artist Alyn Carlson has a neurological condition that she says makes her life and her artwork more interesting.

- I was probably five and I started seeing numbers in color.

Three was yellow, five was red, zero was white.

Seven was sort of a purpley-blue.

- Not only does Carlson see numbers in color, but she says she can also hear them and smell them.

You've been open about the fact that you feel self-conscious somewhat even talking about this.

- Yeah.

A little.

- Why is that?

- Well, it's kind of, because other people can't really relate to it.

(grand music) - [Michelle] Artist and musician Lennie Peterson certainly can.

- So when I hear music I see shapes.

- [Michelle] What kind of shapes?

- They are, well, they're in my art and they're anywhere from a straight line, depending on the note, to all kinds of atmosphere within squares and circles.

- [Michelle] Both Lennie Peterson and Alyn Carlson have synesthesia, a rare condition where a person's senses, including the sense of smell and sound, get mixed together.

We asked neurologist Dr. Richard Cytowic to explain just what synesthesia is.

- It's pretty easy.

Everybody knows the word anesthesia, which means no sensation.

So synesthesia means joined or coupled sensation.

And there are kids who are born with two, three, or all five of their senses hooked together.

So that my voice, for example, is not only something that they hear, but something that they might also see or taste or feel as a physical touch.

- [Michelle] Dr. Cytowic is credited with bringing synesthesia back to mainstream science.

He's written six books on the phenomenon.

He says colleagues initially dismissed it as too weird and new age.

- What happened is that, you know, I caused a paradigm shift in how we think about how the brain is organized.

We don't have five senses traveling down five tubes that never intermingle.

There are huge numbers of cross connections in the brain all the time.

- [Michelle] Carlson says the artwork featured in her new Bedford studio was created in large part thanks to her synesthesia.

- If I'm working and two colors seem to come together and I smell them, they kind of lead me into an area to continue.

And because my work is abstract, very often what I'm doing is I'm reacting to a color combination.

- [Michelle] Take for instance, this abstract painting.

Carlson says she painted it by mixing colors that smelled like one of her favorite things, a low tide.

- So I started to be able to pull in a whole family of those colors that smelled that way to me.

It was like an undercurrent in the whole palette.

And so from that I painted a, you know, 80-inch wide abstract landscape just from the smell, those two colors that came together and that, that happened.

Boom.

That was so fast.

- Synesthesia is more common than some might think.

Dr. Cytowic says 4% of the population has this union of the senses, including Lady Gaga- ♪ Poker face ♪ ♪ She's got me like nobody ♪ - [Michelle] And Billy Joel- ♪ We didn't start the fire ♪ ♪ It was always burning since the world was turning ♪ - [Michelle] Russian writer of Vladimir Nabokov who wrote "Lolita" also had it.

(mellow jazz music) So did composer and pianist, Duke Ellington.

Is synesthesia more common among artists and musicians?

- Well, you know, we're more familiar with famous artists who happen to be synesthetes than we are famous synesthetes who happen to be artists.

And it's a chicken and egg question of, are they artistic because they're synesthetic or are they synesthetic because they're artistic?

But I think it's the former that, and they're used to unusual things going together.

(grand music) - It's those unusual things that inspire the work of Newport-based artist Lennie Peterson.

He listens to music as he works and draws the shapes that he sees.

Now these shapes appear three dimensional in front of you.

They're floating in the air?

- They are being created in front of me.

They're not like, they're not in the room.

They're forming in front of me as I listen to music.

And the more I concentrate on it, the more they're gonna form and the clearer they're gonna form.

(mellow trombone music) - [Michelle] Peterson was in his late twenties teaching at the Berkeley College of Music when he realized the way he experiences the world isn't like most people.

- I was producing a student's project of music and we were tracking keyboards.

And I said, I got on the, you know, the talk mic, and I said, "Can you make that chord more round?"

And I just got this stunned silence, you know, like, "Wait, what?"

So I turned to the engineer and he said to me, "What?"

I said, "I want it to make it more round?"

He said, "You must have synesthesia."

- [Michelle] Peterson's paintings are heavily influenced by the music he listens to.

(gentle jazz music) - So this is specifically around a Miles Davis song actually called "In a Silent Way."

And it's a very mystical kind of setting for this song.

Then the synesthesia kicks in here, I start in the top-left-hand corner and my hand, I let my hand go and it's just a free flow of while the music's playing.

- [Michelle] At times, Peterson says it feels like an overload of the senses, which he says isn't a bad thing.

- If I get extremely sick, like high fever, a lot of people have hallucinations when they get really super sick.

But ever since I was a little kid, I would hear these gigantic symphonies in my head that would just like crazy huge, like Wagnerian, Maurer-type symphonies.

- Did you ever wish you didn't have synesthesia?

- No, never.

Never.

It's almost like saying you wish the sky wasn't blue.

There's nothing I can do about it.

And it's there, you know, and it's just, it's part of my life.

- Is it hereditary?

- Oh yes, absolutely.

Very strongly so.

It runs strongly in families.

Either sex parent can pass it down to either sex child and you'll see it in multiple generations.

So the most I have is four living generations with synesthesia.

But historically you've been able to trace it back even more so.

- [Michelle] According to the National Institutes of Health, some researchers think people with synesthesia have extra connections between brain cells in some areas of the brain.

Others think the direction that information can flow between brain cells might be different.

Dr. Cytowic says synesthesia is a left-brain phenomenon.

- There's a difference between actually viewing colors and seeing synesthetic colors.

And it's as if synesthesia has hijacked a normal brain function that is viewing colors by connecting it with other kinds, other senses in the left hemisphere.

- [Michelle] Colorful experiences can also evoke pleasant sounds.

For Alyn Carlson, this combination of blue has a distinct pitch.

- Every time I started to put them together, I would hear cello.

I would hear cello music.

Just a long note.

Just a long note, it's not a complicated piece of music.

- As the paint is being mixed?

- Yeah, as the paint is being mixed.

When I would get still with it, I would just hear it.

- [Michelle] And sometimes she can smell it too.

- I would hold her and of course smell her.

- [Michelle] Carlson says this painting captures the smell of her youngest granddaughter when she was a baby.

- And I just wanted to replicate it somehow and these colors came to mind.

It wasn't hard at all.

They just popped in and that's where this came from.

- So this is- - Can you smell your granddaughter when you look at this?

- Well, she's three and a half now, but I can smell a baby.

- You can?

- Yeah.

- For Carlson, synesthesia allows her to hold on to precious memories.

What would a world without synesthesia look like for you?

- I don't know.

I probably wouldn't be, obviously, doing what I do, making what I make.

I'd be lost.

I'd be really lost, I think.

- And finally, tonight it's December, and yet it's hot and humid in one place in Providence.

What's more, you can find a ski lodge there.

If you think that's a contradiction, you can see it for yourself by going all aboard at the Botanical Center in Roger Williams Park where Christmas decorating is heading in a new direction.

(water sloshing gently) - What I really would like for you to do when you walk in these doors is to feel the magnificence and breadth of what nature can offer to you.

We have 45-foot-high ceilings, 12,000 square foot of greenhouse space, which makes us New England's largest indoor display garden.

- [Pamela] Lee Ann Freitas is director of the Botanical Center, a tropical oasis under glass right in Roger Williams Park in Providence.

- We have over 45 species of palm trees.

We probably have 50+ species of ferns, philodendrons.

- [Pamela] Plus exotic flowers such as birds of paradise and frangipani, also, orange and persimmon trees.

- Our mission is to connect people to nature and give them every opportunity to do that.

If you are here in the city of Providence and you live in a tenement home, you may not have that opportunity to go out in a backyard.

But here at the botanical center, we offer that backyard to you year round.

Even when it's frigidly cold outside, -10, you can come here and feel like you are in Maui or Hawaii.

- [Pamela] But even in the steamy climate, 70 degrees with high humidity, Christmas comes each season with a different decorating theme.

This year you'll find 1200 red and white poinsettias, eight Christmas trees, and something more, a train load of childhood wonder.

- Please.

(train chugging) (train bell dings) (train whistles) Santa's coming!

- The Botanical Center is adding some spell binding spark to their annual celebration.

Two G-scale model trains are on display, a traditional one around the Christmas tree in the main conservatory, and another encircling a replica of a New England ski mountain and village.

- You're going somewhere, right?

So here we'd like to think that you're going somewhere magical.

- This is the magic button, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- Look at that.

(train whistle toots) Oh.

(laughs) - [Pamela] Sue Osberg is superintendent of the Little Rhody division of the National Model Railroad Association whose members engineered the layouts.

She says many toy train enthusiasts' fascination with locomotives began on a Christmas morning long ago.

- I was an only child so I had a doll one Christmas and a train around the Christmas tree that my dad and I played with.

- How did toy trains become connected to Christmas?

- Well, it seems that back in the early part of the last century, Lionel as a company decided it would be interesting to put out something festive.

And the idea of the train around the Christmas tree was born.

- [Narrator] Did you ever see a boy's eyes light up like a Christmas tree?

You will if he gets Lionel trains for Christmas.

(train chugging) - [Pamela] Originally, the Lionel Company of New York produced the first electric toy trains as an eye-catching display for department store windows.

Soon, they were at the top of wishlists for Santa Claus and the tradition was set in motion.

Even country singer Johnny Cash got on board.

♪ Trains and trucks are rolling ♪ ♪ Across this land and back ♪ - And here they are- - [Pamela] Little Rhody club member David Kiley was one of those kids who was gifted a train set.

- My dad bought me mine.

I still have it.

- [Pamela] Kiley says that was 72 years ago when he was just four years old.

Now, in the midst of this muggy greenhouse, Kiley has helped create a quintessential winter scene of the 1940s.

- They ran a train out of Providence in Boston to the New Hampshire ski slopes.

So we tried to pick up a little bit of that feeling.

The ski slope was built by one of our members.

It's made out styrofoam.

- [Pamela] There are skiers, ice skaters, plus a glass greenhouse, a wink to the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center.

- We have a Coke machine at the station.

On the train itself, we have a a chowder car, which- - A chowder car?

- Yeah.

It's my club car.

Done up in the colors of of the railroad and represents a kind of a tongue-in-cheek is 'cause that's how it's spelled, chowdah.

- [Pamela] And the setting in this conservatory is made to resemble a cozy ski lodge from yesteryear.

Trains and the alpine theme are intertwined with the plants that make their home here.

There's Norfolk pine, peace lilies, and koi fish donning their gay apparel.

There is a cactus garden, and green and mean as the Grinch himself, a carnivorous garden with insect-eating plants like Venus flytraps.

- This is the true horror story of plants.

- [Pamela] This exotic paradise has also been brushed with a bit of Hollywood stardust.

A group of friends conceived of this great public indoor Garden of Eden.

One was the late actor Anthony Quinn, who lived the last years of his life in Bristol.

- Anthony Quinn did have a love of plants.

He adored his crab apples and he also loved tropical plants.

They got together and helped to create this really, truly magical space - [Mom] You did it, Ava.

- We are hoping that people will come and visit, and families will come and make this part of their annual traditions and really become a sentimental place for them.

(train chugging) - That's so beautiful.

And this is the first time they've added trains to their decorations.

- It is.

And they're hoping to keep the Christmas tradition going.

- Awesome.

And that's our broadcast this evening.

Thank you for joining us.

I'm Michelle San Miguel.

- And I'm Pamela Watts.

We'll be back next week with another edition of "Rhode Island PBS Weekly."

Until then, please follow us on Facebook and X, or you can visit us online to see all of our stories and past episodes at ripbs.org/weekly or listen to our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.

Goodnight.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues)