By Steve Klamkin WPRO News

Gov. Gina Raimondo says she is not ready to join calls to close the controversial Central Falls jail where protesters and guards clashed August 14.

“It’s not something I really entertain at the moment,” Raimondo said, offering her first comments since the confrontation August 14 between Jewish protestors calling for an end to ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and opposing Trump administration immigration policy, and guards at a Central Falls jail, where detainees are held for the federal government.

“I think it’s a complex issue,” Raimondo said. “It’s not an easy thing to say, just close Wyatt. They have a lot of debt. It’s a structure that’s been in place since the early ‘90’s.”

Legislation to close Wyatt has been proposed by jail opponents, but has yet to be introduced while the General Assembly is in recess.

“I would look at that legislation, but I don’t have an opinion yet, and as I said it’s a complicated situation. But what has to happen is, we have to keep everybody safe in the meantime, and people ought to be allowed to protest peacefully,” Raimondo said.

Raimondo spoke with WPRO News following her nearly two-week summer vacation.

She met Tuesday in Boston with Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and others at the National Governor’s Association Stakeholder Summit, and said that she and Baker had formed a ‘working group’ to explore ways to expand commuter rail service between Rhode Island and Boston, citing “brutal” highway traffic.

“We’ll work with the MBTA, we’ll work with Amtrak. We need some locomotives, we need the trains and we’ll have to electrify some of the line, so we’re going to get to work and see what’s possible,” Raimondo said.

She acknowledged the potentially high cost of upgrading rail service, but said the working group would look at lower cost alternatives.

“Certainly if you try to electrify the whole line and build new platforms, that’s a lot of money. But then there’s other versions where it’s just scheduling changes, where we could just provide more express trains. So, that’s a scheduling challenge, but not so expensive. So, we’re going to look at the whole array of options. But, it is a priority for me and I want to get it done.”

Raimondo also was asked about falling revenues from the Twin River and Tiverton Casinos operated by Twin River, in the months since the Wynn-operated Encore casino in Everett, outside Boston opened in June.

“It’s concerning and it’s disappointing,” Raimondo said. “Management needs to have a plan for that. We knew that that was happening, we knew that Encore was coming on line. It’s the management’s job at Twin River to have a plan to face that kind of competition, and we are going to hold them accountable.”

She credited the state Rhode Island Lottery order that Twin River remove 360 underperforming slot machines at its casinos at Lincoln and Tiverton.