Still nothing
from CCA Party
By
Will Collette
The
RI Department of Labor and Training finally got around to posting municipal
unemployment rates on its website. For the past several weeks, I have
been citing the December rate for Charlestown which was 9.9%, a 1.2 point hike
over November’s figures.
But
the new DLT numbers covering January and February are truly awful for
Charlestown and highlight the hardships so many Charlestown families are
experiencing, making the silence and apathy of the Charlestown Citizen
Alliance, which has held total control over Charlestown since 2008, all the
more appalling.
According
to DLT, Charlestown’s January unemployment rate jumped to 12.3%
(that’s 2.4 points over December) and then settled back to 11.6% in February.
We had an average monthly unemployment rate of 9.6% in 2013.
Approximately
4,600 Charlestown residents try to work for a living, but in January, 567 of
our friends and neighbors were on the unemployment insurance rolls. This figure does not include those who have exhausted benefits, gave up looking or are underemployed.
We
have very few job opportunities in Charlestown. Thanks to the CCA Party, we
have a lot fewer than we could have.
Witness the treatment of town businesses, like the recent ordeal one of the town’s largest employers, Arrowhead Dental, has been put through by Planning Commissar Ruth Platner and the Planning Commission over its planned expansion.
Then
there’s Dave’s Coffee, which decided that rather than
try to build a new building in Charlestown to keep pace with its growing
business, they decided to build and move their headquarters to Narragansett.
I
have written about
seven practical steps Charlestown could take to improve our town’s economy and reduce town
unemployment. The CCA Party’s position is there is nothing the town can or
should do, since (a) the economy is a national problem and (b) the town doesn’t
want to take the chance of aiding those they deem to be the undeserving poor.
They’d rather spend town money to benefit their
campaign supporters
and on such critically needed projects as re-paving the town tennis courts ($260,000) which will go before the voters as part of the town's financial referendum.
Now there's a great example of "pay to play."
Here
are the seven steps that I have proposed which, I believe, will never happen so
long as the CCA Party controls town government [detailed in depth here]:
Tax relief.
Reduce the tax load on Charlestown residents by, at minimum, not increasing
taxes as the CCA-controlled town government has done for the past six years
that they’ve controlled the budget. Reconsider past
proposals to provide meaningful tax relief to middle-class Charlestown
residents.
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| If the Planning Commission is going to mandate certain types of shingles, the town should give tax incentives to defray cost |
Business incentives.
Charlestown is famous for passing nit-picking ordinances that push local
businesses either out of business or out of town with the resulting loss of
work opportunities. If these ordinances are necessary for the public good,
rather than make them unfunded mandates, give businesses a chance to recoup
their costs of compliance through property tax credits.
Buy local.
Seek to use vendors and contractors who are locally based and…
Hire local.
Use vendors and contractors who hire local workers.
 |
| Public transportation - CCA style |
Make sure new business regulations add
value. Before enacting new ordinances that constrict business, the
town should weigh (a) the cost of those regulations to business compared to (b)
the costs and beneficial effects on the community.
Open up job opportunities.
Instead of resisting the need to come up with at least 200 units of affordable
housing in Charlestown, actually try creative approaches to create that
housing, and reap the benefit of new work opportunities for unemployed
construction workers.
Hook up with public transportation.
We cannot ignore the hardship Charlestown’s total lack of access to public
transportation creates for working people to get to work, to look for a new
job, or to get to training or education programs to equip them to get a new
job. If we can’t get public transportation into Charlestown, we need to use
creative approaches to get Charlestown workers to public transportation.
