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Thursday, October 17, 2024

Shh, shh, shh, it's all right

October 22: "town hall" meeting on repairs to the Charlestown Breachway, fittingly at the Breachway Grill

 

Join Rep. Tina Spears, Sen. Victoria Gu and Town Council President Deb Carney for a Town Hall on the status of the Charlestown Breachway on Tuesday, October 22nd at 5662 Post Rd, Charlestown. They will also take questions about other local issues. You can RSVP at victoria4ri.com/town-hall.


- From the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee

When It Comes to Open Space and Land Conservation, R.I. Votes Green

Yes on Question 4

By Colleen Cronin / ecoRI News staff

North or south, town or city, red or blue, it doesn’t matter — all of Rhode Island’s communities vote green, at least when it comes to the Green Bond.

Since 2000, every Green Bond put before Ocean State voters has passed breezily and, drilling down on the municipal level, the initiatives aimed at increasing open space and promoting green programs have enjoyed comfortable approval in each of Rhode Island’s 39 cities and towns.

Providence and New Shorham lead the state, with average support in this century for the Green Bond reaching about 82% and 78%, respectively, according to Rhode Island election results.

Even in Foster and Glocester, the communities with the lowest average support, approval ratings were about 62% and 61%, respectively.

Last chance to sign up


Why Trump accuses people of wrongdoing he himself committed

"Projection" - a symptom of narcissism


Boxes of documents are stacked in a bathroom.
After complaining about how Hillary Clinton handled classified
documents, Donald Trump stored national secrets in a bathroom.
 
Justice Department via AP
Donald Trump has a particular formula he uses to convey messages to his supporters and opponents alike: He highlights others’ wrongdoings even though he has committed similar acts himself.

On Oct. 3, 2024, Trump accused the Biden administration of spending Federal Emergency Management Agency funds – money meant for disaster relief – on services for immigrants. Biden did no such thing, but Trump did during his time in the White House, including to pay for additional detention space.

This is not the first time he has accused someone of something he had done or would do in the future. 

In 2016, Trump criticized opponent Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured personal email server while secretary of state as “extreme carelessness with classified material.” 

But once he was elected, Trump continued to use his unsecured personal cellphone while in office. And he has been criminally charged with illegally keeping classified government documents after he left office and storing them in his bedroom, bathroom and other places at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

More recently, the Secret Service arrested a man with a rifle who was allegedly planning to shoot Trump during a round of golf. In the wake of this event, Trump accused Democrats of using “inflammatory language” that stokes the fires of political violence. Meanwhile, Trump himself has a long history of making inflammatory remarks that could potentially incite violence.

As a scholar of both politics and psychology, I’m familiar with the psychological strategies candidates use to persuade the public to support them and to cast their rivals in a negative light. This strategy Trump has used repeatedly is called “projection.” It’s a tactic people use to lessen their own faults by calling out these faults in others.

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

CRU a winning slate for Charlestown

"Exceptional leadership, dedication, and a commitment to improving the quality of life for all Charlestown residents."

By Ronald H. Russo 

Left to right, top: Rippy Serra, Steve Stokes, Peter Slom.
Bottom: Deb Carney, Craig Marr
I am writing to express my strong support for the current Charlestown Town Councilors, Deb Carney, Rippy Serra, Stephen Stokes and Peter Slom, the four Councilors supported by CRU (Charlestown Residents United), and candidate Craig Marr, a local business owner and longtime volunteer member of the Charlestown Economic Improvement Commission. I commend their outstanding efforts on a bipartisan basis in serving our community. Over the past several years this council has demonstrated exceptional leadership, dedication, and a commitment to improving the quality of life for all Charlestown residents.

Under the council’s guidance, our town has seen exceptional budget management practices that have led to one of the lowest real estate tax rates in the state. This is a testament to their collaborative efforts in working for the common good of Charlestown. These dedicated public servants have demonstrated that effective governance transcends political divides, in a time when fiscal responsibility is paramount.

One of the most recent notable achievements of the current Town Council was their collaborative effort for an emergency repair to the west wall of the Charlestown breachway. Due to three consecutive storms in December 2023 and January 2024, the walls of the breachway could not keep up. Emergency action was required. This devasting situation has had a profound impact on the health of the pond and on our town’s residents and local businesses. The council’s ability to work collaboratively with all those involved, listening to the concerns of residents and taking decisive action was instrumental in moving forward with the emergency repairs, which should be completed by the end of the month.

Furthermore, council members Carney, Serra, Stokes and Slom’s commitment to transparency and open communication has been exemplary. They have facilitated well-run regular town meetings, community forums and accessible online resources ensuring that residents are well-informed and have ample opportunities to voice their opinions and concerns.

I believe their vision is exactly what our town needs. Their proactive approach to addressing change and their commitment to the well being of our town are truly commendable.

In conclusion, I wholeheartedly support and endorse the reelection of the four members of our current CRU-majority Charlestown Town Council; Deb Carney, Rippy Serra, Peter Slom and Stephen Stokes and the addition of Craig Marr.

I also support the following CRU-endorsed candidates: Glenn Babcock and Laura Rom for Planning Commission, Ray Dreczko for town moderator, and Laura Chapman for School Committee.


I am confident that our community will be best served under their leadership.

A version of this article appeared as a Letter To the Editor in The Westerly Sun on October 7, 2024.

The evolution of MAGA

Vote, dammit!

Magaziner Leads Letter to Reunite Americans with their Lost Retirement Benefits

Show us the money! 

U.S. Representative Seth Magaziner (D-RI-02) and Ron Estes (R-KS-04) led 37 members of Congress in a bipartisan letter to the Department of Labor (DOL) to help American workers receive their lost retirement benefits with the help of state unclaimed property programs. 

There are 29.2 million left-behind or forgotten 401(k) accounts holding approximately $1.65 trillion in assets. The workers and families who own these funds often have no idea of their existence because they have changed jobs or their former employer has gone out of business.  

While state unclaimed property programs already work to reunite individuals with financial assets — such as the contents of a safe deposit back or utility reimbursements — regulatory ambiguity allows thousands of accounts to go unclaimed. The letter urges the DOL to develop a uniform, nationwide regulation that allows state unclaimed property programs to help reunite individuals with their lost retirement checks. 

“Retirement benefits belong to the Americans who worked hard to earn them, not the large financial institutions who service them,” said Representative Seth Magaziner (D-RI-02). “As the former state treasurer of Rhode Island, I know that Rhode Island’s unclaimed property division works tirelessly to reunite individuals with their missing property and can do the same for missing retirement checks. Everyone deserves to retire with dignity and financial security.”  

The Deep, Indigenous Roots of ‘Rhode Island Corn’

Wouldn't be jonnycakes without it

By Colleen Cronin / ecoRI News staff

It may not be surprising that a state known for its jonnycakes should have a chapter in its general laws called “corn and corn meal,” with a definition for “Rhode Island Corn.”

The law describes the corn as “a light amber color, hard and sound of kernel,” usually called Rhode Island white cap corn, and it specifies that it must be grown in the Ocean State.

The penalty for misbranding corn and falsely attributing it to Rhode Island comes with a $100 fine for each offense.

Although the 1940 law clearly associates the agricultural product with the state of Rhode Island, white cap corn has another name, tying it more closely to its true origins: it’s also known as Narragansett flint corn.

While the variety made its mark on a colonized New England — it’s an essential ingredient in jonnycakes and was commonly ground in the state’s early grist mills — Narragansett flint corn’s history and importance for the Indigenous people goes much deeper.

“This is a long conversation,” Lorén Spears said over the phone, when asked about the significance of flint corn, “but the short version of this conversation, of course, it’s extremely important to the Narragansett people historically, as well as through today.”

Spears is a member of the Narragansett Tribal Nation and executive director of the Tomaquag Museum, which is the only Indigenous-lead museum in the state, focused on telling the stories of people native to land now considered New England.

The corn, with its hearty kernels, “created sustainability for our people,” she said. It could keep during the winter months and was incorporated in “journey cakes” — which Spears said has now become jonnycakes — that could go along with tribal members when they traveled.

The corn stalk is also a part of the “Three Sisters,” along with beans and squash, a sustainable agricultural practice that Indigenous people taught European colonists to help them survive when they first arrived from across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kamala, Sheldon Whitehouse lead in URI poll of Rhode Island voters

Party line split on issues like election security. Democrats most concerned about housing, Republicans about roads and bridges

Tony LaRoche

CQ Roll Call.

Amid a polarizing presidential campaign, a University of Rhode Island opinion poll released today finds agreement across party affiliations on issues of election integrity, trust in election officials and concerns about election-related violence – while seeing a divide in worries over voter fraud.

The poll – the second annual edition from URI’s Rhode Island Survey Initiative – surveyed a representative sample of 500 Rhode Island residents ages 18 and older between Aug. 15 and Sept. 8, 2024. 

The survey was administered by the highly respected polling firm YouGov via the internet; participants were chosen from YouGov’s opt-in survey panel of Rhode Island residents who agree to participate in YouGov surveys. The margin of error for the poll is +/- 6.02%.

“While there are national polls that also focus on American confidence in election administration, our survey results offer a detailed snapshot of Rhode Islanders’ levels of trust in election authorities and systems and trust in government as well as attitudes about democracy, media, policy, and political participation in the state,” said Emily Lynch, URI professor of political science. “The survey results indicate that Rhode Islanders trust state election systems, but at the same time they have concerns about the upcoming election in a number of areas, such as AI-generated fake political information and political violence.”

Majorities from each party – Democrats (92%), Independents (69%), and Republicans (55%) – say they feel votes are somewhat often or very often counted accurately. And solid majorities of all three parties – Democrats (85%), Republicans (79%), and Independents (73%) – think political violence is a somewhat or very big problem in the U.S. today. A smaller majority of all three are concerned about civil unrest after election day in Rhode Island.

There was a divide on questions about fraud, however. A majority of Republicans and Independents are somewhat or very concerned about voter fraud – specifically noncitizen voting, citizens voting more than once, vote tampering, and people claiming to be another person in order to vote. Democrats lagged on all four questions – with the highest level of concern (37%) found with regard to vote tampering.

The survey also asked respondents who they will vote for on Nov. 5 in the presidential race and the state’s U.S. Senate race. Among those who indicated that they were registered voters, 53% said they would vote for Vice President Kamala Harris and 27% backed former President Donald Trump, while 52% indicated they would vote for incumbent U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, and 24%, state Rep. Patricia Morgan.

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Early voting, mail-in ballots start this week amid confusing ballots for Charlestown voters

Mixed up Council listings and 11 Charter revision questions make it hard to make informed choices

By Will Collette


If you are a Charlestown voter, you face a daunting challenge of figuring out how to make intelligent decisions in the face of a ballot that doesn’t really tell you what you need to know.

Two sections of the ballot are especially cumbersome: (1) the Town Council race and (2) the 11 proposed revisions to the Charlestown Town Charter. Today, we’ll deal with the Council.

The Town Council

Who’s who among the ten candidates for Town Council? The 10 are evenly split between five Charlestown Residents United (CRU) candidates and five Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) candidates.

Several factors make your choice harder. First, you won’t see the CRU or CCA labels on any of the candidates. The CRU and CCA are both PACs with radically different visions for Charlestown.

After losing power in 2022, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) broke its longstanding promise to run its candidates strictly as independents. All their newcomers are running either as Republicans or Democrats even though none of them have any actual connection to either party’s town committee.

Neither the Republican nor Democratic Town Committees made candidate endorsements in time to affect ballot placement, leaving the individual placement to a lottery.

In other words, a mishmash. Sometimes well-placed campaign signs can help with such confusion. This year, I’m afraid both the CRU and CCA wasted their money. Their signs are similar in appearance and crowded-with lists of names that are almost unreadable to passing motorists.

The mailers are somewhat more helpful because at least you can see the names of the officially endorsed candidates though the effect is diminished by the excruciating amount of detail crammed into each mailer.

In Charlestown, party labels (i.e. D versus R) matter less than CRU versus CCA. There are sharp differences on important issues between the two political committees that should guide your choice.

The Big Issues

Let’s review.

The tax rates from 2011 to 2023 show a steady rise
under the CCA. Source: Charlestown Tax Assessor.
Taxes. Everyone’s favorite. The Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) claims to be the party of low taxes. Their record shows the contrary. Under ten years of CCA rule, Charlestown’s tax rate grew steadily and the actual tax paid by households increased as the CCA siphoned off town money to make shady land deals, allowed town municipal costs to climb to the highest in the state, and strangled small business growth.

In the two years since Charlestown Residents United (CRU) ousted the CCA from power, the tax rate is down. So is the actual tax residents have had to pay.

NOTE: To get much more detailed analysis of Charlestown taxes, financial management and the differences between the CRU and the CCA on these subjects, CLICK HERE. I include links backing up each detail as well as to the state Auditor General who supported my assertations that the CCA messed up the money and the CRU has been effectively fixing it. 

Town Financial Management. This was the major factor that led to the CCA’s defeat in 2022. They messed up the money. They misplaced $3 million for almost two years, ran up a huge deficit, and, instead of fixing the problems, they spent the past two years denying the problems existed, blaming the messenger and mourning the departure of the individual town officials most responsible for the problems.

According to the Rhode Island Auditor General, the CRU wiped out the CCA deficit, reduced town debt by 25%, reduced expenses by $1.5 million, increased town savings by 17% and improved pension funding. These are hard, documented facts showing a remarkable turnaround in town finances under the CRU’s leadership.

Charlestown Economy. The CCA covers its fanatical devotion to expanding open space by claiming this is good for tourism and, by extension, the town economy. They’re fine with Charlestown perking up on Memorial Day and then dying on Labor Day.

No matter how tasty, burgers are not
the key to Charlestown's prosperity
While tourism does boost seasonal businesses, it forces Charlestown to pay for a bloated infrastructure designed to handle a summer population that triples the town’s size. What jobs are created are low wage with no benefits and held by folks who can’t afford to live here. That’s really all the CCA’s got on the economy. If you don’t believe me, check the town Comprehensive Plan, hand-crafted by CCA leader Ruth Platner.

The CCA still uses Planning and Zoning to torture small businesses. Because of CCA restrictions, Route One still remains our Boulevard of Broken Dreams with its array of empty businesses.

For a preview of what a new CCA term of power would do to small business, check out their new “Design Standards.” If the CCA regains power, these micro-managed minutiae will become law and further destroy small business. The CRU by contrast, blocked Planning Commissar Ruth Platner (now a Town Council candidate) from making these “standards” an ordinance.

The Environment. The CCA claims supremacy on all matters environmental, but do their claims pan out? They claim they are responsible for Charlestown’s dark sky, yet they diddled for years on a draconian but unenforceable anti-light ordinance when they could have gotten much better lighting compliance by helping businesses and residences convert to low-impact lighting.

They added some more open space even though more than 60% of Charlestown land is a protected from development. Many of the CCA’s land deals were with insiders, mainly CCA supporters, and nearly all at way over assessed value and even land that was already classified as open space. Despite their open space zeal, the CCA bitterly opposed, and tried to block Frank Glista from selling 20 acres to the state Water Resources Board as a protected water resource.

The CCA concocted multiple fake issues about Ninigret Park conflating plans to provide temporary portable lights at the field behind Town Hall to allow Peewee Football to go a couple more hours in the fall into a major crisis. The CCA forecast such lights would shut down the Frosty Drew Observatory and trigger the federal government to take back Ninigret Park. Utter nonsense.

For more examples of the way the CCA fakes some issues and generally pumps up issues beyond recognition, read “Fear and Loathing in Charlestown Politics” by clicking HERE.

The CCA has shown little interest in any other environmental issue other than open space. They routinely ignored hazardous waste problems, especially at Ninigret Park dating back to the decommissioned Ninigret Naval Air Field. They effectively banned all wind power, even small residential units. They botched the fight against the Copar Quarry and even allowed the mob-connected owners to acquire a second quarry in Charlestown.

They claim they are leaders in the climate change fight, even though they have done nothing, other than to claim credit. Real credit goes to our state Senator, Victoria Gu, and state Representative, Tina Spears, both Democrats, for getting legislative passed and funding for climate resilience.

Charlestown Residents United (CRU) in its two years in office has not caused the environmental disaster predicted by the CCA and, in fact, kept a steady, even hand on environmental matters and clearly states it intends to protect our rural community.

Housing. The CCA has opposed all forms of new housing. Period. They have been tolerant toward some building by rich people in their voter strongholds along the shoreline, but remain adamantly opposed to affordable housing, workforce housing, family housing or senior citizens housing.

Former CCA leader George Tremblay even claimed that building elderly housing will only attract rich senior citizen speculators who will buy affordable senior housing and then flip it as market-rate housing. He based this on a debunked story out of New York City.

The CCA’s primary weapon to block housing has been exclusionary zoning accompanied by nitpicking and delay to drive up costs. Planning Commissar Ruth Platner, now running for Town Council, was the master of exclusionary zoning. She covered her practices by claiming that families with children were a plague because they would cost taxpayers beaucoup cash when the kids attend Chariho, even concocting a mathematical formula to “prove” her thesis.

Charlestown Residents United (CRU) has not been able to overcome Platner’s roadblocks, though a lot hinges on the November election. The CRU’s stated position is to support affordable housing for Charlestown’s “workforce, seniors and adult children.” Getting this done will require the CRU to hold the Council majority and change the majority on the Planning Commission.

Secrecy and cover-ups, panic and alarm. Under the CCA, we saw one shady land deal after another, often overshadowed by fake alarms and outside threats, whether from the Tribe, Amtrak or “others.” Often the truth behind these deals and bogus alarms was uncovered by diligent investigation through the town’s public records.

Stonewall Stankiewicz
The CCA figured out they might get less grief if they had their stooge, ex-Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz “weaponize” the Access to Public Records Act,” RI’s open records law. Starting with “SPAgate,” Stanwiewicz slowed responses to records request to the maximum allowed by the law, used every exemption to withhold records, blacked out vast amounts of text in whatever records were finally released, and charged the maximum fees they could get away with.

The CCA says it is pledged to “provide open, honest, responsible leadership. Their track record says otherwise.

The candidates

Both the CRU and the CCA are running full slates of five candidates for Town Council. Both are a mix of Democrats and Republicans. The only two “independents” are hardline CCA people, the aforementioned Ruth Platner and her puppet, former town Council member Bonnita Van Slyke.

Four of the CRU slate – Deb Carney, Rippy Serra, Steve Stokes and Peter Slom – are already on the Council and have a commendable record as previously discussed. The fifth CRU candidate is well known Breachway Grill restauranteur Craig Marr.

Based on their records, characters and the strength of the CRU’s performance in its first term, they’ve got my vote.

I’ve already given you ample reasons why Ruth Platner is not qualified to serve on the Town Council. Her pal Bonnie Van Slyke holds all the same beliefs, but with an added deficit of consistently making goofy arguments that are filled with lies and nonsense.

I wrote an entire series labeled “Slyke of Hand” devoted to fact-checking and rebutting Van Slyke’s nonsense. CLICK HERE for the final installment.

About the remaining three CCA candidates, to paraphrase Donold Trump, some might be “very fine people,” but all I really know about them is that they were willing to run as CCA candidates while appearing on the ballot under their registered parties, despite having no actual ties to the local Democratic or Republican committees.

I can say this about them: if you run under the CCA label, you are not a free-thinking individual. You must toe the CCA party line, meaning strict obedience to Ruth Platner, or you will be punished.

The CCA set their Politburo style right from the start by purging their first elected Town Council. They won a clear majority but turned on their own people. Why? The CCA Councilors supported wind power development in Charlestown largely because at that time, the CCA was pro-wind, especially their leader Tom Gentz.

But after the Sachem Passage Association made a political deal with Gentz’s partner in crime Dan Slattery to do a 180-degree turn to oppose wind power in the form of the Whalerock wind development, the CCA Council majority couldn’t keep up with the shift. The CCA excommunicated them.

In its second run for power, the CCA ran a brand new slate, led by former wind-supporter but now opponent Tom Gentz and Dan Slattery and ousted all but two of the former CCA apostates.

On those rare occasions when a CCA Council member has failed to obey Platner, they usually come to the next meeting to push for an opposite position. For example, CCA’s Susan Cooper initially voted her common sense to end anti-Indian Joe Larisa’s contract, but at the next meeting, after a trip to the woodshed, Cooper pushed a “Motion to Reconsider” to reverse her own vote and rehire Larisa.

The CCA truly seems to still believe in absolute obedience. When I named names in reporting on the CCA’s financial screw-ups, Van Slyke took to the letters to the editor column of the Westerly Sun to blast me for defaming the reputations of ex-Budget Commission chair Dick Sartor and ex-Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz. By telling the truth.

Van Slyke actually said “One would hope that the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee might put an end to the telling of whoppers such as this one spouted by someone who is a CDTC member.”

That may be the way the CCA operates, but that’s not how it works in a democracy. And that’s the last reason I offer for voting to keep the Charlestown Residents United (CRU) majority.

"So what?" is the MAGA motto

By Ann Telnaes

In case you were wondering what's bugging Blake Filippi these days....

 ...Here's the answer

Former Charlestown state Rep Blake "Flip" Filippi has turned into a Robert F. "Worm Ate My Brain" Kennedy Jr. fan with several favorable "tweets" on Elon Musk's "X" platform.

Flip's most recent tweet highlights the debunked conspiracy theory that offshore wind turbines are responsible for killing whales. Here it is:

Legislative Study Commission Hopes to Prepare R.I. for Climate Impacts

Charlestown state Rep. Tina Spears on the Commission

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

Tina (left) and Charlestown state Senator Victoria Gu have
been working hard on this issue
Rhode Island’s students aren’t the only ones expected to learn this fall; a select number of lawmakers, environmental officials, and stakeholders have been summoned to assess any future impacts from supercharged storms aimed at the state.

Its official name is a mouthful — the Special Legislative Study Commission on Climate Change Impacts and Solutions — with an equally long agenda and a member roster to match. 

Over the next seven months the new commission will meet once a month to hear testimony and discuss future impacts of climate change, from storms and sea level rise impact on biodiversity and habitats, to the loss of property tax revenue from waterfront property, to increasing insurance costs related to extreme weather.

Rhode Island has been no stranger to strong, intense storms, but it’s not the infamous Hurricane of 1938 that lawmakers have been inspired by. A trio of stronger-than-usual nor’easters whacked the state last winter, causing an epidemic of coastal flooding and beach erosion in all of the state’s coastal communities.