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| Bill DiLibero |
This photo does not mean that I am continuing the Frick and Frack theme.
This was not a week of momentous town meetings but somehow Progressive Charlestown set a new weekly readership record.
Read on to find out how.
By Tom Ferrio
As I write this I have just returned from the town Volunteer Appreciation Picnic followed by the final Concert in the Park for this season. The volunteers attending their picnic appreciated the extra work by town staff and Town Council members to serve food and chat with the people attending. The Town Council members I talked to were very nice and gracious to me, even the ones who know my name!
The photo above does not show town administrator Bill DiLibero preparing plates of food for himself. He was caught bringing burgers from the grill to the serving table.
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| Never Enuff playing in Ninigret Park (click to enlarge) |
The picnic was followed by the final Concert in the Park, open to everyone, featuring Never Enuff playing classic rock. Last Wednesday I rashly predicted scattered showers and proved so wrong on Thursday and Friday that I worried for the weekend. But the weather took a turn for the better, much better in fact, for Saturday and Sunday for this concert and also for Swamp Yankee Day Festival in Ashaway. The concert was great and I'm sorry I had to leave early to write this article.
The ongoing saga of Frick and Frack
The most-read story of the week was my documentary about an email exchange with Jim Mageau. I think the video clip was compelling. I now rush to pick up my Westerly Sun each day and scan the editorial page for Letters to the Editor.
Monopoly at the beach
The opening segments in Will's investigative series reveal a curious set of facts surrounding our town beach concessions over the last 10 years. I, for one, am looking forward to future articles in this series. I will say that the articles published so far have led to a couple very interesting conversations that may contribute to those future articles.
Red light cameras
This topic has even exposed the full range of opinions among your Progressive Charlestown writers. Will was certainly influenced by the killing of Colin Foote and that is reflected in the tone of his writing on this topic. I expect to seen an article by Linda Felaco in the next day or two.
Life at Progressive Charlestown
A friend mentioned to me today that our weekend articles are different. With all of the local stories we have been publishing during the week we haven't had the space to put in as many national stories and opinion pieces as we would like. This weekend we concentrated on reducing some of that backlog and you may see that sort of national story emphasis on the weekend in the future.
I'm sure it wasn't the biggest thing in your life but installing our new, cleaner, and, we hope, more readable layout for Progressive Charlestown was a death-defying act for me. Let us know if you have any complaints or suggestions.
Along those lines, we also tried to better explain how to keep up with new articles on Progressive Charlestown and how to share them with your friends. Please know that we're not going to ask you to send us email addresses of all of your friends. You can share an article or two with your friends and they can decide whether they are interested enough to see more.
The week ahead
The Affordable Housing Commission and the Planning Commission will both be tackling their report to the Town Council on the Shannock Village Cottages 100% affordable rental housing units. I went on a walking tour of the property as a public observer with the Affordable Housing Commission last week and was both surprised and pleased with the piece of property. I'll be reporting on that visit plus the meetings this week.
The Planning Commission is also scheduled to hold the Site Plan Review for the new town beach facilities and we look forward to reporting on that.