Week in Review, October 16

Photo credit - Brian Thompson

We look back on an eventful week - with a short but important Town Council meeting and accusations that we at Progressive Charlestown are evil slanderous liars.


First, Some Short Reminders

Don't forget to get your flu shot! We still have two scheduled sessions in town, October 21 and November 3.

If you burn wood for heat don't think chimney fires are a myth. Action is needed to prevent fires.

Wind Energy

The Planning Commission worked fast to develop a residential wind ordinance. Of course they realized they could just use the residential portion of the one they replaced with a complete ban a couple months ago. It also continues to serve as an effective barrier to any wind turbines being erected in Charlestown as Will reported.

Affordable Housing

Tom Gentz seems to have learned from National politics because he says he is proposing changes to the State Affordable Housing law to "increase construction jobs". Gentz called them evolutionary adjustments but Will characterized it a little differently in his meeting summary as

• Article 1. Repeal the existing state affordable law and write a new one.
• Article 2. Under the new law, the state would have no power to require Charlestown to create any new affordable housing.
• Article 3. Charlestown doesn't care what the rest of the state does.
• Article 4. Have a nice day.

I must say that I am not comfortable with everything about the current State law. I have previously stated my discomfort with new construction that is only 10% affordable. But Mr. Gentz' speech about his intent was so opaque that it raises my skepticism. The worry is that the specifics will be developed in private and pushed through on a 3-2 vote at the next meeting. It is also telling that Gentz stated that he planned to exclude our Affordable Housing Commission from the process, except to comment on the completed proposal at the next Town Council meeting as individuals (subject to 2 minute speaking times I'm sure), until Marge Frank and Gregg Avedisian brought it up.

Evelyn Smith's comments at the meeting were quite impressive, showing her knowledge of how changes can be implemented, many without tackling the state law. This only emphasizes my confusion, or skepticism, of why the plan was to exclude her from the process.

We look forward to following this closely as it develops and keeping our readers informed.

Evil Slanderous Liars

I think the best analysis was done in a comment by Lin: Frequently, when articles and comments hit too close to home, individuals and their friends tend to protest that such articles and comments are mean spirited and evil and intended to harm the good work that said individuals (and organizations) do. That it's a conspiracy against them. I find it interested that the person who thinks PC has become mean-spirited and evil seems only to have commented after this series about Lisa DiBello began.

I have seen that behavior frequently on other blogs and news sites allowing comments. This week we received a remarkable email from a good friend of Lisa DiBello, on the day we published an article airing concerns about DiBello's charity A Ray of Hope. Our investigation of the charity accelerated after DiBello refused to release the legally required financial documents about A Ray of Hope. I find it amusing that someone would be called evil for publishing such concerns about a Town Council member.

In a similar vein, Jim Mageau has started a campaign of Letters to the Editor in the Westerly Sun. That has been reported sufficiently here and here with all related articles here. Mageau does not mention DiBello in his gripes but his campaign started after we wrote about his defense of DiBello in the Case of Frick and Frack.

Speaking of Lisa DiBello ...

The articles about DiBello and her charity are our most popular articles and we keep receiving additional information.

The next article in the series will be published after midnight tonight.

On a lighter note, our Linda Felaco and her husband were inspired by the possibility of success on a game show and did an audition for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, alas unsuccessfully.