“Man Drills 22 Holes in His Head – AND LIVES!"

The first review of tonight’s Town Council meeting

By Will Collette

Some years ago, one of the national tabloids (National Inquirer or one of those) ran the headline in the usual humongous typeface “Man drills 22 holes in his head – AND LIVES!” The body of the story was pretty much a reprint of a police report about the cops finding a guy who committed suicide by drilling 23 holes in his head with a power drill. It’s the last one that kills you.

With that parable in mind, here is a quick review of the Monday night Charlestown Town Council November meeting.

The big items:

• Charlestown Democrats propose a new tax credit plan that will save you a lot of money; Council majority not interested
• Dems – and a whole bunch of audience members - blast Town Council majority for bogus residential wind ordinance
• Town Council undergoes major reorganization
• James Mageau is mad (do you really want to know what he’s mad about?)
• Deputy Dan Slattery wants to assemble another posse to go after Chariho
• Packing the Affordable Housing Commission – the CCA attempts to load up the Commission with anti-Affordable Housing people to support Platner-Gentz anti-affordable housing proposal.

Tax Cut for Charlestown Residents. For me, the big headline is the proposal by the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee for a new tax break that would benefit middle-income, full-time residents through a Homestead Tax Credit.

My colleague Tom Ferrio made the presentation to the Council on behalf of the CDTC and you can get the details on the proposal in his article that appears here. 

The Town Council’s reaction: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No comment. Nothing. But this is only the first step in an organizing process to win tax relief for town residents.

Jim Mageau Goes Nuclear. Mageau came to this Council meeting spoiling for a fight and stood at the podium for his 15 minutes to spew hate at his usual enemies. I had predicted his presentation pretty accurately in my Town Council preview here. The only things I have to add is a nice turn of phrase Mageau had for the Friends of Ninigret – he called them a “phantom group.” He accused the group of being a front for some other phantom group (or maybe it’s the same phantom group) that wants to build a $1.5 million entertainment complex at Ninigret Park. And maybe Wayne Newton will do three shows a night there.

Ill Wind Blows through Council Once Again. As predicted, the CCA alliance on the the Town Council – Tom Gentz, Deputy Dan Slattery and Lisa DiBello - voted to adopt a new ordinance (#344) to effectively ban Charlestown homeowners from being able to install wind energy generators.

I’ve already written in detail why this ordinance will make it impossible for homeowners to actually comply.

Tim Quillen again rose on behalf of Charlestown Democrats to oppose this ordinance and to denounce the dishonest way in which Ruth Platner, the Planning Commission and the Town Council majority have handled this issue. You may recall that when Tim asked to speak in September, the CCA majority wanted to ban him from speaking on behalf of the CDTC. His full remarks will be printed in tomorrow’s Progressive Charlestown.

And a surprising number of other audience members rose to oppose Ordinance 344. Planning Commissar Ruth Platner and Commissioner George Tremblay rose to defend Ordinance 344, repeating the same misrepresentations they included into recent letters to the editor – and frequently getting the facts wrong. Town Planner Ashley Hahn had to correct their misstatements on how broadly the restrictions of the Ordinance applies – i.e. to ALL wind generators, regardless of size.

The ordinance authors were asked to speak on the record about how much it would cost a homeowner to get a RI-licensed professional engineer to approve and stamp a residential wind generator. Deb Carney asked how much it was going to cost for a homeowner to get the required sound analysis.

Interestingly, the Planning Commission authors and the three Council members who voted for this ordinance had no idea how much any of these items would cost. And they expressed no particular interest in finding out.

For the duration of this Council’s tenure and probably for the duration of the Planning Commission majority’s tenure, wind energy is DEAD in Charlestown.

But kudos to Gregg Avedisian for once again standing up to the CCA Council majority and trying to stop that majority from preventing Charlestown from embracing renewable energy.

Who needs affordable housing?

Affordable Housing Sneak Attack. The Platner-Gentz Affordable Housing Deconstruction Act was not officially on the agenda tonight. Town Council President Tom Gentz decided not to put it on this month’s agenda after botching several presentations where he made it clear that he did not understand his own proposal and the devastating effect it would have on the state’s affordable housing efforts.

But anticipating next steps, the Council acted on three new appointments to the Affordable Housing Commission, all of whom are certain to give the Platner-Gentz proposal a glowing review, unlike the current Commission majority who think it is a terrible idea.

Councilor Gregg Avedisian tried to get the Council to consider not just the three CCA-put up candidates, but an additional five people who filed applications within 24 hours of those 3. This is one of the rare occasions where there are more people wanting to serve on a commission (eight in total) than there are vacancies (there are four).

There was heated discussion within the Council and from the audience to the Council. The house was clearly split between those who want to kill affordable housing, both in Charlestown and around the state – they wanted an immediate vote on the three new people. And the other camp were supporters of affordable housing – they wanted to see all eight applicants considered. 

Deb Carney noted that the Council Rules require the Council to appoint the “most qualified persons” to town commissions, and you can’t do that by voting for the three and then let the remaining five applicants compete for the single remaining seat.

Current Affordable Housing Commission chair Evelyn Smith noted that if you want the best qualified commission members, picking them on a first-come, first-chosen basis is probably not the best way.

But predictably, Avedisian’s motion to postpone was defeated by the CCA majority and the CCA majority then proceeded to stack the commission with the three CCA people..

But stacking the Affordable Housing Commission to get a favorable opinion on a terrible proposal only puts lipstick on the pig. Shame on Gentz! And shame on Platner and the CCA!

"Hold still. I want to check the numbers."

Deputy Dan’s new project. According to the e-bleat the Charlestown Citizens Alliance sent out to promote this Council meeting, the top highlight was going to be Deputy Dan Slattery unveiling a new initiative for more transparency in the Chariho budget. In a flurry of rhetoric, Slattery castigated the Chariho School system for having a budget that didn’t make sense to him – to use his repeated term, “the numbers don’t add up.”

Deb Carney again rose to note that the Chariho budget is done according to a strict format mandated by the state and, even though she isn’t a big fan of that format, it was approved by the state.

Deputy Dan’s motion – to my astonishment – failed when only he and Gentz voted for it. Gregg Avedisian voted no. Marge Frank and Lisa DiBello abstained. Under the Town Charter, votes by the Council can only be won by votes of 3 or more.

So Deputy Dan’s new crusade, given top billing in the CCA’s latest e-bleat, fizzled.

We’ll have more coverage throughout the week, but a couple quick closing items.

The Spanish Inquisition. Nobody was expecting it and it didn’t arrive. I had speculated that we might see a repeat of Council President Tom Gentz’s bizarre vendetta against the Breachway Grill, one of the few promising new businesses to open in Charlestown, on their new liquor license application. But I guess Gentz realized what a screw-up he made the last time and didn’t say a word against them this time.

Town Council Reorganization. The town Charter calls for the Town Council to reorganize itself in the mid-year of its term and to make any adjustments in its membership or leadership as needed. I had hoped for this to be the time when Tom Gentz, Deputy Dan Slattery and Lisa DiBello handed in their resignations. That didn’t happen. Instead, the Town Council decided to reorganize itself by staying exactly the same: Gentz as President, Deputy Dan as Vice-President and the rest as they were.

As I noted in the preview, Tom Gentz’s performance as Council President has deteriorated month to month. I kept a running tally of unforced errors and at by the end of the night, they totaled 14 Tom Gentz gaffes.

Oh, and if you watch the Council meeting on Clerkbase, you’re not going to see the usual better-quality image. Council meetings are usually recorded by a decent tripod-mounted camera but Cable Access is no longer going to send the camera to the meetings. So what you will see is an image from the crappy ceiling mounted camera that is used for Planning Commission meetings.

And the Council plans to burn DVDs of these crappy quality images and will send them for broadcast on cable access. No doubt to monster ratings!