Yet another reason why the YMCA Camp caper is a bad deal for Charlestown

As if you needed another

By Will Collette

Ten Reasons why the Y Camp is a bad Deal
Reason #11
Reason #12

Contained within two documents in one file on Clerkbase for last Wednesday’s Planning Commission meeting is yet another reason why Charlestown taxpayers should not pay for the abandoned YMCA Campground on Watchaug Pond.

One document is the application by the Charlestown Land Trust to RIDEM asking for DEM funding for the acquisition of the YMCA Camp. That proposal was written by Planning Commissar Ruth Platner. She recently denied she wrote it, but last July, she said that she did write it.

The other is an “Advisory Opinion” from the Planning Commission to the Town Council on whether the town should fund a large chunk of the money need to acquire the YMCA Camp (and give it to the Charlestown Land Trust, of which Platner was a Founding Member). Platner wrote that Advisory Opinion, too.

Even though both documents were written by the same person – Ruth Platner, who has an unacknowledged apparent conflict of interest – there is a glaring inconsistency that underscores why the YMCA Camp caper is bad for Charlestown.

First, let’s look at Page Two of the RIDEM grant application (which, by the way, was awarded a $367,000 state grant that must be matched with other funds). Let’s see how the grant application described how the deal will be financed:

Charlestown Land Trust application for funding to RIDEM, written by Ruth Platner

This document shows the requested $367,000 in state funds and states that ALL of the matching money will come from private individuals and fund-raising. None of it is supposed to come from town appropriations or bond money. None of it. This is the grant application that Platner wrote and that DEM based their approval on.

Fast forward to the new Advisory Opinion, written by Platner, and approved unanimously by her Planning Commission on January 25.

Now the Planning Commission recommends the Town Council approve spending an unspecified amount of town taxpayer funds to buy the land from the YMCA and give it to the Charlestown Land Trust. Here is the reason why we should pay up:

From the Planning Commission's Advisory Opinion to the Town Council, written by Ruth Platner, 
and approved on January 25

The amount to be paid to the YMCA is still unclear, according to the Advisory Opinion, but whatever the price turns out to be, we should happily consider it a gift to the Y.

However, the last time I checked, the YMCA charges people for the use of their facilities, regardless of what town they come from. According to the Westerly YMCA’s most recent IRS-990 report, they collected over $2.2 million from users of their facilities and services.

From the YMCA's 990 filing for 2010 with the Internal Revenue Service, page 9

[IRS-990 reports can be accessed for free on Guidestar.org. You must register with Guidestar, at no cost, to pull copies of these reports. I suggest you sign up at Guidestar, not just for this report but to check out other non-profit organizations. If a non-profit does not have an IRS-990 on file, you should think very seriously about whether to donate. Once you register and sign in, go to this URL for the YMCA's IRS 990 report: http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments//2010/050/268/2010-050268126-07856c90-9.pdf]

They also have a net asset balance of $9.4 million. Their executive director, Maureen Fitzgerald, receives a salary of $153,481 plus $16,432 in benefits for a total package of $169,913. A lot of municipalities would love to have such a balance sheet. A lot of Charlestown working people and retirees would like to have Maureen Fitzgerald's income.

The YMCA’s sale of the Watchaug Pond campground is not a distress sale by an organization desperate to raise funds.

Why the discrepancy between what Platner wrote for the state DEM and what she wrote for the Town Council?

Why do the taxpayers of Charlestown need to make a “donation” to the YMCA for their services when they already pay for them?

And finally, if we apply CCA-anointed Town Council Vice-President Deputy Dan Slattery’s principle that we should only give town money to the truly deserving and truly needy, why do we need to give the Westerly YMCA a six-figure “donation?”

P.S. There may also be a First Amendment problem with the Town of Charlestown "donating" several hundred thousand dollars to the YMCA, as suggested by Planning Commissar Ruth Platner:

YMCA 990 report to the Internal Revenue Service for 2010, page 1