By Will Collette
As the week comes to a close, there is at least a partial
answer to the question of how the $475,000 gift of taxpayer money to the Charlestown Land Trust will be handled.
On Friday afternoon, Acting Town Administrator Pat Anderson
e-mailed me to report that Charlestown ’s
Bond Counsel recommended placing the town’s $475,000 purchase of the conservation easement that is essential to the execution of this scam (my opinion, not hers)
on the June ballot as a separate warrant item on its own merits.
But it will be up to the Town Council majority to decide whether to take Bond Counsel’s advice or, instead, try to bury the money in the back pages of the town’s general budget. That later choice would force voters to reject the entire budget if they disapprove of the Y-Gate scam. It may also violate the Town Charter.
Read the entire e-mail string by clicking here.
This is one of the core controversies in the ongoing Y-Gate Scandal Progressive Charlestown has covered for the past year.
This is one of the core controversies in the ongoing Y-Gate Scandal Progressive Charlestown has covered for the past year.
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| If Sonquipaug leader JoAnne D'Alcomo wants the Y camp, go ahead and buy it – but not with taxpayer money |
The principal beneficiaries of the Y-Gate deal would be the
Sonquipaug neighborhood, who would get a de facto expansion of their backyards
at no cost to themselves; the Charlestown Land Trust, which would score its
biggest land deal yet; and the Westerly YMCA, which would get $730,000 for the
land based on an appraisal that was described by the appraiser himself as based on “hypotheticals known to be false.”
The Y-Gate schemers are also counting on $367,000 coming
from the state, but have run into a snag where DEM wants another, more honest appraisal done.
When the Town Council majority agreed that Charlestown
should spend $475,000 to buy a “conservation easement” of the type the
Charlestown Land Trust describes as not only worthless, but an actual
liability, to finance the deal, citizens protested that the matter needed to go
to the voters.
Y-Gate plotters retorted that the Town Charter does not
require a new vote when funds are drawn from an already voter-approved Bond, in
this instance, the $2 million Open Space/Recreation Bond.
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| Sartor's proposal to buy the Y Camp out of the town budget surplus is a terrible idea |
The Town Charter requires that any new land acquisition of $50,000 or more not made under an existing Bond fund or similar funding source
has to go to the voters.
According to Acting Town Administrator Anderson, Charlestown ’s Bond Counsel
said that the purchase of a “conservation easement” was the same thing as the
purchase of land. Indeed, even though the transaction is obscured by its complex
structure, it is, she said, a land buy subject to the requirements of the
Charter.
But that’s her opinion. Since the Y-Gate deal is now being done without the use of existing bond
authority, her opinion may not matter to the die-hard open-space junkies who
seem determined to pick the pockets of Charlestown
taxpayers. It may not matter to some Town Council members who only seem to follow the law when it suits their agendas.
Pat Anderson says this issue will be discussed on Monday at the
public hearing on the Town Budget at 7 PM at Town Hall.
The current Town Council has become increasingly
unpredictable and erratic, so there’s no telling what they will do with the
Bond Counsel’s advice.
In my opinion, the only fair and reasonable choice for the
Town Council is to put Y-Gate before the voters on its own merits, where, again
in my opinion, it will get the thrashing it deserves. Or they could do the most honorable thing and just kill this awful deal now, once and for all.
If they do, then I hope the Land Trust and Sonquipaug will do the good and honest thing as well – if they want the land, go ahead and buy it, but not with taxpayer money.
If they do, then I hope the Land Trust and Sonquipaug will do the good and honest thing as well – if they want the land, go ahead and buy it, but not with taxpayer money.