TONIGHT: Charlie gets his MOU

And he’ll milk it for all its worth

By Will Collette

Charlestown's federal overseer Charlie Vandemoer

On the July 9 Town Council agenda is the consideration of perhaps the last chapter in the Battle of Ninigret Park, the phony conflict concocted by CCA Council members Deputy Dan Slattery and Boss Tom Gentz. Click here for all our coverage.

As you may recall, last March, Deputy Dan and Boss Gentz reveals a terrible though imaginary crisis: the federal government was on the verge of taking back Ninigret Park because we had displeased CharlieVandemoer, our federal overseer from the Fish and Wildlife Service, and Elyse LaForest of the National Park Service’s Federal Lands to Park program.

Deputy Dan declared that we had a moral, ethical and legal obligation to give up our stewardship of Ninigret and place its fate in the hands of overseer Vandemoer. Boss Gentz concurred, fearing that if we didn’t surrender control of Ninigret Park, the feds would take the Park back forthwith.

Ron Areglado - shocked that we offended the feds

The CCA echo chorus, especially new CCA Town Council candidate Ron Areglado with backing from Planning Commissar Ruth Platner, agreed that the one best way to handle this perceived threat to the town’s property rights in the Park was to surrender immediately.

Well, since then, the actual facts have come out and, it turns out, Ninigret was in no danger. Indeed, a mass of records and e-mails by Charlie Vandemoer, released under the federal Freedom of Information Act, show a very different picture.

The trigger for the Battle of Ninigret Park was a letter Vandemoer wrote to the RI Department of Environmental Management where he tried to kill state funding sought by Charlestown Parks and Recreation for dark-sky friendly sports lights. There are no records to indicate that Vandemoer tried to discuss his concerns with the town before writing a stab-in-the-back letter to the state.

Deputy Dan looking for more varmints

Deputy Dan Slattery, who was cc’d on Vandemoer’s letter, took Vandemoer’s letter not as an insult to the town, but as a call to arms for another one of his posse crusades. Slattery and Vandemoer concocted their own theory of why Charlestown really doesn’t have any control over Ninigret Park, even though it holds the deeds.

Indeed, Slattery made double use of the material Vandemoer provided him – Slattery pushed for a series of motions to drastically change town policy at Ninigret Park and to create a whole new, hand-picked group of “stakeholders” who would wield control over Ninigret. The Parks and Recreation Commission would be subservient to this new group. And, as an added bonus, Slattery used the “crisis” of Ninigret Park as the basis for the CCA “Kill Bill” campaign that drove Town Administrator Bill DiLibero out of Charlestown.

But eventually the facts caught up with Deputy Dan. Even though he succeeded in smearing DiLibero enough to force him out, Slattery himself got spanked by the facts.

Even when Vendemoer and Elyse LaForest made major presentations before the Town Council, Vandemoer got no support from his federal colleague on his scheme for a formal agreement of cooperation between Charlestown and the feds.

LaForest: Feds weren't taking back Ninigret and she don' need no stinking MOU

Indeed, Ms. LaForest said she felt no need for any additional document – “everything I need is in the deed,” she said.

But Charlie and Deputy Dan needed something after all those months of struggle, so on Monday night, the Council will vote on a draft MOU (“Memorandum of Understanding”) written by Vandemoer.

The Council had given the task of writing a document - an MOU or whatever - to Town Solicitor Peter Ruggiero. But in the end, I guess it's the victor, in this case Charlie Vandemoer, who gets to write the surrender document.

On its surface, this document seems innocuous because all it says is the town and Charlie will talk to each other early on during any project at the Park.

And that, incidentally, is exactly what Vandemoer didn’t do when he wrote that nasty kill-the-grant letter to DEM last January that brought us to this point. Somewhere along the line, Deputy Dan and Boss Gentz forgot that it was Vandemoer’s breach of common courtesy that created this whole controversy.

Somehow, Gentz and Slattery decided it was the town’s fault for making poor ole Charlie have to take such drastic action.

Somewhere along the line, Gentz and Slattery forgot they were elected by Charlestown voters and do not work for Charlie Vandemoer, even though Charlie has been acting like a sixth member of the Town Council for the past two years.

So Charlie will probably get his MOU on Monday. Good luck to him on that, because it is good only for a year. I would love to see the secret side-agreement Charlie got from Gentz and Slattery – but don’t be surprised if you see Charlie getting his own office and desk at Town Hall.