Comments
presented to the Charlestown Town Council, August 20, 2012
By Frank Glista
Recently, our citizens have been
subjected to observing two members of this respected body attempting to persecute
one of our citizens during the Council Comments section of their agenda. It was bad enough to watch the President of
our Town Council allow people to gang up on one of our local business owners
without using his authority to control those attacks, as we witnessed back in
July, but now he and Councilor DiBello have engaged in that activity
themselves.
I have worked with all of you
individually and have the utmost respect for anyone who occupies a council seat. Each person elected should hold themselves to
the highest standard of honor, civility and fairness. The citizens of Charlestown have entrusted
you with the responsibility of guiding our town through a maze of difficult and
complex decisions. Once sworn in, it no
longer becomes a matter of personal or party agenda. You should be willing to lead all of our townspeople, not just a select
few.
Whether we agree with you or not,
whether we voted for you or not is no longer the issue. You took the oath of office to protect and
defend our state constitution and the constitution of the United States. Each month we rise and pledge allegiance to
this great nation and the freedoms we have been blessed with, the freedom of
assembly, the freedom of speech and of course the freedom of the press.
On Saturday August 4, Tim Ryan, the president
and publisher of the Westerly Sun wrote an editorial that dealt with the issue
of a Westerly Town Council Member objecting to being misquoted by his
newspaper. He stated, "I don't
think using a council meeting as a forum for one councilor to take up a
personal complaint against one reporter is appropriate. He continued, "The council's responsibility is to conduct town business.
The issue at hand was deemed not worthy of public discussion by the
council."
For Town Council Members, Gentz and
DiBello to use their council seat to discredit any citizen, is an abuse of
power that undermines the honor and the integrity of the office that they have sworn
to uphold. Even your own Council Rules
and Procedure 9.1 states:
He or she shall confine his or her
remarks to the question under debate and shall avoid personalities.
If one still wishes to engage in this
type of activity, remove yourself from your council seat and speak from the
podium as a citizen just as many other Town Council Members have done in the
past.
The citizens of our town do not need to
be dictated to as to what we should read or write by this or any other council,
as Council President Gentz had suggested last month........I resent that
implication.
Lately, there has been much discussion
about the Progressive Charlestown Blog.
Some make reference to this being the Charlestown Democratic Town
Committee's web site...it is not. Our
town committee has absolutely no
input or control of that or any other blog.
Some of our citizens may not be able to identify
the word "blog" so I will do my best to define that term;
A blog is a discussion or
information site.....published on the World
Wide Web consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically
displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears
first. Until 2009 blogs were usually the
work of a single individual or occasionally of a small group.
More recently "multi-author blogs"
have developed. Author's from
newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, interest groups and
similar institutions account for an increasing proportion of blog traffic. Although not a must, most good quality blogs
are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each
other.
On August 5th, Town Council President,
Gentz wrote a "Letter to the Editor" regarding the lost opportunity
for Charlestown regarding the "Y" property. He stated, "The local Charlestown
Democrats called foul and lamented the Town Council's refusal to re-zone the
property to R-2A."
This is a total
falsehood.
The Charlestown Democratic
Town Committee never stated an opinion on the re-zoning of this property.
Our citizens will hear much political
posturing from the CCA about Progressive Charlestown and Democrats being one in
the same, but as I stated earlier, we are not.
His comment prompted my review of Progressive
Charlestown for its article content regarding the subject matter in his
"Letter to the Editor". This
is what I found;
SUNDAY,
AUGUST 5, 2012
Ø DEAD ZONE DOWN
(THANKING THE DROUGHT FOR SOMETHING)
BY:
TIM WALL / DISCOVERY NEWS
Ø LIFE SAVING LAW
(IMPORTANCE OF ONE OF THE AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE ACTS KEY PROVISIONS)
BY:
DAVID ELLIOT
Ø NO HUNTING
LICENCE NEEDED (VOLUNTEERS NEEDED TO HELP TREE SURVEY AT BURLINGAME STATE PARK)
BY:
RIDEM NEWS RELEASE
Ø ANOTHER TROLL
BITES THE DUST (SO LONG RIGHT TO WORK)
BY:
BOB PLAIN
SATURDAY,
AUGUST 4, 2012
Ø STAR-GAZING AND
LOVE (HUMOR)
FROM:
FAKE SCIENCE
Ø REAL NOWHERE MEN
(AND WOMEN) (NOWHERE ISLAND IS ABOUT LIVING KINDLY, GOVERNING GENTLY AND NOT
TAKING ONESELF TOO SERIOUSLY)
BY:
PETER CERTO
Ø UPDATE: ELECTRIC
CAR SALES (SLOWER THAN EXPECTED IN 2012)
BY:
TOM FERRIO
Ø SUMMER'S ALMOST
OVER, HAVE YOU BEEN TO THE HITCHING POST YET?
(RESTAURANT REVIEW)
BY:
LINDA FELACO
Ø OLYMPIC EMPHASIS
HAS SHIFTED (IN THE SUMMER OF 1968 PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS KEPT A STAR HOME.)
BY:
KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR /ESPN.COM
Ø ONE NATION,
UNDER THE GUN (WHY DO SO MANY AMERICANS BELIEVE THAT TO PROPERLY PROTECT
OURSELVES, WE NEED GUNS)
BY
WILLIAM A. COLLINS
FRIDAY,
AUGUST 3, 2012
Ø WHEN DO YOU HELP
A DROWNING PERSON? (WHEN THEY GIVE YOU
THE RIGHT ANSWER) (CARTOON / HUMOR)
BY
WILEY MILLER
Ø ASTRONOMY
PICTURE OF THE DAY (THE MILKY WAY OVER MONUMENT VALLEY)
FROM:
NASA
Ø TOMATO TAMPERING
BY
JIM HIGHTOWER
Ø GLIMMER OF HOPE
IN THE LOCAL RHODE ISLAND ECONOMIES
BY
WILL COLLETTE
THURSDAY,
AUGUST 2, 2012
Ø HOW TO KEEP
INVESTORS AND TOP EXECS HAPPY (CARTOON / HUMOR)
BY
JAN SORENSON
Ø THE FARM STANDS
OF CHARLESTOWN: 2012 EDITION
BY
LINDA FELACO
Ø OMG PD
BY
SAMANTHA TURNER / NARRAGANSETT SOUTH KINGSTOWN PATCH
Ø GREEN SCISSORS
FOR CONGRESS
BY
RYAN ALEXANDER
Ø ABEL COLLINS FOR
CONGRESS...2ND DISTRICT? (QUESTION MARK)
BY
WILL COLLETTE
WEDNESDAY,
AUGUST 1, 2012
Ø PERFECTLY
LOGICAL (CARTOON / HUMOR)
BY
TOM TOMORROW
Ø FIVE RHODE
ISLAND BEACHES RATE AMONG YANKEE MAGAZINE'S 25 BEST
BY
BOB PLAIN / R.I. FUTURE.ORG
Ø CHARLESTOWN GARDEN
FEEDS COMMUNITY
BY
FRANK CARINI / ECO R.I. NEWS
Ø RHODE ISLAND
LABOR HISTORY SOCIETY CELEBRATES 25TH ANNIVERSARY
BY
WILL COLLETTE
Ø UNANSWERED
"Y" GATE QUESTIONS
BY
WILL COLLETTE
22 posts over five days and the first
article regarding town business became available as post #23. This is typical of any 5 day period. But according to Council President Gentz in
reference to Mr. Collette and his blog..... and I quote "There is no
journalistic value as you have portrayed".
Really? I suggest you go back and
review the list that I have just mentioned.
In contrast with Progressive Charlestown, the CCA blog....which by the
way is directly affiliated with Charlestown Citizens Alliance Political Action Committees
web site, contains a series of rambling posts with one single purpose.... take
down the "insidious Democrats".
Progressive Charlestown was started in
February 2011. They have published over
2,372 articles and have had over 321,000 article reads during the last 19 months.
One major difference between the two
blog's is that Progressive Charlestown's articles are based on research and
public documents. You may not like their
interpretation of that information but you can't argue with the facts.
Over the years we have witnessed the CCA attacks
on Town Council Members, Town Employees, Department Heads and the Town
Administrator. To use the words of
Council President Gentz during Council Comments last month, "Name calling,
vile comments, distortion of facts and defamation of character," can all
be applied to CCA emails and blog activity over the past five years.
Many have stated that the Progressive
Charlestown blog pales in comparison to the long documented ruthless history of
the CCA's writings. They drew first
blood a long time ago.
Our Council President and the
Charlestown Citizens Alliance appear to have no problem criticizing individuals
that don't agree with them but offer nothing when their members gang up on a
lone commission member and verbally attack her for her views.......have no
problem when a member of your steering committee stalks Mr. Collette in a
grocery store trying to instigate a confrontation......have no problem with
that same member videotaping former members of the Town Council attempting to
intimidate those individuals.....we see where that got him. Are these your ideas of civility?
In June, Councilor Dibello used her time
during Council Comments to announce her candidacy for re-election. In over 20 years
of attending Town Council Meetings, I have never witnessed such behavior. To have used this forum to kick off her
campaign was totally inappropriate and self serving.
As
she was attacking Mr. Collette, she referenced her love for this town and its
people....I don't doubt this. But instead of portraying herself as the wounded
fawn, why not answer the questions that have many voters concerned about her candidacy. If not by the staff of Progressive
Charlestown, then she should pick someone to help clear the air..........if
not, then her silence will speak for itself.
In closing, I wish to commend the other
Town Council members who have shown great respect for the office they hold by
not entering into the fray of personal attacks toward any of our citizens. I
especially want to thank Council Member Dan Slattery for his professionalism
and restraint regarding this matter.
As Town Council Members, please refrain
from using this degrading behavior. Our
townspeople deserve better. Show us the
strength of your conviction and the promise of open, honest, transparent and
fair government for all of the citizens of Charlestown. As Americans, we should all be willing to
defend the rights and freedoms we each possess regardless of whether we agree or
disagree with the subject matter.
Thank you