Unanswered Y-Gate questions

While the crisis may be over, some mysteries remain

By Will Collette

One possible use that would fit right in with the existing buildings

For now, Charlestown taxpayers seem to have escaped getting mugged by the Charlestown Land Trust, Sonquipaug Association and Westerly YMCA over the Y-Gate Scandal.

Instead of fighting all summer over whether taxpayers would have to pay for a junked out campground that next-door vacation home owners want to use as an extension of their backyards, we are told the Westerly Y has sold the land to a private buyer.

We still do not know the identity of the unnamed “private developer” who signed a deal with the Westerly Y to buy the Y’s abandoned, derelict 27.5 acre campground on Watchaug Pond or for how much. The last asking price made public was $600,000, a 46% mark-up on the most recent appraisal of $412,000.

We also don’t know what this private developer’s plans are for the property, which is zoned “open space/recreational,” but as Councilor Lisa DiBello pointed out, there are a lot of permissible uses for land with that designation. In Charlestown, we have a yacht club, several shooting clubs and the Shelter Harbor Golf Club all with that same zoning designation.

Or this.

Under Charlestown’s zoning use table, this property, as currently zoned, could be used for:

• riding stables, 
• a golf course or driving range, 
• a fish hatchery, 
• a farm stand,
• a fitness center, 
• a library, 
• a venue for live entertainment.

With a special use permit, it could be used for:

• a crematorium, 
• shooting range or 
• sewage pumping station.

This town has some strange ideas about what constitutes open space/recreation, as this list - and Planner Ashley Hahn-Morris's recent list - shows.

Another potential use

Two prominent Charlestown property owners directly neighbor the Y camp – CCA Councilor Dan Slattery to the north and Sonquipaug “Mayor” Joanne D’Alcomo to the south so it will be interesting to see how they react to whatever use the new land owner – presuming there really is a deal – proposes for the property.

There’s also the question of the Donoghue v. Charlestown litigation. After the Town Council voted last February to pay $475,000 for a worthless conservation easement from the Charlestown Land Trust to pay the Y $730,000 for the land, Dr. Jack Donoghue halted the transaction by suing the town for failing to abide by the Open Meetings Act.

The judge in that case recently ruled that the actions of the Town Council did indeed violate the Act and also authorized Dr. Donoghue’s lawyer Maggie Hogan to pursue the truth in the other major allegation, that the town’s ad hoc YMCA study group also violated the Open Meetings Act.

This group actually never bothered to follow the law – never posted agendas, never published minutes (actually, they never TOOK minutes). The town’s argument is that the group wasn’t actually a public body covered by the Open Meetings Law.

Remember that the next time you hear Council incumbents talk about “open and transparent government.”

Anyway, the culpability of the ad hoc group is still an open question, as is the question of the Town’s potential liability for fines due to repeated Open Meetings violations as well as attorney’s fees.

There is the unanswered question of how much the Charlestown Land Trust raised from people to buy the camp. Now that the Land Trust isn’t going to buy the camp, are they going to keep the money?

And how much did they actually raise? At one point in the process, the Land Trust had pledged in its grant application to DEM that it would raise ALL of the $370,000 in matching funds through its own private fund-raising.

Then, the number dropped to $100,000 when the Land Trust convinced a Council majority last February to authorize $475,000 in town money.

Then the pledge disappeared for a while – indeed, between the amounts the state had pledged and the town had pledged, the total amount of taxpayer money was more than the Y’s asking price.

But then most recently, in the last gasps to keep Y-Gate alive, the Land Trust pledged to include some amount between $25,000 and $50,000.

All the while, it has been holding one fund-raiser after another.

So, Charlestown Land Trust, how much did you raise and what are you going to do with the money?

And while we’re on the subject of absent disclosures from the Land Trust, we’d still like to see that last land assessment, the one that pegged the property as worth $412,000. I think we’d all like to determine whether you finally did it honestly. And the engineers’ reports that you claimed showed there were no environmental hazards on the property.

There are, after all, two densely populated neighborhoods abutting the camp to the north and south.

I don’t know if last week’s news that the YMCA signed with another buyer truly means an end to Y-Gate. There’s always the chance the deal will fall through.

The Donoghue case is still open and there are still several questions the Charlestown Land Trust should answer if it wants to rebuild its reputation.

Who knows if the drama is over? When the new owner is revealed, most likely when he, she or they comes forward with a new use plan for the site, will Mayor D’Alcomo rally her Sonquipaug troops once again to do battle against those who would deny her a taxpayer-financed play land? 

P.s. If the new owner decides to put a crematorium on the site, click here for the PERFECT accessory to use when your time comes. If you're a Democrat.