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| Marcus Tullius Cicero (Wikimedia Commons) |
By Linda Felaco
I tweak logorrheic* CCA blogger Michael Chambers from time to
time, but he and I share a
fondness for Roman orator Cicero. Michael’s favorite Cicero quote is “The
causes of events are ever more interesting than the events themselves.”
Which, I grant you, is an excellent quote to keep in mind when considering the
actions of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance.
My favorite Cicero quote is “Cui bono?,” or “To whose
benefit?” I’ve frequently asked this question about the inner workings of the
town.
Who would have benefited from the town’s planned purchase of
a conservation easement on the YMCA’s abandoned campground on Watchaug Pond?
The Y, obviously, and the Charlestown Land Trust. And the Sonquipaug
Association, who would’ve thereby been spared from potentially having a few new
neighbors to the north. And anyone who felt there was some need for a few
hundred extra feet of pond frontage in addition to the miles and miles of
state-owned frontage, perhaps because they dislike having to rub elbows with
the unwashed masses at the state campgrounds. But the rest of us, not so much.
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| We've already got plenty of access to Watchaug Pond. (Note: This does not count toward our affordable housing quota.) |
Who benefits from Planning Commissar Ruth Platner’s cynical “solution”
to Charlestown’s affordable housing problem, the ordinances creating “Accessory
Family Dwelling Units” and “Income-Restricted Accessory Dwelling Units,” which
she herself admitted she didn’t expect anyone to ever build? These ordinances don’t
benefit people looking for affordable housing who are not family members of
Charlestown homeowners. Who’s going to sink the money into building an
accessory structure to rent out at below-market rates when they could rent at a
premium during the summer?
Nor does it benefit the distressed homeowner who might need
to rent out, say, an in-law suite in order to avoid foreclosure.
Nor does it benefit out-of-work construction workers or home
remodelers, many of whom live here in Charlestown, who could potentially get
some business constructing new housing units or converting vacant properties
into rental units. Not
that Ruth and her minions are any friends to anyone in the construction trades.
Who benefits from the CCA’s efforts to overturn the state
affordable housing law or get Charlestown exempted from it? Not the sons and
daughters of Charlestown families who would like to start new families in their
hometown, or town workers who would like to live where they work, especially
considering that there are no bus routes here in town.
Ironically, as
onerous as the CCA finds the state affordable housing law to be, the only
reason we have any affordable units to speak of is because the
state counts group home beds as “affordable housing.”
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| With the right color shingles, this might pass muster with the Planning Commission as affordable housing. |
Who benefits most from our low property tax rate that the
CCA is so fond of crowing about? Each percentage point of difference in the
rate means more in dollar terms to the owners of high-end properties than it
does to those of us in more moderately priced homes. But what do we actually
get for what we do pay in taxes? No
trash collection. No sidewalks. No public water supplies or sewage treatment. No
public transit. Hardly any streetlights (and
the CCA wants to get rid of the few we have). Volunteer firefighters, for
which we’re taxed separately, meaning that extra fraction of a percent should
be added to the overall tax rate. Only token social services in the form of a
small contribution to RI-CAN and paying RI-CAN Director Deb Nigrelli a stipend
to act as Town Welfare Director. Minimal staff, supplemented by volunteers of
whom there’s a chronic shortage.
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| Sure, we call the RI-CAN volunteers "Hometown Heroes," but how much do we actually fund them? |
Has anyone who’s served on a commission ever thought that
maybe they’d rather pay a little more in taxes in order to have a paid staffer
do the job instead? Or to at least have their steady support, rather than just
wing it as some of our commissions do (think Charter Revision Advisory
Committee)?
When I look around the state at what friends and family in
other cities and towns pay in property taxes, I can’t help but notice that they
get a lot more too. My mother pays a higher property tax rate in Cranston than we
do—but she’s spared the expense of owning a car, since she can get around on
the bus. My friend in Bristol pays a higher property tax rate than we do—but
she owns waterfront property and her neighborhood association owns its own
private beach. Plus she gets front-row seats to the Bristol Fourth of July
parade, the oldest in the country.
It’s one thing to want low taxes on the federal or even
state level because you don’t see enough direct benefit to yourself, or you
don’t feel like the taxing authorities are responsive enough to your needs. But
to demand low taxes in a small town like this is really saying that you don’t
trust your neighbors to spend the money effectively.
And still our nonresident property owners complain they are
overtaxed. Most commonly, they complain because they don’t use the Chariho
school system. Well, neither do I and neither do many other residents—but we
understand that things like schools and police protection are for the common
good, even if we don’t use them. And anyway, Chariho is a bargain compared to
the cost of
housing an incarcerated inmate at the ACI, which is where people
tend to end up who don’t get a decent education. Though that’s another cost the
out-of-staters don’t bear, since they don’t pay RI taxes.
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| Sure, we'd have lower taxes if we hadn't built these, but some things are worth paying for. |
What they (and the CCA) never seem to talk about is what it
costs those of us who live here year-round to maintain roads and infrastructure
and emergency services for all those summer visitors. We spend much of the off-season
picking
up the trash left behind by each summer’s guests. We even voted to tax
ourselves a million and change to build bathrooms at the town beaches that we
wouldn’t have to be embarrassed about. Charlestown is a bargain compared to the
Hamptons or the Connecticut shore. That’s why our guests come here—and then
they complain about paying their fair share.
In addition to being an orator, Cicero was a lawyer, and his
“who benefits?” question is also key in legal matters, especially when judging
motives. Usually, if you can puzzle out “who benefits” from an action, you will
also know who is driving it: “Look first to he who has the most to gain.”
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*Logorrheic = suffering from logorrhea, from the Greek logos, word, and rhoia, or flow. In other words, verbal diarrhea.
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*Logorrheic = suffering from logorrhea, from the Greek logos, word, and rhoia, or flow. In other words, verbal diarrhea.