Worried about a casino? About Whalerock?
By Will Collette
The election is over. The CCA tightened its grip on
Charlestown government. Planning Commissar Ruth Platner is reviewing the
catalogs looking for some Charlestown open space to buy for Christmas.
Here’s a Christmas gift suggestion: buy Larry LeBlanc’s 81
almost pristine acres sitting atop Charlestown’s moraine.
If the CCA is serious about open space (and we know they
are), here are five reasons why now is the time to restart negotiations with
LeBlanc.
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| Portion of the Charlestown moraine - note the circled area. That's Larryland |
If the CCA
really and truly fears the Narragansett Indian Tribe and really believes the
tribe wants to build a casino in Charlestown, then let’s buy the most likely
piece of land the tribe would need to acquire.
LeBlanc himself used the threat of a sale to the tribe to
leverage the town during negotiations in 2008. He made the unverified claim that he had been approached
by a casino promoter who offered him $20 million. At that time, LeBlanc offered the town the land for $5.5 million, then $4.5 million and then the Carcieri v. Salazar decision pretty blew up the deal.
Unless the CCA is just blowing smoke about their casino fears, their majority on the Town Council can decisively end that specter by taking that land off the table.
LeBlanc’s last offer was around $3 million. The land is assessed at around $1
million. There’s a deal to be made somewhere in between.
LeBlanc paid just over a million dollars originally and has
claimed that he was asked to buy the land by the town with the understanding
that the town would eventually buy the land from him. In his latest lawsuit
against Charlestown, a reprise of his wind farm lawsuit, LeBlanc claims he has
sunk $250,000 in experts and other costs for that project. I think LeBlanc is
sending us a message about what a fair price might be.
Reason #2: Whalerock
Industrial Wind Farm.
Larry LeBlanc has also proposed building a wind farm
on the site with two huge turbines. Nobody wants that project, probably not
even LeBlanc himself, who had once said the project wasn’t even his idea but
was suggested to him by a couple of former CCA-endorsed Town Council members.
Charlestown has been, and now still is, embroiled in complex, expensive litigation over a project no one wants. Buy the damned land from LeBlanc and
this headache is over. Including the lawsuits.
Reason #3: Affordable
Housing.
The CCA hates affordable housing, especially affordable housing
projects proposed by for-profit developers. In 2008, LeBlanc proposed a
125-unit condominium project for the site. He has since filed another project application (at the same time that he’s been
proposing the industrial wind farm), this time with 39 units.
His latest affordable housing scheme, like his proposed wind
farm, is currently the subject of complex and expensive litigation against Charlestown. If Charlestown buys LarryLand, buh-bye to the odious housing
development. And the lawsuits.
Reason #4: It will
make Ruth Platner very happy.
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| Platner and Gentz both said buying LarryLand is a great idea |
Plus, we have the money. Planning Commissar Ruth
Platner has been itching to spend the town’s Open Space/Recreation bond money
on something for the past several
years. In fact, she actually pitched buying LarryLand a couple of years ago,
producing a minor historical moment when, at a Town Council meeting, she and I publicly agreed that buying LeBlanc’s land for open space was a good idea.
Council President Tom Gentz thought it would be a great idea.
The Conservation Commission didn’t, but I think in this case,
they should reconsider. What killed that moment of opportunity was the
unwillingness of some of the crazier Ill Winders, who could
not bring themselves to support any deal – even one in their self-interest – if
it meant giving Larry LeBlanc a profit.
Reason #5: We might
even get the state to pay for it.
Rhode Island voters just
approved the state’s bond measure that gives the Department of Environmental
Management additional millions of dollars to buy open space. DEM has also
demonstrated quite a talent at picking up strategic parcels of land at good
prices when it does the deal itself. (Click here and here for examples, then compare that to Charlestown’s
bumbling over the Westerly YMCA’s abandoned campground.) If the state
bought LarryLand, they could manage it as part of Burlingame Park.
If for whatever reason, our CCA Town Council majority feels
they have to listen to some addled Partridge who doesn’t want to negotiate with
Larry LeBlanc, let’s see if we can get DEM to step in. When the idea of buying
LarryLand was still alive, Ruth Platner even wrote a proposal to DEM to fund
the acquisition.
Our federal overseer, Charlie Vandemoer, who runs the
Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge, wrote a glowing letter recommending the
acquisition of LarryLand as open space, giving all the scientific reasons why
the land is the perfect complement to the refuge.
As much as I enjoy writing about such controversies as open
space, the bogus casino threat, Larry LeBlanc and his various schemes to
leverage the town into buying his land, it’s time to stop this nonsense. As a
Charlestown resident and taxpayer, I think it is time we took that parcel of
land off the table and resolve the genuine concerns of LarryLand’s neighbors as
well as the town’s fears and divisions.
Buying the land ends the Whalerock controversy, makes a
Charlestown casino just about impossible, blocks an affordable housing project
the CCA hates, ends a bunch of pending lawsuits and preserves a long, unspoiled
stretch of scenic Route One just opposite Ninigret Pond.
Yes, LeBlanc will want to make a fair profit. The alternative is on-going costly litigation, anxiety for the neighbors and turmoil in the town. LeBlanc has been relentless in pitching one awful proposal after another to get the town to buy the land. In my opinion, it’s counter-productive
not to find a fair price and make the deal.
Unless the CCA prefers exploiting all these gut-wrenching
issues to use to their political advantage.