Along with many candidates, eleven state and Charlestown
issues to vote on
When you go to the polls on November 6, you will be handed a
very long and complex ballot. In addition to being faced with choices for
President, US Senate, US House of Representatives, State Senate and State House
of Representatives, 11 candidates for Town Council and 10 for Planning
Commission, there are seven State referendum questions and four proposed
charter changes for Charlestown.
Let’s talk about those referendum questions.
Here’s the very, very short version for those of you who suffer from MEGO ("My eyes glaze over"). In my opinion, you
should vote YES for all seven state referendum questions. And in my opinion,
you should vote NO on all four Charlestown charter revision questions.
Read on if you want to know why I plan to vote that way and why I suggest you might, too.
Yet so far away from Charlestown |
I plan to vote YES on state Questions 1 and 2, but with some misgivings. These two ballot
questions authorize changes to the state Constitution to permit full-scale
casino gambling at the existing slot parlors, Twin River in Lincoln and Newport
Grand in, you guessed it, Newport.
I know the Narragansett Tribe tried to block this vote,
arguing that when they tried to get state approval for their planned enterprise
with Bally’s in West Warwick they were shot down. I appreciate their anger at
being discriminated against.
I also know gambling has ruined many lives, and full-scale
casino gambling will ruin many more.
But, let’s face it, the consequences of not staying competitive in the gambling market will have horrific
consequences on Rhode Island. Yep, we’re addicted to the revenue we get from
gambling and it’s terrible. It’s wrong. But consider the alternative.
I do not want to see more cuts to
public workers, public safety, roads and bridges, schools, municipal aid (and
the increased property taxes that would ensue), and all the rest that will be decimated.
So, I will hold my nose and vote YES, all the while hoping lightning doesn’t
strike me dead.
And, Charlestown, if Questions 1 and 2 pass, it will make a Charlestown casino, currently highly improbable, just about impossible. Again, it sucks, but for Charlestown residents, it's a matter of raw self-interest.
The rest of the state questions are much easier to decide.
All five remaining questions ask voters to authorize long-term borrowing to undertake
important public projects, most dealing with vitally needed infrastructure. All
five of these questions will also create a lot of jobs.
Question 3 will
authorize $50,000,000 to renovate and modernize several cruddy old buildings at
my alma mater, Rhode Island College. Those buildings were old and cruddy when I
went there in the early 1970s. This measure will create construction jobs in
the short term and increase RIC’s ability to train students for future jobs in
health and nursing. This is a no-brainer.
Question 4
authorizes $94,000,000 to build a new veterans’ home and to renovate existing
facilities. Again, a no-brainer given our moral obligation to our veterans. Not
to mention the construction jobs. Too many veterans who need a place to live out their lives are turned away.
Question 5
authorizes $20,000,000 for clean drinking water and wastewater treatment
projects. Another no-brainer. Even for those of you who live in Charlestown and
are going “huh?” at the thought of public water and sewers, it’s in your
self-interest, too, if you ever plan to drink a glass of water outside of our
lovely little town or prefer not to have raw sewage flowing along our
oceanfront from old facilities sited in our coastal towns. And then there’s the
construction jobs.
Question 6
authorizes $20,000,000 for six different environmental management programs.
Many of these are CCA favorites, too, such as open space acquisition (let’s
hear it, CCA). Think of it, Ruth, more state money for your next Y-Gate
opportunity. There’s also money for watershed protection, farmland
preservation, parks and recreation.
While the direct, short-term job creation
from these programs is less tangible than the bonds that authorize construction
projects, there are certainly plenty of other benefits in this bond question to
make us join hands with the CCA and sing Kumbaya.
Seriously, though, I think
this ballot Question is great. The six programs it will fund are necessary,
including the open space acquisition one. As we’ve reported in Progressive
Charlestown, RIDEM is actually pretty good at picking up some great bargains on
open space (click here
and here
for examples).
But the music will end, at least for the CCA, at Question 7, which authorizes $25,000,000
for affordable housing. Perhaps the CCA can overcome its hatred of affordable
housing and join in support of Question 7 because it explicitly authorizes the
use of the funds for “redevelopment of
existing structures.” I think this is a no-brainer on so many levels.
Speaking of no-brainers, CCA Town Council candidate George Tremblay has made his bizarre case against Question 7 - click here for more detail.
Speaking of no-brainers, CCA Town Council candidate George Tremblay has made his bizarre case against Question 7 - click here for more detail.
It’s time we were all “tax-and-spend” liberals
Conservatives, like Tea Party darling Rep. Joe
Trillo, oppose all the bond issues because they see them as the creations of
evil “tax-and-spend” liberals. Yes, Joe, I am one of those for sure. I think
the best way for Rhode Island to get out of this awful recession we’re stuck in
is to work our way out of it.
Each of these bond questions, including especially the two
nasty casino questions, create lots of jobs, especially in the construction
industry, which has been in the toilet since the recession sunk in. Each deals
with a very clear and identifiable need, again including the nasty casino
questions (in their case, the need is the filthy lucre they generate). The
other ballot questions are about infrastructure needs.
Yes, Questions 3 through 7 will increase the state’s
long-term debt. But we’re dying here and we need this. Frankly, I’m sick of the
Tea Party b.s. about debt that only seemed to materialize after George W. Bush
left office. Rhode Island is suffering its own Great Depression, and these
projects are Rhode Island’s version of the WPA. Let’s get it done.
Charlestown’s Feeble Four
Charlestown’s CRAC (Charter Revision Advisory Committee)
left us with four ballot questions to decide on November 6. I have already
covered these final four (out of eight) questions in quite a bit of detail (click
here for all the coverage). Here’s a quick summary.
The CRAC was stacked by the Ill Wind RI group that fought
against Larry LeBlanc’s proposed industrial wind turbine project. They glommed
on to the Charter as a way to do some payback against those people and
institutions they blamed for that project. Spurred on by Donna and Mike
Chambers, the CRAC floated an array of truly terrible ideas for Charter
changes, but luckily, the system worked.
Commission heads, town staff professionals and concerned
citizens stood up against the more CRAC-pot ideas, and out of a total of eight
proposals, only four remain.
Click image to enlarge. If Dan Slattery gets his CIP Charter amendment through, it will be the ONLY 2010 CCA campaign promise kept |
However, all four Charlestown ballot questions fail to address real
needs and do not merit voter support.
For example, do we really need to change the Charlestown
Charter to appease CCA Town Councilor Dan Slattery’s obsession with the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP)? For his benefit, we will get to vote on a Charter
change requiring the town to do a CIP, even though the town Charter already says we have to do a CIP, state
law says we have to do a CIP and Charlestown is already doing a CIP.
But Dan
wants this. He made this a campaign promise in 2010 and, frankly, if he doesn’t
get it, it will mean that he has kept none
of his campaign promises. And, gee, we can’t do that to poor
Deputy Dan.
I am voting no because we should not be encouraging this sort of irresponsible behavior. There are enough real issues to be dealt with that we don’t need to be expending time and effort on Chicken Little ones.
I am voting no because we should not be encouraging this sort of irresponsible behavior. There are enough real issues to be dealt with that we don’t need to be expending time and effort on Chicken Little ones.
Voters will also be asked whether to make it a Charter
requirement that the #1 vote-getter is named Council President and the #2
vote-getter becomes Vice-President. This is already common practice except when the other three Council
members are political opponents of the top two vote-getters. By making it a
Charter mandate, we could guarantee two years of Council gridlock in such
cases. And for what benefit?
Donna Chambers - lead CRAC proponent of vindictive Charter proposals |
The CRACers managed to finally sufficiently water down one
of their most fervent hopes, a Charter change that would prevent future Town
Councils from entering into partnerships like the kind that gave the Whalerock
wind proposal early momentum.
In their zeal to change the past by
hamstringing the future, the CRACers ran smack-dab into a lot of questions about
how this would actually work that they just couldn’t answer. So what’s left for
the voters to say yes or no to is a proposal that requires any partnership that
involves a financial commitment by the Town Council to be openly heard and
approved.
Duh. Even their much-hated Whalerock partnership had its open
discussion. The Council finally signed off on the language that you will
actually see on the ballot because it is now pretty meaningless. Harmless.
But I still will vote NO, again because I don’t like to encourage this kind of nonsense.
But I still will vote NO, again because I don’t like to encourage this kind of nonsense.
There's one of the four proposed Charter changes that has the
potential to increase costs or cause problems, and that’s the proposal to add
minutely detailed instructions into the Charter on how the town will handle
necessary purchases. It is the worst kind of micromanagement and totally
inappropriate to put in the Charter.
Acting Town Administrator Pat Anderson told
the CRAC that the town already complies with state law, gets a clean bill of
health from the auditors and, besides, the town just changed the Charter
provisions on purchasing two years ago and having to do it all over again is
not just a pain in the ass but costly.
For reasons I can’t begin to fathom, the CRAC really,
really, really wanted this one, and the Town Council pretty much threw up its
hands and said OK. I will be voting NO to this one, too.
So there you have it. I will be voting YES for all seven state ballot questions – two of them for evil
casinos that are not, I repeat, not in Charlestown (do you hear me, Ruth?) and
five outstanding capital projects that will create jobs and address crucial
infrastructure needs.
I will be voting NO
on all four Charlestown questions. Three are pointless and one is not only
unnecessary but costly.
You can either take my word for it, or do your own homework
and make up your own minds. Or give them all a pass.