The final argument

Rise above fear and dreariness

By Will Collette

After six years, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance’s final argument for voter approval to continue their reign over Charlestown town government is to prey on voters’ fears. 

If you believe the CCA, they are all that stands between you and greedy developers who want to pave over Ninigret Pond, or a gigantic Narragansett Indian casino on the moraine, or sky-high taxes, or an influx of families with Section 8 housing vouchers. If you believe them, they are Charlestown’s main civilizing force, all that keeps the savage beasts at bay.

Fear.

From the beginning, that’s really all the CCA has had to go on. 

Fear.

To make people afraid, the CCA will tell any tale, concoct any story and they will conjure up a legion of bogeymen.

So do you believe them? Or do you believe your own lying eyes? Do you believe their repeated statements – never backed up by anything but their own assertions? Or, rather than blindly accept their stories about all the demons in the woods, are you willing to examine the evidence from the public record and consider our point of view?

That’s what you have to decide on November 6. 

Do you want to allow the Charlestown Citizens Alliance to continue to control this town and tighten the screws on every home and business? Or do you have a more open-minded vision of what Charlestown can be?

Whoever is elected to town government on November 6 will face real issues, not the CCA’s imagined monsters under the bed. 

We have the highest unemployment in South County, depressed home values, an economy that only works during the summer, families in need and no answers – not even any sympathy – from the CCA.

Rather than give middle-class homeowners a tax break, they’d rather give half a million dollars of your money to the Westerly YMCA and Charlestown Land Trust for an overpriced, busted-out abandoned campground.

Since February 2011, Progressive Charlestown and its dedicated volunteer writers have worked hard to dig out the truth and give it to you along with our research sources. 

We’ve also offered you something Charlestown hasn’t seen much of since the CCA took over – a sense of humor.

We have revealed things the CCA does not want you to know. For that, they accuse me, but even worse, my colleagues, of being “cyber-bullies.” Which is rich coming from people who have built their power on character assassination. 

I don’t mind what they say about me – in fact, I like it when I piss them off – but I do resent it when they blame my fellow Progressive Charlestown founder Tom for what I write.

They don’t know Tom Ferrio, who unlike me was not raised to be a street fighter. Instead, Tom is a kind and gentle soul who actually winces when it comes to confrontation. Nonetheless, he has the courage to see it through, just as he does when he jumps into the driver’s seat of one of the Charlestown Fire District’s engines to go off and fight who knows what danger.

The CCA prefers to have Charlestown citizens live in the dark with the monsters they have created. 

However, unlike Sandy, which left many of our neighbors powerless and in the dark, the voting booth is one place where you do have power and, by your vote, you can choose light over dark.

When you go into the voting booth and have to decide who you want to govern this town, ask yourself if you are better off now than you were four years ago. Ask yourself whether you want to continue the politics of fear. Ask yourself if you want these gray, humorless people to extend their control over your home or business. Do you want Charlestown to stay in the dark or shine in the light?

It’s time to choose and I hope you choose to put Charlestown citizens first.