Gentz launches 2014 reelection bid

…With a Sun “guest editorial” filled with distortions

By Will Collette

The Westerly Sun reprinted one of the CCA’s final 2012 campaign letters, slightly adapted, in its major editorial space and called it a “guest editorial” from Charlestown Town Council boss Tom Gentz, who was also at the top of CCA’s ticket.

To the extent that Gentz is a student of anything, it looks to me like he is a student of Karl Rove’s political formula that if you tell lies often enough and with enough conviction, you can make them become political reality.


In this Sun piece, Gentz repeats the CCA’s claims that through “collaboration” and finding “common ground,” Charlestown scored the great achievements of low taxes, funding three affordable housing projects, and enacting a new “Dark Skies” ordinance and another that allows residents to install wind turbines on their properties.

Gentz highlights contracts with town workers and the Chariho schools, which he says “remain a bright light for our towns.”

Lies, repeated, told with conviction, told often, appear to be Gentz’s plan for his reelection in 2014.

First, collaboration and common ground don’t even remotely describe Gentz’s actions in his first term. He routinely ignored and occasionally insulted town commissions that were not under the control of his party, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance.

That meant that representatives of the Affordable Housing, Conservation, Economic Improvement, Parks and Recreation, and Wastewater Management commissions and Zoning Board of Review were rarely given their proper due under the town’s Charter and Ordinances, while nearly every policy matter or ordinance-writing assignment went to the Planning Commission.

Unless you are a CCA member or fawning supporter, a member of the Planning or Budget commissions or a nonresident property owner, chances are you were not a part of any “collaboration” process. That left out Charlestown’s working families, Democrats, independents, the Narragansett Tribe (who were probably treated with as much hostility as Democrats), children, the elderly and small business owners.

In the CCA's world, this is the enemy...she's just looking to rip
off the system

Indeed, Gentz and his CCA colleagues went out of their way to vilify working families in financial trouble and the Chariho school system – even though our schools are, as Gentz says, “a bright light.” He and his colleagues also attacked elderly people needing affordable housing. Gentz and his colleagues have terrorized town employees, making those who choose not to suck up to them fear for their jobs.

Gentz’s tax claim – that Charlestown has a very low tax rate – is accurate, as far as it goes, but does not take into account Charlestown’s high assessments. When the town reassessed town properties in 2011, it spotted big-ticket homes a 7% premium. While nearly all properties in Charlestown lost value, thus boosting the tax rate, middle-income property owners ended up paying a tax increase that was 7% higher, on average, than that paid by the owners of million-dollar-plus homes. Most of the million dollar-plus are owned by nonresidents.

Gentz and the CCA crushed a proposal from town Democrats to address this disparity through a $1000 Homestead Tax Credit that would have restored balance to the taxes paid by middle-income homeowners. No, said Gentz and his colleagues – that would be “class war.”

And Gentz’s praise for the Chariho schools is no thanks to him and his colleagues, who hassled and harried the district for the past two years, demanding lower contributions from Charlestown even if it meant cutting school programs that have made Chariho one of the highest ranked districts in Rhode Island. Hypocrite!

The two ordinances Gentz flagged as great achievements – dark skies and wind energy – have been major stories in themselves and outstanding examples of the failure to collaborate.

Both of those ordinances were passed after months of rancor and in the end do virtually nothing positive for Charlestown. Nothing.

The Dark Sky ordinance could have been a great step toward building a consensus to preserve the beauty of our nighttime sky. But by failing to collaborate, the final product was an ordinance that does nothing except apply an unscientific ban on new light poles that exceed 15 feet on business properties, even when the fixtures are certified dark sky friendly.

The wind energy ordinance was a truly remarkable overreaction to the unpopular Whalerock industrial wind farm proposal. Instead of dealing with the issue of industrial wind farms in residential areas, the CCA leaders in town government instead imposed an ordinance that creates requirements that are impossible to meet on all wind energy generators.

So if you want to build or install a small generator for your home, you have to meet conditions that make your green dream impossible. Not one single residential wind turbine has been installed in Charlestown since the onerous ordinance that Gentz and his colleagues speak of with such hypocritical pride.

Gentz speaks of the three nonprofit affordable housing projects that are currently going through the Planning Commission meat grinder. The CCA bragged about these projects before the election as examples of why they weren't obstructionists.

I predicted the CCA would kill those projects as soon as the election was over. And sure enough, the Planning Commission “death of a thousand cuts” began on December 19. I doubt these projects will last until spring before being killed outright. They also cut off Clerkbase coverage of Planning Commission meetings so we couldn't all witness how they were going to do it.

Meanwhile, Gentz and his colleagues have cranked up their effort to get the state of Rhode Island to pander to Charlestown by putting a moratorium on comprehensive permits and to essentially kill the state affordable housing law. In their first public outing of their campaign, they and the fake affordable housing research by George Tremblay were practically laughed out of Richmond when their town council acted on Charlestown’s request for Richmond to join the anti-affordable housing jihad.

As Gentz spins his yarn about all the great acts of collaboration and cooperation, conspicuously missing is any mention of such events as the Y-Gate Scandal, in which he played a key role.

How could Gentz miss this great example of collaboration?

Or the bogus Battle for Ninigret Park, where Gentz and Slattery took the town through months of hell on their fiction that the federal government was about to take back Ninigret Park unless we gave the feds control.

Or the tragic “Kill Bill” DiLibero campaign, where Gentz, Slattery and the CCA scapegoated and drove out former Town Administrator Bill DiLibero. This story made the Westerly Sun’s list of Top Ten 2012 stories, but somehow didn’t fit into Gentz’s theme, or is it dream, of harmony and happiness.

Gentz makes it clear that there will no change in the CCA’s agenda for Charlestown. They will continue to act against the interests of the majority of Charlestown residents and serve the interests of our town's landed gentry, but will continue to cover those actions with the kind of tissue of lies that they hope will again hoodwink the majority of voters.