April Town Council meeting, Part 2

Is the Town Council going crazy again?

By Will Collette

In Part 1, I covered the unscheduled battle over Ninigret Park and the Rhythm & Roots Festival that dominated the April 8 Town Council meeting and consumed as much time as all of the other agenda items combined.

If you haven’t read Part 1, I urge you to do so (and also watch the Clerkbase video) because I believe we are seeing the start of another stretch of crazy-ugly conduct by the Town Council majority, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the CCA Party's “Kill Bill” campaign last year.

However, there was a lot more business conducted at the April 8 meeting and some of it adds to the growing impression that we are once again going to see increasingly erratic, if not downright loony conduct by the CCA Town Council majority and their cohort, Councilor Lisa DiBello.

In Part 1, I commended CCA Councilor George Tremblay for taking a forthright stand against the bully tactics of his fellow CCAer Dan Slattery who was once again all worked up over human activities in Ninigret Park that might disturb the CCA’s political supporters in the Arnolda neighborhood. He said what he called the “politically incorrect” thing which is that Ninigret Park belongs to all the people of Charlestown, not just Arnolda.

But Tremblay lost his rarely displayed lucidity on no less than three other occasions during that same Council meeting where he variously attacked non-profit social service agencies, the elderly and the disabled.

George Tremblay and sneaky non-profits

The first time came early. The Council members were going through the final version of their endorsement and priority list for which local non-profits would be recommended to get federal Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). Representatives from most of the groups listed were present to ask the Council for their support in person and to describe the work their agencies do for the people of South County.

CCA Councilors Tom Gentz and Dan Slattery asked pointed though polite questions. Gentz, in particular, wanted to know exactly how much good each non-profit did just for Charlestown, and later, said he felt the priority ranking should be purely on the basis of service to Charlestown.

But George Tremblay took his questions beyond the polite to challenge the non-profit representatives to explain why their approach to serving the poor was better than the others, and whether they all should really just merge because, it seemed to him, there seemed to be a lot of overlap and duplication of service.

The total anticipated CDBG funding Charlestown hopes to get is $200,000 and half of that is allocated for the two stalled affordable housing projects – Churchwoods and Shannock Cottages. The other grants were relatively small. They were certainly not of the size that tempted any of the agency representatives there to play cut-throat with the other agencies, or enter into merger talks, no matter what some old coot like George Tremblay might say.

Indeed, they answered Tremblay’s rude remarks with polite and serious facts. Russ Partridge from the WARM Center noted that each agency has a specialty that they do particularly well and that the agencies do collaborate and coordinate to try to do the best they possibly could for people in our area who need help. 

Indeed, the local agencies have formalized this collaboration through a body they call the Basic Needs Network. You can learn more about how these agencies work together by clicking here. Watch the Clerkbase video of this shameful interrogation of local non-profits by clicking here.

After chewing on the non-profit agencies for a while, the Council finally took a vote and approved the list of requests on a 4-0 vote with Councilor Lisa DiBello abstaining without giving a reason. Maybe it was because A Ray of Hope wasn’t on the list.

George Tremblay and sneaky elderly people

Only George Tremblay can stem the tide of wealthy elderly embezzlers

George’s second shot at showing his lucidity on the Ninigret Park matter was a fluke came up when the Council reviewed – and insisted on prioritizing - another list. This time, the list was one crafted by the town planners for the towns who are members of Washington County Regional Planning. Charlestown’s Planner Ashley Hahn-Morris is an active participant.

The list was eight proposed changes to the state affordable housing law that, by consensus, the South County planners felt were reasonable and practical ways of resolving many of the on-going hassles over the issue of affordable housing. Ashley explained that the planners deliberately decided not to prioritize and risk losing their consensus.

But naturally, the CCA majority felt that wasn’t good enough, and that as the pre-eminent scholars on affordable housing, it should be up to Charlestown to prioritize – and even change – the list for the rest of South County. Of course, the task of leading that discussion fell to George Tremblay, the world’s greatest expert on affordable housing, whose track record and bogus research has made Charlestown a laughing stock.

He went through a long, convoluted and totally useless exercise of arguing for a re-arranging of the list to reflect HIS priorities and insisted on adding a 9^th priority – that eligibility criteria for elderly low-income housing should be based not just on adjusted gross income, but on “total wealth.” George just could not give up on his imaginary image of hoards of billionaire senior citizen investors who want to swoop down on new housing for the elderly and buy up those 700 square foot units as investments. You’ve got to watch the Clerkbase video to see for yourself.

Evelyn Smith tried to set the record straight - Boss
Gentz shut her down

As I demonstrated, Tremblay based his elderly scammer myth on hearing the first half of a New York news report that later was shown to be false. Click here to read the details. Also, as Ashley pointed out, federal law requires the use of adjusted gross income, so adding it to the list of proposed changes to state law made no sense. But, as Tremblay admitted, “I had to try.”

Actually, no, George. You didn’t.

Affordable Housing Commission Chair Evelyn Smith rose to the podium to refute Tremblay’s pack of misrepresentations, if not outright lies, point by point. But, as usual, Council Boss Tom Gentz insists that his Council meetings operate as a truth-free zone and rudely cut Evelyn off.

George Tremblay and sneaky disabled people

Strike three for Tremblay came late in the meeting. During an extraordinarily rare moment when Dan Slattery was proposing some compassionate relief for the elderly and handicapped through some innocent and completely beneficial tweaks to Charlestown’s existing tax credits, Tremblay once again showed with an ignorant boor he can be.

Having attacked the elderly earlier on in the meeting, Tremblay now focused on the disabled. Under Charlestown’s tax ordinances, persons who have been determined by Social Security to be permanently disabled may apply to receive an annual tax credit of $575 off their property taxes.

Slattery’s proposed tweak to the tax ordinance was to eliminate the need for handicapped people to have to apply each year. Once certified as permanently disabled, the town would assume that “permanent” means permanent and would not require the annual re-application. Council Boss Tom Gentz asked whether permanently handicapped people ever became unhandicapped, and Tax Assessor Ken Swain testified that in his 22 years on the job, he has never seen that happen.

Councilor Lisa DiBello volunteered that she knew of someone who was handicapped, but apparently became “unhandicapped.” Someone, possibly Dan Slattery, said loudly into the microphone, “Praise the Lord!” and the whole room cracked up laughing. But, as Boss Gentz got his yuk-yuking under control, Slattery proceeded to make the case for the proposed change.

George Tremblay to Tiny Tim, "Are you sure you can't work,
you little bastard! No tax break for you!"

But that wasn’t good enough for Tremblay who by now was in full curmudgeon mode. He wanted to know exactly what is 100% disability and who gets it and how much do they get paid. Isn’t the maximum payment $10,000 a year? He said he was thinking of “somebody who gets Social Security disability and does everything that I do.”

Tremblay wanted to make damned sure the town really confirms that the person really is 100% disabled.

Swain, with back-up from Town Solicitor Peter Ruggiero, explained that the initial application requires the applicant to produce their Social Security disability determination. 

Rather than conduct its own “investigation,” the town relies on the Social Security Administration’s process for determining disability. And anyone with direct experience with that can readily explain that this is not easy. Click here to watch the Clerkbase video.

I liked what George Tremblay said during the big fight over Rhythm and Roots, but these other three embarrassing episodes make me wish that Tremblay would go back to sleeping through meetings again, since he does not have a whole lot that is intelligent or useful to add.

In other business….

From last year's skim-boarding competition

Councilor Lisa DiBello had two other agenda items pulled from the “consent agenda” so that they could be discussed and voted on separately. These items didn’t take as long as the Rhythm and Roots debacle, but were interesting in their own way.

One of the items DiBello wanted discussed was the second annual Skim Boarding competition that piloted in Charlestown last year to high praise. DiBello took this as an opportunity to quiz Parks & Recreation Director Jay Primiano sharply on the feasibility of the dates and location for the event. 

While DiBello seemed to be trying to get some good digs in, this came off as pretty lame. Ultimately, the Council approved letting the event go forward, though not totally the way it had been presented. We’ll see if this becomes a problem.

The second item DiBello wanted hashed over was a second year license for an ice cream truck, Luca’s Coffee and Ice Cream. Last year – and this year – the places where the truck can go are sharply limited to the point where I’m surprised Luca came back for a second year for such a limited turf.

DiBello wanted to know about those routes and those proscriptions and whether everything was in order and whether the Chief of Police had any problems with the renewal. Apparently, DiBello missed the fact that all the paperwork covering all her questions were included in the application, except she had neglected to read it all. So, never mind.

Toward the end of the meeting, and after the spirit-draining fight over Rhythm and Roots, the Budget Commission got to present its proposed budget for next year to virtually no reaction either from the Council or the public other than to say “thanks for the work.” This new budget, as I wrote HERE, unnecessarily raises everyone’s property tax by 24 cents per thousand even though we have far more in surplus funds than the town’s financial advisers think is necessary.

The next step is this budget goes to a special Budget Public Hearing in May and then goes before the voters for final approval.

DiBello abstained on the town budget with no explanation

I didn’t expect there to be a lot of controversy over the budget, which passed by a vote of 4-0 with Councilor DiBello again abstaining without giving a reason. 

In the past when DiBello has given a reason for an abstention, it has usually been because she admitted to not reading the material. 

I suppose that was her reason for not voting on the budget. Geez, all those pages and all those numbers. 

It also didn’t help that DiBello didn’t show up for the April 3 Special Meeting where this budget was first discussed.

The Council also went through the motions of re-doing (sort of) their illegal “Australian Ballot” secret vote to appoint spectacularly unqualified CCA minion Donna Chambers to fill a vacancy on the Chariho School Committee. That secret vote is under challenge by former Town Council President Deb Carney as a violation of the Open Meetings Act. Click here for details.

In an apparent effort to render Carney’s complaint “moot,” Boss Gentz had each Council member say who they voted for last month, and then to take a vote to affirm that result. Boss Gentz, plus Councilors Slattery, Tremblay and DiBello said they voted for Chambers. Only Councilor Paula Andersen (D) voted for one of the other two applicants.

Deb stood to discuss her complaint and how it was hypocritical it was for Councilor Dan Slattery to give testimony at the State House saying “Open and transparent government starts with open and transparent elections,” and then to blatantly violate the Open Meetings Act with a secret election to put Chambers on the School Committee.

Deb also added to her written comments noting that earlier in the evening Council Boss Tom Gentz allowed anyone to speak without a time limit on the Rhythm and Roots controversy, but shut Affordable Housing Commission Chair Evelyn Smith down when she tried to correct Councilor George Tremblay’s misstatements about affordable housing. As those words were leaving Deb’s mouth, Gentz’s timer buzzed. Click here to see and hear Deb’s comments.

Democracy and good government in Charlestown…not so much.