Election 2014 launched with big campaign donation from Gentz

New York money manager also adds to the CCA Party’s coffers.

By Will Collette

Even though the next election is more than a year and a half away, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance is already starting its major fund-raising.

In the 2012 election cycle, more than 60% of the CCA Party’s funding came from out-of-state donors who were misleadingly listed on the CCA’s campaign finance reports as Charlestown residents. The CCA Party used the addresses of their "summer cottages" as their home addresses.

Most of the balance of the CCA Party budget came from major donations from its well-heeled supporters, most of whom live south of Route One. I documented this in detail in “Who Owns the CCA?”

The new quarterly campaign finance reports have been filed and they show this pattern is continuing.

The CCA Party report, filed on April 13, shows the CCA has a cash balance of $4,439.70. The CCA collected $1,000 from Tom and Mary Lou Gentz. Gentz, a former health insurance executive, is also Town Council president and a steering committee member for the CCA Party. The Gentzs own two residences off West Beach Road assessed at a combined total of $1,249,200.

The other major donor listed is Sean Reynolds. According to the CCA Party campaign finance report, Reynolds lives at 19 Boulder Avenue, just a little over a block away from the Gentzs. It's one of those "summer cottages" assessed at just under $1 million. 

However, the Charlestown Tax Assessor database lists Reynolds’ actual home as Harrison NY, a commuting suburb north of New York City in Westchester County.

The CCA report also incorrectly lists Reynolds’ employer as Lazard Finances. It’s actually Lazard Asset Management with offices in Rockefeller Center. Lazard is one of the world's largest international investment banks. 

The CCA also incorrectly listed Reynolds’ job as “assist. managing partner.” He is actually Senior Portfolio Manager and Director with a compensation estimated at well over $1 million a year based on Lazard’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The CCA Party also revised its December post-election report to mask the identities of CCA leaders who were reimbursed after the election for paying for goods and services (printing, postage, refreshments) used during the election. Their amended report only shows that the CCA Party made reimbursements totaling $1,634.

However, the earlier report  shows that the payments went to three CCA Party leaders: Tom Gentz for $609.27, Councilor Dan Slattery for $334.18 and Planning Commissar Ruth Platner for another $691.

I have no idea why the CCA Party decided to amend its filing and disguise these reimbursements. 

I have no idea why the CCA persistently misrepresents its non-resident supporters as if they were full-time residents. 

Although I think we can all guess the reason, like maybe some concern that they will be revealed to be bought and sold by Charlestown's landed gentry, both non-resident and native.

It does fit into the CCA Party’s paranoia about controlling information . And it also fits the CCA Party's long-standing practice of telling lies that suit its purposes and political agenda.

In 2011, the CCA Party was found to have violated RI campaign finance law based on a Charlestown Democratic Town Committee complaint that the CCA had failed to report similar non-cash donations made by some of the same leaders until after the election, masking the amount the CCA Party used to buy the 2010 election.

The CCA Party also maintains another fund it uses for “support for special election, funding to remove and elect members of the town council and to enforce fiscal and charter compliance.” Why the separate fund, I don’t know, but it could be a vestige of the time when the CCA tried to pull off a recall election of Jim Mageau who served on the Council from 2006-08.

The CCA never pulled that one off. Instead, when Jim Mageau complained to the state Board of Elections that the CCA was operating as a political action committee (PAC) by trying to set up a recall election, the BOE ruled that Mageau was right and that the CCA did need to register and operate as a PAC, launching them on the path to becoming Charlestown’s controlling political party.

All of this financial finagling by the CCA Party is what has made it Charlestown’s dominant party. They preach openness and transparency – for others. They preach open elections – yet they hold secret ballots during open Town Council meetings….and of course, they operate the CCA Party as a secret, closed society that you can’t join, even if you want to. 

They claim to be the party that represents ALL the people of Charlestown – yet they are bought, paid for and serve wealthy non-residents and Charlestown’s elite. And they try to cover it up.

Other Campaign Finance Reports

Tina Jackson - the fines keep growing for her failure to
disclose campaign finances

By sharp contrast, the Charlestown Republican Town Committee, which has just come back from the dead - and also survived a high-jacking attempt by Tina Jackson - lists less than $500 cash on hand. It raised and spent almost nothing in the 2012 election.

The Charlestown Moderate Party filed an affidavit with the Board of Elections that it had gone dormant. My theory about the Moderate Party is that the CCA Party might simply take them over in Charlestown. Councilor Dan Slattery is aligned with the Moderate Party front guy, Ken Block, and once served as the state Moderate Party Treasurer.

Now that Block has effectively merged his little cult of personality with the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition (now known as “RI Taxpayers”) and the RI Tea Party, he has created just the sort of right wing political stew that would attract people like the CCA Party.

It's hard to match the CCA Party's
money machine

Charlestown Democrats filed their report showing a fund balance of $3,657.19, keeping them within striking distance of the CCA Party which holds $4,439.70 in cash, plus less than $1,000 in its separate account for special elections and recalls. However, the contributions to the Charlestown Democrats are generally small and local and no comparison to the big bucks the CCA Party gets from non-resident beach property owners.

It will come as no surprise that Republican Tina Jackson, who tried and failed to unseat Rep. Donna Walsh, did not file the required quarterly campaign finance report. She has not filed a campaign finance report since October 9 which now makes it four straight reports she has failed to file. She is accumulating daily fines for these delinquencies.

I guess Jackson has been busy testifying at hearings against the Deepwater off-shore wind energy project. She tried to get formal intervener status for her organization, the American Alliance of Fishermen and their families, only to be tossed out because she failed to file the simple two-page annual report and the Secretary of State revoked her corporate charter.

I could go on, but suffice to say that Tina Jackson has maintained her no-hitter streak of failing to abide by the same laws and disclosure duties that apply to everyone else.

Jackson’s 2010 opponent, incumbent Democratic state Representative Donna Walsh filed her report on time, showing a respectable fund balance of $8,733.01.