House passes Slopes bill

Weak opposition produces lopsided vote

By Will Collette

One of the several RI Builders Association bills opposed by many rural RI towns, including Charlestown, made a major move forward by winning in the RI House of Representatives by a vote of 58 Yes and only 17 No. 

The bill is H5703A, called the “Slopes Bill” by opponents. Click here to read the bill.

The bill is one of several that chip away at local municipal autonomy in planning and development. The bill would not allow municipalities to exclude land on slopes from the calculations for minimum lot size or buildable lot area.

Rep. Donna Walsh fought hard to stop this bill in the House and managed to get the votes of several of her urban colleagues, including Rep. Art Handy and Rep. Edith Ajello.

Donna told me that there was opposition to the bill from town councils, conservation commissions or land trusts from 17 rural Rhode Island municipalities. 

However, given that there are 39 Rhode Island cities and towns and just about all of them are much bigger than the 17 towns where there was active opposition, it wasn’t nearly enough.

The bill’s complexity is another problem that makes it hard for rural towns to explain the problems this bill poses to Representatives with urban constituents. Click here for EcoRI’s article on the bill – it contains a pretty good description of what it does.

While most South County Representatives voted NO, at least four voted yes.

Among those voting NO were: Donna Walsh (D-Charlestown, So. Kingstown, Block Island, Westerly); Teresa Tanzi (D-South Kingstown, Narragansett); Larry Valencia (D-Richmond, Hopkinton, Exeter); Brian Patrick Kennedy (D-Westerly, Hopkinton) and even Tea Party Rep. Doreen Costa (R-No. Kingstown).

But voting YES were Sam Azzinaro (D-Westerly), Spencer Dickenson (D-So. Kingstown), Donald Lally (D-Narragansett) and even Charlestown’s own assistant Town Solicitor Bob Craven (D-No. Kingstown). Somebody forgot to talk to Bob, apparently.

Our Town Council members, in particular Council boss Tom Gentz and his CCA sidekick Dan Slattery, fancy themselves to be slick lobbyists and have been spending a lot of time up at the State House.

If the RI map was re-drawn to reflect actual
population, this is what it would look like.
See if you can find Charlestown.

One of the problems rural towns like Charlestown face is plain old arithmetic. Rural, by definition, means low population density which usually means low population. RI’s population in the 2010 census was 1,052,567. 

Almost 50% of the state’s population lives in the seven municipalities that comprise the urban core around Providence. Add Woonsocket and Newport and you get a total of 55% of the state’s population that lives in densely populated communities. See map to the left to see how Rhode Island would look if population translated into size. 

Charlestown’s issues are probably not very understandable to more than half the state’s population. With our 7,827 full-time residents (0.75% of the state’s population), we need to make a lot of friends and allies – and that means a lot more than just a few other rural towns – if we expect to have success in state politics. 

I wouldn't count on Dan Slattery's or Council boss Tom Gentz's personalities to win over many of those needed supporters.

We also need to overcome the view that a lot of urban legislators have of some rural towns, Barrington is the prime example with Charlestown a close runner-up, that we are spoiled brats who want to wall off our towns or freeze them in amber. 

Our efforts to overturn the state affordable housing law reinforced those views – and remember, most of the state doesn’t understand our priorities or, if they do, they don’t agree with them.

The other state level problem faced by Charlestown and other rural towns is that the General Assembly leadership - House and Senate - have decided that it's time to enact as much high-profile, pro-business legislation as possible. 

This is driving dubious measures like Speaker Gordon Fox's plan to reorganize the Economic Development Corp. and place the Department of Environmental Management's permitting and licensing responsibilities under it. This idea is so bad that the federal EPA has already warned Rhode Island not to do it.

Or the Senate's recent enactment of another bill opposed by Charlestown and other rural communities that would restrict local communities' ability to set higher standards for on-site wastewater treatment systems.

I believe Charlestown’s two state Senators – Democrat Cathie Cool Rumsey and Republican Dennis Algiere are reliable NO votes on the Slopes bill if it comes to a Senate vote either as the Senate version (S544) or the just-passed House version. 

But to stop this bill, or any of the others that Charlestown opposes, we need the support of urban and suburban legislators whose constituents don't live in rural splendor as we do. They live on smaller lots, denser neighborhoods, have public drinking water and sewer systems. Have we given them any particular reason to care about our issues? Have we answered the essential political question - what's in it for them?

As we saw with the four South County House defections, even some of our own South County reps didn’t get it.