Charlestown’s new stonewall

Blight on the landscape

By Will Collette

There’s a large ugly stone wall going up around Town Hall. 

It’s thick and it’s getting taller every day. 

There was never any notice of it on any Town Council agenda. 

It never went to a public hearing in front of the Planning Commission. 

The cost of it does not appear in the town budget. It never went before the voters for approval.

But there it is.

It’s a stonewall of secrecy. Despite laws requiring open meetings and public access to records, the right of the people of Charlestown to know what is going on in their town government is increasingly being denied.

The new regime of secrecy is being enforced by Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz and Town Clerk Amy Weinreich, but the controllers of this new policy are the majority leaders elected from the elite ranks of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance, the CCA Party.

• Just within the past month, the Town has slammed the door on access to public records. To routine requests for public court filings and other public records, once routinely given, Town Clerk Amy Weinreich writes that “In accordance with RIGL § 38-2-7 (c), I do not have or maintain the requested records.”

• Just within the past month, the state Attorney General’s Office has ruled once again that the Town Council led by CCA stalwarts Boss Tom Gentz and Dan Slattery violated the state Open Meetings Act by using a secret ballot during open meetings to pick Council appointees to town positions.

• Just within the past two months, the pace of closed-door Town Council meetings on critical town issues has accelerated, leaving residents to have to guess or rely on rumors for information. Issues like Whalerock, Camp Davis, the Copar Quarry, controversial lawsuits are all being decided outside the public eye more often than anyone can remember.

Mancini's bill - note the absence of any detail about
what he actually did (and who he represented)

• Just within the past two months, the Town Council violated another Attorney General Open Meetings Act ruling that they can’t just waltz out of Executive Session and announce they were going to spend money without notice, public participation or transparent process. In the most recent instance, it was to spend $50,000 to hire a Special Counsel in a case that two judges have tossed Charlestown out of.

• Just within the past two months, Special Counsel John Mancini told the Zoning Board that in addition to representing the town, he was also representing anonymous private clients and apparently the town is paying for it. There might even be an ethics violation with Mancini representing two different clients on the same case.

But we can’t know that for sure because the town is paying Mancini’s bills without requiring a shred of detail or specificity in his bills to allow taxpayers to see what the town is really paying for. He just filed for payment of a second installment of $17,500 without detailing what he did for the money.

If the Whalerock deal goes through, as it looks like it might, there’s going to need to be a reckoning about this and other town irregularities and misconduct.

• We also aren’t going to be allowed to know anymore how our other controversial town Special Counsel, Joe Larisa, spends his time and taxpayer money. His past invoices have shown how devoted he is to maintaining Charlestown in a perpetual state of war with the Narragansett Indian Tribe. But you can’t see his bills anymore because on July 25, Town Clerk Amy Weinreich e-mailed me to say that from now on, “In accordance with RIGL § 38-2-7 (c), I do not have or maintain the requested records.” (see below)

Here's Amy's recent e-mail showing all the things she no longer has or maintains:

As noted, the bill from John O. Mancini contained virtually no detail. 

Since Amy is asserting that under RI General Laws § 38-2-7 (c), she doesn't seem to have or maintain many records anymore, it helps to know what that section says, which is:

“(c) A public body that receives a request to inspect or copy records that do not exist or are not within its custody or control shall, in responding to the request in accordance with this chapter, state that it does not have or maintain the requested records.”

Amy's claim makes perfect sense if a record doesn't exist. Except that’s not the case – the court filings and the bills from the lawyers do exist. This section, § 38-2-7 (c), applies only if the “public body” does not have “custody or control” of the records.

Amy cannot use § 38-2-7 (c) as an excuse to deny access to information and disregard how the law defines a “public body.” A “public body,” under § 38-2-2 (1) is the whole town – all of its departments, divisions, boards, commissions, staff, lawyers, consultants, anyone who works for or on behalf of the town - and not just Town Clerk Amy Weinreich. She is responsible for getting the requested record from the person who has it whether it’s Town Solicitor Peter Ruggiero, Special Counsel Joe Larisa, Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz, Town Treasurer Pat Anderson or anyone else who works for or on behalf of the Town.

Amy is also stuck with the other key part of the state law, § 38-2-3 (a) which holds that all records are deemed public records unless they fall into one of the very specific exemptions set out in the law to protect other rights such as attorney-client privilege, personnel privacy, criminal investigations, etc. There is no exemption listed for occasions when the Town Clerk doesn't feel like asking someone else within town government for a record. Or is told by a superior not to.

Amy’s answer also violates town law (Charlestown Code of Ordinances, Article XIX, § C-53.F.) which requires her to “Act as custodian of the Town Seal and of all the official documents and public records of the town [emphasis added].” It is her sworn duty to respond to lawful requests, get the records and deliver them in a timely fashion. For this, the Town budget lists her as receiving a salary of $69,786.

Former Town Clerk Jodi LaCroix (left) did not train Amy (right) to
operate this way

If she plans to ignore a major part of her job, it really makes me wonder why we need a Town Clerk.

I've known Amy since she apprenticed under Charlestown’s terrific but now retired Town Clerk Jodi LaCroix who trained Amy to serve the public promptly and professionally. 

I am absolutely certain that Amy didn't just decide to stonewall information requests all on her own. She had to have at least the consent of Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz and more likely direct orders to withhold records.

Did Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz create this stonewall?

Though I have not known TA Stankiewicz very long since he has only been here since February, I certainly know of him, and know his history. 

Given the way his last several town CEO jobs have turned out, I doubt Stankiewicz decided one morning that it was time to build a stonewall of secrecy around Charlestown Town Hall. 

I have to admit, though, that nicknaming him “Stonewall Stankiewicz” is mighty appealing.

No, I have to believe that the new secrecy rules come from Town Council Boss Tom Gentz, and that Stankiewicz is simply hoping to earn longevity points with his new masters. Even though I'm pretty sure Stankiewicz is "just following orders," I also believe he knows what he is doing is wrong.

Hey, Mark, getting criticized in Progressive Charlestown will probably get you long-term tenure from the CCA Party, at least for as long as they control Town Hall. You can thank me later.

Or is he just following Boss Gentz's illegal orders?

Why do I believe the stonewall orders came from Gentz? Because this is how Gentz operates. This is far from the first time that Boss Gentz, and his crony Dan Slattery have taken their campaign pledges of open and transparent government and thrown them out the window. They've been doing stuff like this since they first took the oath of office.

There are lots of ways to tear down this latest stone wall erected around Town Hall. I’m doing my bit by continuing to dig out information that our town leaders don’t want you to know about. I have also filed, and already added to, a formal complaint to the Attorney General’s Office.

Other citizens should file open records requests with the town for themselves. Maybe it’s just me they’re stonewalling, though that’s not going to help them defend their actions with the Attorney General. It's your right and you should use it or lose it. If you want ideas about what you should request, just look at my e-mail from Amy to see the list of records she claims she no longer maintains.

Charlestown's stonewall is a natural outgrowth of the CCA Party's
fanatical cult of secrecy - secret meetings, closed membership,
anonymous attacks are what they used to rise to power.

If this stone wall sticks around much longer, or gets higher, don’t be surprised if citizens don’t exercise the option of simply taking the town’s pretty blatant violations directly to Superior Court.

That will further embarrass the town and cost the tax payers more money, just to let Boss Gentz and his CCA Party cronies hide for a little while behind the wall.

The CCA Party has always been a secretive clique, with not only closed meetings, but closed membership. They relish the use of anonymity to attack anyone they deem as an enemy and that’s just about anyone who isn't them. Naturally, that fetish for secrecy is going to follow them into town government as it has.

Of course, Gentz and Slattery and the rest of the CCA Party’s elected town officials and candidates will have to go before the voters in 2014. Sure, they’ll make the same claims they've made in the last three elections that they’re the party of openness and transparency. But, hey, there’s going to come a point where it just isn't going to work anymore.