Hot topics on upcoming agendas
By Will Collette
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| Will we buy the Rock? |
In Washington, DC during August, the city shuts down and nothing gets
done, though lately, hardly anyone would notice. But in Charlestown this August, it seems
like there will be a flurry of major issues coming up before the Big Three town
bodies.
The Town Council already has meetings scheduled for August 5, 7, 13, 22 and maybe more. Planning has a Special Meeting scheduled for August 7 and no doubt a regular meeting later in the month. The Zoning Board of Review has meetings scheduled for August 20 and 28.
The Town Council already has meetings scheduled for August 5, 7, 13, 22 and maybe more. Planning has a Special Meeting scheduled for August 7 and no doubt a regular meeting later in the month. The Zoning Board of Review has meetings scheduled for August 20 and 28.
It’s not just the number of meetings, but the subject matter
that makes the town government’s August schedule so unusual.
The Town Council will be addressing two major political hot
potatoes: the impending purchase deal with Whalerock which they’d really like
to get done this month, and the question of how to deal with the controversial
Copar Quarries, where the Council would like to avoid having to do anything
substantive. Those, plus the usual array of mischief they manage to get
themselves into.
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| Google Earth screenshot of Copar's quarry in Charlestown on the Pawcatuck |
You can bet the Copar opposition group, Concerned Citizens of Bradford-Charlestown
will be there on August 13 to tell the Council what they expect Charlestown to
do to protect its citizens from Copar’s terrible business practices.
The Planning Commission hopes to do its bit to move the
Whalerock deal along by writing a strong advisory opinion supporting the
purchase of the land for open space. Though it pains me to say this publicly, I’m
100% with them on this. The need to buy the Whalerock site to preserve it as
open space is the one single issue where Planning Commissar Ruth Platner and I
are in complete agreement.
Included in the Commission’s meeting notice is a nice
collection of earlier evaluations of the land from an open space standpoint.
I had seen the nicely done brief by the National Fish and Wildlife Service’s local
chief Charlie Vandemoer before, but I had not seen the others. They make the
case well.
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| I hope I never have to go to another Zoning Board hearing |
The Zoning Board has reserved the Charlestown Elementary
School on August 28 in case they resume the horrendous series of hearings on
Whalerock’s application for a special use permit.
I believe that the Zoning Board’s mishandling of these hearings that forced the town to realize the need to buy the land. Otherwise, the town would lose an appeal by Whalerock from what would
certainly be a denial of their application by a clearly prejudiced Zoning
Board. If the Whalerock deal advances on August 22, that August 28 Zoning Board
hearing will be unnecessary.
Zoning will also take up some potentially hot topics at its regular August 20 meeting. I say controversial not so much
because of the nature of the projects, but because of the players.
In one matter, Westerly lawyer George Comolli will be
representing the estate
of Mary Grace Meyerand in a request for a dimensional variance.
Comolli is
one of the main players in the Copar Follies in Westerly. He is part owner of
Westerly Granite which leased its abandoned quarry site in Bradford to Copar. Comolli
has also been running cover for Copar and helping to deflect the town from
enforcing its own law.
For example, Comolli also serves as Counsel to the Westerly
Housing Authority. In that capacity, Comolli offered the job of Executive
Director to Westerly Zoning Board chair Bob Ritacco while Ritacco was presiding
over Copar’s appeals against Westerly’s cease-and-desist order against the
quarry. Maybe I’m just a hard-ass, but this seemed to me to be in violation of
several state statutes against bribery and conflicts of interest.
The other interesting subject is the application by the
Sonquipaug Association for a special
use permit to build a new above-ground pump. The Sonquipaug Association was
the main driving force behind last year’s Y-Gate Scandal where they plotted and
schemed with the CCA Party and almost pulled off a million dollar deal to use
town and state tax money to buy the abandoned YMCA campground next door and
give it to the Charlestown Land Trust.
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| The Sonquipaug Association and its co-conspirators almost pulled off the million-dollar Y-Gate scam |
The Sonquipaug
Association is comprised mostly of non-resident owners of small
summer cottages. According to their application to the Zoning Board, they have 140 people who live there in the summer but only 20 who are year-round residents.
The Y-Gate deal would have greatly expanded their vacation home backyards at
taxpayer expense. Association leader Joanne D’Alcomo is a major supporter of
the CCA Party.
Interestingly, the Sonquipaug Association's application says that if the Association had a decent water supply, instead of the inadequate one they have now, "There exist five (5) lots which could be potentially developable [SIC] within the service territory of the distribution system." It's on the 10th page of this document.
Yet, only a little more than a year ago, the Sonquipaug Association was screaming that the conservation development proposed by Ted Veazey - ten homes on 27 acres with most of the space left as open space - would be like committing environmental genocide.
Yet here comes the Sonquipaug Association talking about squeezing five more houses into their already cramped vacation home development where many of the lots are only one-tenth of an acre. It's hard to imagine that they - with the help of the CCA Party - almost pulled off the Y-Gate Scam.
Yet here comes the Sonquipaug Association talking about squeezing five more houses into their already cramped vacation home development where many of the lots are only one-tenth of an acre. It's hard to imagine that they - with the help of the CCA Party - almost pulled off the Y-Gate Scam.
Ted Veazey is an honorable man so I don't expect him to carry a picket sign into the Zoning meeting to call attention to this amazing bit of hypocrisy. But he'd be well within his rights to do so.
I don’t really expect any of Comolli’s or the Sonquipaug
Association’s past history to come up. Indeed, it would be shocking if it did,
since it’s not germane to their applications, but seeing them on the ZBR’s agenda
reinforced for me what a small and insular community we live in.
So mark your calendars, Charlestown for these up-coming
events:
- August 5 (tonight): Town Council discusses – again – Boss Tom Gentz’s pet obsession to build a hiking and biking trail down Charlestown Beach Road even though there’s literally no room for it on Charlestown Beach Road or money in the budget to pay for it. But Boss Gentz has a dream.
- August 7: Planning Commission meets to develop its advisory opinion in support of the Whalerock land deal
- August 7: Town Council meets again to discuss town bonds and to set the agenda for its August 13 regular meeting
- August 13: Town Council meets yet again with Whalerock and Copar and other stuff to be determined at the Council's August 7 agenda planning session.
- August 20: Zoning meets with George Comolli and the Sonquipaug Association on the agenda
- August 22: Town Council holds a public hearing on the Whalerock land deal
- August 27: Proposed closing date for the Whalerock land deal
- August 28: Zoning Board hearings on Whalerock resume if the land deal falls apart