Charlestown’s Top Ten Stories of 2013
By
Will Collette
As
the CCA Party tightened its grip on Charlestown town government for its fifth
year in a row, that meant more interesting things for the writers of
Progressive Charlestown to cover. That's been great for our readership numbers.
Now in the middle of its third term controlling the Town, the CCA Party leaders
have become increasingly daring in promoting their special interest agenda that
favors Charlestown’s landed gentry and non-residents over the vast majority of
residents who have families and work for a living.
As
we’ve documented, Charlestown has become an openly “pay to play” town.
Don’t expect any meaningful help from town government unless you are a CCA Party friend and ally, and most importantly, a CCA Party campaign donor.
Don’t expect any meaningful help from town government unless you are a CCA Party friend and ally, and most importantly, a CCA Party campaign donor.
On
the flip side, if you are a CCA
Party donor or loyal supporter, you can expect the CCA Party Town Council
majority to reward you handsomely, whether it’s with a $2 million bailout, a coveted political patronage position, or opposition to
things that annoy you, such as human activity in Ninigret Park or shell-fishing
in Ninigret Pond.
Want
the town to muster volunteers to clean up your property? Want a bike path to the beach? Want an enemy
punished? Just drop your check, made out to the CCA, in the mail.
Charlestown’s
CCA leaders have also attempted to clamp down on transparency by holding secret votes during Council meetings and violating the state open records law.
I
could go on but let’s let the stories speak for themselves as we look at
Charlestown’s Top Stories for 2013...
1. Whalerock
wind turbine proposal
 |
| Not counting legal expenses, all it took was $2.1 million |
Charlestown’s #1 story of
2013 was a truly remarkable adventure, full of twists and turns, a tale of the
town’s convoluted journey to essentially do what everyone wanted (and which I
had proposed more than two years ago).
Instead of negotiating a deal
in good faith, the CCA Town Council majority, spurred on by what became an
anti-science cult of anonymous abutters, spent a whole lot of money
and caused deep rifts in the town. Using fake science and questionable tactics, the battle over the
Whalerock project ended in a town buy-out.
2. Pay to Play
The Whalerock controversy was
but one of several instances reported in Progressive Charlestown of the ruling
CCA Party’s decision to put a “For Sale” sign in front of Town Hall. Early on
in their new term, the CCA Party Town Councilors made it clear that they would
fight for those causes and interests that were important to their major donors
and supporters – whether it was fighting against an expanded Rhythm and Roots event or a new concert series by promoter Frank J. Russo or expanded aquaculture shell-fishing in our coastal ponds.
In addition to advocating for
causes that benefited CCA Party supporters, there were major CCA patronage
appointments to
key town positions. Some examples: leader of the Whalerock anonymous abutters
and losing 2012 CCA Town Council candidate Ron Areglado was appointed to the
Chariho School Committee, as was his Ill Wind colleague Donna Chambers.
 |
| You can also get what you want by being a CCA attack puppet |
CCA Party pundit Mike
Chambers was appointed to the Zoning Board of Review after Town Council
President Boss Tom Gentz (CCA) blacklisted the re-appointment of William Meyers to the ZBR. Meyers
had been publicly attacked by Ron Areglado (whose rules of civility only apply
to others), the first such blacklisting of a reappointment in five years. That
was the vacancy filled by Mike Chambers.
Waiting in the wings for another patronage appointment to the ZBR
is losing 2010 CCA candidate for Council Cliff Vanover.
And who is it who pays to
play? Once all the 2012 campaign finance reports were in, we reported that around 60% of the CCA’s huge campaign war chest came from non-residents who had
interests in such things as blocking a homestead tax credit for full-time
residents or curtailing activity in Ninigret Park or spending public tax
dollars to buy adjacent properties to prevent land uses the neighbors opposed. And
that trend is continuing into the 2014 campaign cycle.
3. Copar
Quarries
During the past year, Progressive Charlestown documented just
how bad this company is – so bad that town officials in Westerly, Charlestown and Richmond have been made to look
foolish, incompetent or perhaps even corrupt.
Charlestown started off the
year by making wild promises of coming to the rescue, but in the end, the best
they could do was send a letter to the Attorney General asking him to look into it, and telling
neighbors there was nothing they could do. As for that letter to the AG, it nearly provoked a war with Westerly because all the letter did was blame them for
the Copar mess. Not that Westerly didn’t deserve major criticism, but Charlestown has done nothing substantive.
I wonder if Charlestown’s
reaction would be different if the neighbors were wealthy CCA donors and supporters. You
be the judge.
4. The never-ending war with the
Narragansett Indian Tribe
Given the close kinship
between the CCA Party and the group formerly known as the RI Statewide
Coalition (RISC), it’s no surprise that the CCA carries on the attacks on the
Tribe that were RISC’s Raison d'être.
Charlestown
employs controversial former East Providence Mayor Joe Larisa as its
Special Counsel to fight the Tribe and pays him a retainer of $24,600 a year.
Larisa’s big issue for 2013
was trying to prevent the transfer of the former Providence Boys and Girls Club
Camp Davis property
to the Tribe to fulfill the terms of a land swap. Those efforts have been
deeply hush-hush, but the fact is that the land transfer has been stalled.
Larisa
has also read internet news reports for the town to make sure Congress does
nothing to undo the Carcieri v. Salazar decision that has taken sovereignty
rights from over 500 tribes across the country.
He has also counseled the town
on smaller matters, such as how much and what kind of shrubbery the Tribe
needed to plant around its new Long House. Indeed, the whole long flap between
the Tribe and Charlestown over their new tribal museum was an under-the-radar
theatre of the absurd (click here to
read an e-mail thread that illustrates what I mean).
5. Stankiewicz
hired as new Town
Administrator
He
came in with a good sense of humor and what seemed to be a determination to do
good. But I must admit to being disappointed. Two actions were particularly
disturbing – one was his imposition of a virtual
stone wall on what used to be public records. The second was his insensitive
response to Charlestown residents’ problems with the Copar Quarry. His
difficulty in effectively communicating the town’s message hasn’t helped
either (click here
and here
for examples)
It
seems pretty clear that Stankiewicz is trying very hard to follow the
instructions he has been given by the CCA Party Council majority (see “Pay
to Play,” above) and is perhaps tired of always getting forced to resign (click here and here) which is a common occupational hazard for many town managers. It’s a tough spot to be in, getting the
Charlestown gig after being out of work for months.
6. Charlestown’s
Stone
Wall
The CCA Party says all the
right things when it comes to transparency and good government. But when it comes to practicing good government, that’s another story. When it comes to transparency in government, the CCA is the Party of Darkness.
Among the many stories over the past year, Councilor Deputy Dan Slattery (CCA) and his “Australian Ballot” stands out.
Slattery proposed the Town
Council select its replacement appointee for a Chariho School Committee vacancy
among three applicants by secret ballot during the Council meeting. He called
it an “Australian Ballot.” Through this process, the Council ended up
appointing the spectacularly unqualified but reliable CCA Party loyalist Donna
Chambers to fill the position.
 |
| Deb Carney takes down Slattery - again |
The town also decided that court
records it has on cases where the town is a party are no longer public records.
Town
Administrator Mark Stankiewicz claimed Charlestown no longer had possession of
these records; only our Town Solicitor Peter Ruggiero had the records and
he claimed he was not covered by the state open records law. I filed a
complaint with the Attorney General and the AG
ruled that the town’s stone wall tactics were totally illegal and that our
Town Solicitor, who should have known better, is covered under the law.
Click
here for the details of the irregularities in the way the town hired its
special Counsel for the Whalerock case and how that lawyer, with the town’s
tacit permission, tried
to cover-up what he did with your money.
7. Bugs
Whether it’s higher tick
populations (and increased rates of Lyme Disease), mosquitoes
bringing West Nile, Eastern Equine Encephalitis and other viruses, or beetles,
wasps and winter
moths killing our woodlands, one of the tangible effects of climate change
on Charlestown has been a sharp up-tick in very annoying insects. Makes you
appreciate the town’s Mosquito Abatement Commission a lot more.
8. Renewed
attacks on affordable
housing
It
seems like every fall since CCA Party leader Tom Gentz took took control of Charlestown's Town Council three years ago, Party stalwarts gear up for an annual
attack on the state’s affordable housing law. The CCA seems to believe that
they are so smart and Charlestown is so special we should be exempt from the standards the rest of the state must follow. And Gentz and his cohorts will keep going to the State House until they convince the General Assembly of that fundamental fact.
Meanwhile, Charlestown
remains one of the very worst among RI’s 39 cities and towns, worse than
towns a lot smaller and more rural (e.g. Block Island) who have found that
having more affordable housing is good for their communities.
But
the CCA Party insists that affordable housing is really a problem and not a
solution. It continues to tout Councilor George Tremblay’s bogus research and
promotes Planning Commissar Ruth
Platner’s repugnant theory that children are parasites, so families with
school-age children should be discouraged from settling in Charlestown.
Tremblay,
Gentz and the other CCA town leaders want Charlestown’s “distressed properties," ones where the owners have lost so much equity that they are underwater, or
face foreclosure, to be counted as “affordable housing.” That idea is so wrong on so many
levels – click
here for Rep. Donna Walsh’s explanation of the difference.
Then
there are the obnoxious attitudes toward low-income residents frequently voiced
by Town Councilors Tremblay and Dan Slattery. This is one Top Ten story I am
sick of reporting.
9. Attacks
on small business
Speaking
of being sick of reporting stories, our #9 story for 2013 are the CCA Party’s
continued efforts to drive town businesses out of
town and prevent new businesses from moving in.
Witness the recent enactment by the Council majority to micromanage shrubbery and parking at town businesses as prime examples. Charlestown has lost several small businesses but I guess there’s some good news – we did get two new gun dealers.
Witness the recent enactment by the Council majority to micromanage shrubbery and parking at town businesses as prime examples. Charlestown has lost several small businesses but I guess there’s some good news – we did get two new gun dealers.
10. Chariho
regional school system
How
we educate children is a mark of how much a community cares about its future. The
three Chariho towns of Charlestown, Richmond and Hopkinton seem to agree on
nothing except they each want to pay as little as possible to educate Chariho
students while reserving the right to complain and nitpick.
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| CCA political appointees Areglado and Chambers - pushing their own agendas |
Three times, the
Chariho budget went to the voters at a figure at or less than last year’s
budget. Three
times, the voters of Hopkinton and Richmond voted “NO” in such large
numbers that they overwhelmed Charlestown’s plurality in favor of the budget.
So the system runs on the equivalent of a continuing resolution, called
“maintenance of effort.”
Two
elected Charlestown school committee members resigned and two CCA Party
patronage appointees – Ron Areglado and Donna
Chambers – took their place. Neither of them were prominent when Chariho
needed them during the budget balloting.
However,
Chambers
has been far from silent supporting the
siphoning off of Chariho funding for charter schools, while Ron Areglado
has been crusading for a school committee rule change that would impose a “civility”
standard on committee members that he himself has been unwilling to follow in
his own conduct.
Since
Hopkinton, but particularly Richmond, want some changes to the way Chariho is
funded, we end the year on the brink
of war among the towns led by our own stalwart Deputy Dan Slattery who
thinks that even talking about policy changes amounts to a casus belli.
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| Shooting from this is legal. Businesses that don't pour enough mulch are breaking the law |
There were plenty of runners-up for the Top Ten list, such as the way the CCA Party Town Council
majority has raised property taxes for the sixth year in a
row,
despite big budget surpluses.
 |
| Tina Jackson - how many new laws can SHE break? |
There
were the new and repeated violations of the law by Republican candidate for
state Representative Tina
Jackson. Her callous disregard for the law is
becoming so predictable that it wouldn’t rate a story, if not for her political
ambitions.
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| The Exeter Four - a terrific victory |
With the help of a lot more contributors and more hustle,
Progressive Charlestown expanded its regional coverage extensively. We won
praise and even a little
national attention for coverage of the defeat of the gun lobby/Tea Party
effort to recall the Exeter Town Council majority. That win may have
far-reaching implications.
We
also covered regional issues like the Lawrence
& Memorial labor dispute, which may be repeated shortly at Westerly Hospital, and problems
at Millstone
nuclear power plant which is only 20 miles away
from Charlestown.
We also covered Rhode Island’s major civil rights advance, Marriage Equality. We covered climate change and shoreline protection, Charlestown’s appalling recycling record and the full gamut of environmental issues.
We also covered Rhode Island’s major civil rights advance, Marriage Equality. We covered climate change and shoreline protection, Charlestown’s appalling recycling record and the full gamut of environmental issues.
All
this coverage boosted Progressive Charlestown’s readership to the point where
we average 2,000 page-reads a day. Our all-time record went from half
a million page-reads on June 30 to one
million on November 29.
Unlike our first two years, there wasn’t much news in 2013
about two prominent local figures, Councilor Lisa
DiBello who had provided the CCA Party with its
ruling majority in 2010-2012, but is no longer a factor, and former Jim
Mageau who provided the CCA with its main reason
to organize in 2006.
Of
course, next year we have the 2014
campaign, which promises to be a battle between the two
Charlestowns (the CCA’s world of privilege versus the real world the rest
of us live in. And we promise to intensify our efforts to find a cure for that
dreaded affliction, humorous
dyscognition.