Another huge jump in Charlestown unemployment

Still nothing from CCA Party

By Will Collette

The RI Department of Labor and Training finally got around to posting municipal unemployment rates on its website. For the past several weeks, I have been citing the December rate for Charlestown which was 9.9%, a 1.2 point hike over November’s figures.

But the new DLT numbers covering January and February are truly awful for Charlestown and highlight the hardships so many Charlestown families are experiencing, making the silence and apathy of the Charlestown Citizen Alliance, which has held total control over Charlestown since 2008, all the more appalling.

According to DLT, Charlestown’s January unemployment rate jumped to 12.3% (that’s 2.4 points over December) and then settled back to 11.6% in February. We had an average monthly unemployment rate of 9.6% in 2013.

Approximately 4,600 Charlestown residents try to work for a living, but in January, 567 of our friends and neighbors were on the unemployment insurance rolls. This figure does not include those who have exhausted benefits, gave up looking or are underemployed.

We have very few job opportunities in Charlestown. Thanks to the CCA Party, we have a lot fewer than we could have. 

Witness the treatment of town businesses, like the recent ordeal one of the town’s largest employers, Arrowhead Dental, has been put through by Planning Commissar Ruth Platner and the Planning Commission over its planned expansion.

Then there’s Dave’s Coffee, which decided that rather than try to build a new building in Charlestown to keep pace with its growing business, they decided to build and move their headquarters to Narragansett.

I have written about seven practical steps Charlestown could take to improve our town’s economy and reduce town unemployment. The CCA Party’s position is there is nothing the town can or should do, since (a) the economy is a national problem and (b) the town doesn’t want to take the chance of aiding those they deem to be the undeserving poor. They’d rather spend town money to benefit their campaign supporters and on such critically needed projects as re-paving the town tennis courts ($260,000) which will go before the voters as part of the town's financial referendum.

Now there's a great example of "pay to play."

Here are the seven steps that I have proposed which, I believe, will never happen so long as the CCA Party controls town government [detailed in depth here]:

Tax relief. Reduce the tax load on Charlestown residents by, at minimum, not increasing taxes as the CCA-controlled town government has done for the past six years that they’ve controlled the budget. Reconsider past proposals to provide meaningful tax relief to middle-class Charlestown residents.

If the Planning Commission is going to mandate certain types
of shingles, the town should give tax incentives to defray cost

Business incentives. Charlestown is famous for passing nit-picking ordinances that push local businesses either out of business or out of town with the resulting loss of work opportunities. If these ordinances are necessary for the public good, rather than make them unfunded mandates, give businesses a chance to recoup their costs of compliance through property tax credits.

Buy local. Seek to use vendors and contractors who are locally based and…

Hire local. Use vendors and contractors who hire local workers.

Public transportation - CCA style

Make sure new business regulations add value. Before enacting new ordinances that constrict business, the town should weigh (a) the cost of those regulations to business compared to (b) the costs and beneficial effects on the community.

Open up job opportunities. Instead of resisting the need to come up with at least 200 units of affordable housing in Charlestown, actually try creative approaches to create that housing, and reap the benefit of new work opportunities for unemployed construction workers.

Hook up with public transportation. We cannot ignore the hardship Charlestown’s total lack of access to public transportation creates for working people to get to work, to look for a new job, or to get to training or education programs to equip them to get a new job. If we can’t get public transportation into Charlestown, we need to use creative approaches to get Charlestown workers to public transportation.