Juicy and delicious tidbits
By Will Collette
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| Gee, what a shame if we were to lose Joe Larisa |
Where is Joe
Larisa?
Unless
Charlestown is violating the state open records law, Charlestown’s Special-Counsel-to–Fight-Anything-the-Narragansett-Indian-Tribe-Wants-to-Do Joe Larisa
has not sent the town a bill for his monthly $2,050 retainer since last
February.
That’s the last bill the town provided to me under the Access to
Public Records Act. Usually Larisa files his bills every two months. Maybe this
means Larisa is no longer on the payroll – I sent that question to Town
Administrator Mark Stankiewicz over a week ago and am still waiting for a
reply.
According
to the Providence Journal, Larisa has moved his family out of state, from
their long-time home in East Providence to South Dartmouth, MA “to provide more
room for the children and be closer to his wife’s family.”
OMG! If Charlestown loses Larisa, who will carry on the town’s – actually the CCA Party’s – perpetual war with the Tribe?
OMG! If Charlestown loses Larisa, who will carry on the town’s – actually the CCA Party’s – perpetual war with the Tribe?
Charlestown Dems
have some early campaign ups and downs
Just days after
filing a four-member slate of candidates for Town Council, the Charlestown
Democratic Town Committee was told by Nick Bottai that he had to withdraw from
the Council race. Nick is about to enter his sophomore year at URI and just can’t
see how he could campaign, and then serve, while carrying a full course load
and working his ass off to pay for his schooling.
However, the
CDTC is still optimistic about taking back control of the Town Council from the
Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) which has ruled Charlestown for the
past six years with its remaining three candidates.
Two-term
incumbent Lisa DiBello is running for a third-term, this time as a Democrat. It
is still an open question whether this will be in concert with or separate from
the endorsed slate. DiBello
filed as a Democrat in the final hour of the final day of declarations after
the CDTC had already endorsed its slate.
The CDTC kicked
off campaign season with a successful July 5th tag sale that netted
over $900 for the Democrats’ campaign coffers. Check the CDTC website for
information on their plans for the 2014 campaign.
Jobs, jobs, jobs
The uptick in
the economy can easily be seen in the increase in Rhode Island non-profit jobs.
The best source for information on public service and social change work is
Rhode Island Community Jobs sponsored by the Swearer Center for Public Service at
Brown University. To sign up, click
here.
They have jobs all
over the area. I have cherry-picked recent postings for jobs in South County.
For example, Wood River Health Services in Hope Valley is looking to hire a
Behavioral Health Manager. Click
here for the details.
The YMCA of
Greater Providence wants to hire an “Out of School Time Coordinator” in Peace
Dale. Click
here for the details.
South
County Community Action has two job openings. One is for a Residential Energy
Auditor (details
here). The other is for a Head Start Teacher Assistant (click
here for the details).
Speaking of
jobs…
It
looks like former Westerly Town Manager Steve Hartford is determined to hold at
least one new job per month until the end of Governor Lincoln Chafee’s term.
Hartford, who left
Westerly after losing the Town Council’s support at least partly due to
botching the Copar Quarry matter, was quickly hired by the Chafee
Administration as a “special
policy advisor.” He has since served as policy
director, as special receiver for the Central
Coventry Fire District. There may be a couple of other jobs as well.
Now
he can add another job title to his resume. Gov. Chafee has named
Hartford to be the new Director of Administration, replacing Richard Licht
who was given a judgeship. Governor Chafee’s term ends at the end of this year.
He is not running for re-election. And Steve Hartford will have to look for yet
another job and will have to explain why he keeps moving from job to job.
South County
Beaches among the dirtiest in the nation
If
ever there was a dubious distinction for “The Ocean State,” coming in 25th
out of 30 states for beach water quality is not one of them. The annual
report of the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) rates beaches based
on the number of days when bacteria levels exceed national standards.
While
none of Charlestown’s beaches were on the list for excess bacteria, nine South
County beaches were listed, including close-by Green Hill Beach and Weekapaug.
Here’s
the list of South County beaches that had excess bacteria. The percentages show
the number of samples that showed contamination.
- Scarborough State Beach South, Washington County (28%)
- Narragansett Town Beach, Washington County (22%)
- Scarborough State Beach North, Washington County (21%)
- Greenhill Beach, Washington County (20%)
- North Kingstown Town Beach, Washington County (16%)
- Saunderstown Yacht Club, Washington County (13%)
- Capt Roger Wheeler State Beach, Washington County (10%)
- Weekapaug Fire District, Washington County (7%) – this is one of our area’s fake fire districts
- Camp Grosvenor, Washington County (4%)
Sorry, Leo
Oysters
account for 98% of Rhode Island’s total aquaculture yield and revenues have
gone up by almost 50% just in the past year. Oyster farming is not only good
for the local economy, but also good for the salt ponds as oysters remove
massive amounts of nitrates from waters of the ponds.
Those
nitrates get there from the septic systems and lawn fertilizers used by local Aqua-NIMBYs
like Mainelli, who claim the oyster farms spoil their view and impede recreation
uses of the ponds – not that Mainelli wants anyone but the right people using
the ponds.
Unless you hate the sight of people working for a living, I think
they actually enhance the view by adding an element of authentic New England
water culture. This PBN article focuses especially on the pilot project in
Quonochotang Pond that Mainelli and his CCA Party cohorts are trying to block.
Use it or lose
it
Though
the top brass at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, owners of Westerly Hospital,
have expressed their general happiness with Westerly’s turn-around from near
bankruptcy, they warn that Westerly Hospital’s future is far from secure.
If
the hospital, or key services within the hospital, fail to bring in customers,
a.k.a. patients, Lawrence & Memorial will be free to close down services
when it hits the two-year anniversary of their takeover last on this year. Said
Westerly Hospital board chair Stephen Greene:
“If all the numbers show that there’s no reason to continue various lines of services because there’s no usage from a business perspective, any business would discontinue a particular service line,”
While
L&M brass may be looking only at the bottom line, I think Westerly Hospital
could learn a lot from South County Hospital where the high level of patient
care and satisfaction – care so good it has made South
County Hospital the #1 ranked-hospital in New England – results in a
healthy balance sheet.
Blackmail,
on the other hand, and L&M’s ham-handed, cut-and-slash management style
does not do much to promote community loyalty.
Idiot alert!
It
shouldn’t take new or harsher state laws to make people curb their
irresponsible conduct, but sadly, that’s sometimes what we must do. It
is now illegal in Rhode Island to leave your pet confined to a car in
extreme heat or cold. You can get up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine for
doing so. Personally, I’d like to have you
confined in that car under the same conditions for the same amount of time.
Further, the new law allows firefighters, police or animal control to use
whatever means necessary to rescue the pet.
Littering
fines have been substantially raised from $500 to $1,000 for the first
offense and from $500 to $5,000 for a second offense. AND – pay attention,
Charlestown – local municipalities will be entitled to a share of the fines.
Speaking of
idiots
If
you know a person who is hopelessly addicted to his or her electronic devices,
try this challenge on them. Have them click on Do Nothing for Two Minutes and dare them to do it. You may even
want to consider attaching a small wager to the challenge.
Glimmer of hope
During
the first few months of the year, the sky-rocketing number of overdose deaths
in Rhode Island from heroin and fentanyl were big news. There were 103 deaths
in the first five months. But as more police departments – Charlestown was
among the first – began equipping officers and EMTs with doses of Narcan, the number
of overdose deaths in Rhode Island has now dropped to a four-year low.
This
is quite a triumph for sensible community policing.
Lots of miles of
bad road
You
are more than twice as likely to get killed on one of Rhode Island’s rural
roads than on any other kind of road in Rhode Island. According
to the Trip National Transportation Research Group, Rhode Island is tied
with West Virginia for having the second-worst rural roads in the United States.
Connecticut comes in at #1.
According
to their report, 33% of Rhode Island (and West Virginia) roads are in poor
condition and 25% of our rural bridges are in disrepair. The death rate for
Rhode Islanders travelling on rural roads is 1.85 per 100 million vehicle miles
compared to 0.76 for all other Rhode Island roads.
Federal
funding to road infrastructure expires
on September 30 unless the US Congress passes legislation to renew or
extend the funding. What do you think the odds are that the House of
Representatives will agree to do that?
“Carcieri Fix”
sponsor rates its chances
For
those of you who pay attention to the warnings of the Charlestown Citizens
Alliance (CCA Party), you know the CCA Party expects that Charlestown always
stands in perpetual peril of a casino built right here in Charlestown by the
Narragansett Indian Tribe.
Even though we are more likely to have a UFO landing
after they spot Joe Quadrato’s flag illuminating beacon, the CCA Party
routinely tries to drum up fear of an Indian casino in Charlestown.
One
of their fears is that an arcane bit of civil rights legislation, popularly
called the “Carcieri Fix,” might pass the Congress. Currently, this legislation
is stalled, probably permanently, in the Senate. The bill’s sponsor, Senator
Jon Tester (D-Montana) gave
an interesting interview to Indian Country Today where he talked about the
chances of the Carcieri Fix being enacted.
Referring to Republican colleague John
Barrasso (R-Wyoming) substitute bill to instead create a study on the effects
of the Carcieri v. Salazar decision on the 500 affected tribes, Tester said:
“Yeah, that’s something we do here all the time. We study stuff all the time, and then we study it some more. I think Carcieri is a known entity, and I don’t think it necessarily needs to be studied anymore.”
Mutant Orange
Lobsters
In
my last Charlestown Tapas, I reported that Charlestown’s Nordic Lodge had
gotten a very rare naturally orange lobster (I call him Bohner) and that
instead of serving him up to a customer, they planned to donate Bohner to a
local aquarium so others can see this rarity. The chances of a naturally orange
lobster are one in 30 million.
Then
I got an e-mail from our friends at the Mystic
Aquarium announcing that they were putting not one, but two orange lobsters on display. Both
were donated by Stop & Shop stores.
I
contacted the Nordic Lodge and suggested that this might be a good home for
Bohner so that s/he might cavort with similar mutant lobsters. Lisa Brown
e-mailed me back to thank me for the tip, but said that Bohner had found a
permanent home at the Beavertail Aquarium in Jamestown and that “he is residing
very comfortably there now.”
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| For more Rhymes With Orange cartoons, click here. |
Some might call
this a bad idea
But
I think it’s great. Those marvels of nature – marshmallow Peeps® - are planning
to go year round and break out of the Easter-only rut. Now, in my pre-diabetes
days, I considered Peeps® to be one of the four basic food groups, but times
have changed.
I keep Peeps® around solely to deal with hypoglycemic attacks
(and strictly in their most perfect state, which is hard-as-a-rock stale). The
makers of Peeps® are trying a new marketing approach to celebrate Peeps® every
day by celebrating
365 holidays a year, some real and some iffy.
The Consumerist
thinks this is crass, but I think it’s brilliant! Click here to
see what Peeps® holiday today is.