Second
board member ousted as CCA stacks Zoning with CCA loyalists
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| The CCA Party will tolerate no deviation from their party line |
By
Will Collette
Long-serving
member of the Charlestown Zoning Board of Review (ZBR) Richard Frank, husband
of former Town Council member Marge Frank, learned at the July 17 Town Council
meeting that despite his long and faithful service to town and his willingness
to serve another term, he was being kicked off the ZBR.
Charlestown
Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) Council hit man Dan Slattery made the
announcement during the usually routine portion of the town council agenda for re-appointment of volunteer commissioners who wish to be re-appointed, that
he stood against Dick Frank’s re-appointment and his two CCA Party colleagues, Council
Boss Tom Gentz and George Tremblay, nodded to indicate that a majority wanted
to purge Frank.
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| Slattery, the CCA Party's political enforcer, said Frank could not be reappointed without ZBR Chair Mike Rzewuski's written recommendation. Minutes earlier, CCA appointees Cliff Vanover and Mike Chambers were reappointed without ZBR Chair Mike Rzewuski's written recommendation. |
Slattery
said that one of the main reasons he decided Dick Frank had to go was because
the ZBR Chair Mike Rzewuski did not include a written recommendation supporting
Frank’s reappointment, which Slattery interpreted to mean that Rzewuski opposed
him. Click here to watch and
listen.
However,
two other ZBR members were also up for re-appointment: CCA Party zealots Cliff
Vanover and Mike Chambers. Rzewuski did not write a written recommendation for
them, either.
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| Lisa DiBello abstained rather than support the husband of former Council President Marge Frank, whom DiBello is suing along with a slew of other town officials |
By
that logic, the Council should have treated all three ZBR re-appointments the
same, but on the vote to oust Dick Frank, the three CCA boys voted "yes," Councilor Paula Andersen supported his reappointment, and Councilor Lisa
DiBello abstained.
DiBello
did not explicitly explain her abstention, but there is the fact that Dick Frank's wife Marge is one of the named plaintiffs in the long-running conspiracy lawsuit Ms. DiBello has waged against the town.
The
two CCA Party candidates, Vanover and Chambers, were approved by the Council
without a hitch despite their lack of a recommendation letter from ZBR Chair
Rzewuski.
I
e-mailed Rzewuski to ask him to comment on this and to clarify whether or not
he supported Dick Frank’s ouster, as Slattery had claimed. This is his reply:
“I will not give a Richard Frank performance review to you. Your record shows you will do what you want on who you want any way. I did not submit a letter to reject nor approve anyone for re-appointment. Perhaps you should show interest for the ZBD while there is still an opening.”
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| Mike Rzewuski, chairing one of the out-of-control Whalerock hearings |
Rzewuski is still pissed off at me
for my reviews of his terrible performance as chair during the special ZBR
hearings on Whalerock when he allowed the proceedings to break down into chaos
and gave Whalerock a perfect opportunity to beat Charlestown once again in
Court. His poor chairing of those hearings left Charlestown with little choice
but to pay $2.1 million to buy the land.
One of Rzewuski’s first errors at the Whalerock hearings was to ignore the rules of procedure to allow CCA Party
ethics and decorum meister Ron Areglado to be the very first person to speak.
Areglado launched into a 30 minute personal attack against Dick Frank and
William Meyers, accusing them of prejudice against the opponents of the
Whalerock project (because they, plus two other ZBR members cast yes votes for
Whalerock in its early stages).
Areglado wanted both Meyers and Frank to be
recused from these hearings because they didn’t vote his way at earlier
hearings.
During the next several hearings, I
recall no instance when Frank or Meyers said anything, never mind anything
prejudicial, while ZBR Chair showed obvious bias in his words and in the way he
ran the hearings. As I said, it became clear that the Whalerock hearings were so poorly conducted that when the inevitable vote against Whalerock was taken,
it would be easily reversed in an appeal to the Superior Court.
The town’s negotiated purchase with
Whalerock owner Larry LeBlanc meant the hearings ended with no vote taken, thus rescuing Charlestown from another court room defeat on Whalerock.
However, the CCA Party’s animus toward
Dick Frank and William Meyer remained. At their December 2013 Town Council meeting, the CCA Boys took out their first target William Meyer.
Meyer’s term was up and, as they later do to Dick Frank, the CCA
Boys said they would not re-appoint him.
This was the first time in five years – since July 2008 – that the Council
rejected the re-appointment application of an active town commission or board
member.
That 2008 action was sharply
attacked at the time by the same CCA Party that decided to do the same thing to
Bill Meyer, and now Dick Frank.
In 2008, it was Dr. Milton Krantz, one of the
founders and steering committee members of the CCA Party, who was blocked from
re-appointment by then Council President Jim Mageau. Mageau said it was the Council’s
prerogative to approve or reject such applications. But at the time, the CCA
Party didn’t think so.
But now they do, since they’re in
the position to do the purging.
Dick
Frank told me that he always did his best to make decisions based on the oath he
took to apply the law fairly and to set aside his own prejudices. That was why
he voted for Whalerock in the early stages – not because he favored the
project, but because he felt he was bound by the law. Failing to make decisions
strictly based on the law sets Charlestown up for lawsuits appealing bias
rulings that the town will probably lose.
There’s
a saying in politics and war that “To the victors belong the spoils.” Even
through the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) claims it is not a
political party but only an informal grouping of concerned citizens who want
good, honest and effective government, they play the game of politics for
keeps. As they have demonstrated, especially in the past couple of years, they take no prisoners.
In
the six years since they ousted former Town Council President Jim Mageau, the
CCA Party has held and tightened its iron grip on town government, removing
both staff and volunteers who didn’t display sufficient enthusiasm for the
CCA’s positions and pet projects and replaced them with compliant staff and political
appointees.
The
Zoning Board of Review has been a special target for one of the controlling CCA
Party factions, the anti-wind NIMBY cult led by Ron Areglado. His cult took over
control of the Charter Revision
Advisory Committee
in 2012 in a largely unsuccessful effort to ram through changes to the
Charlestown Home Rule Charter aimed at punishing incumbent members of the
Zoning Board.
NOTE:
not everyone who went on the 2012 CRAC was a member of the Areglado cult or
ended up a CCA Party devotee. Some kept their cool; others learned what was
really going on. What they did have in common was opposition to Whalerock and
anger at the ZBR members who voted 4-1 in favor of Whalerock right after the
project was first proposed and before it because a Charlestown cause celebré.
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| Rzewuski clashes with Donna Chambers at 2012 CRAC hearing |
One
of the highlights of the CCA/CRAC effort to trash the Zoning Board was a February 27,
2012 confrontation
between ZBR Chair Mike Rzewuski and CRACer Donna Chambers, since given a CCA
Party patronage appointment to the Chariho School Committee.
Rzewuski
tried to argue that the CCA/CRAC
scheme to apply term limits only to
the ZBR was not only unfair, but impractical. He said the zoning laws are
complicated and detailed. Each member is legally sworn to make decisions only based
on those laws. It takes a while for a member intent on honoring his or her oath
to learn all the fine points, so term-limiting their service does a disservice
to the town.
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| And Chambers doesn't want to hear it |
In
the middle of Rzewuski’s explanation of the law and effort to read pertinent
sections, Donna Chambers interrupted him to say, “we don’t want to listen to
what you say.” Kinda showed how well suited she was to be a CCAer.
As
it has turned out, Donna Chambers and the other CCA CRACers managed to have it
all. As terms of ZBR members expire, they can count on the CCA Party majority
on the Town Council to blacklist their reappointment applications. And they can
also count on the CCA Party to appoint their own people to the ZBR. And those
new CCA Party appointees to the ZBR are not term-limited.
As
noted, Mike Chambers (Donna’s husband) and Cliff Vanover (Planning Commissar
Ruth Platner’s husband) were appointed, and despite lacking a support letter
from Rzewuski, were re-appointed by the Town Council on July 27.
The
next new ZBR member who will probably be appointed at the August Council
meeting, is Joe Quadrato. Quadrato was a CRACer, major fund-raiser for the CCA Party in 2012
and a stalwart member of Ron Areglado’s congregation. He’s the guy with the UFO
signal beacon that makes Charlestown’s dark sky ordinance a joke.
Though
the CCA Party has cleaned out most of the writings
of Mike Chambers from their official website, he has demonstrated a pretty
good disregard of the facts. And we have copies of all those writings. Cliff Vanover also has quite a remarkable record – just to pick one of many examples, there’s his almost violent insistence that Charlestown’s voter-approved Open Space/Recreation Bond Funds could not be used for recreation, only on open space.
The
Charlestown Zoning Board of Review is a quasi-judicial body and serves as the
last line of appeal for Charlestown property owners. They are required by law
to take sworn testimony and render decisions solely based on the language of
the law and legal precedents. If there is any hint of bias or failure to
strictly adhere to law and precedent, a property owner can challenge their
decision in RI Superior Court.
This
process is expensive, both to the property owner and to the town. But if the
court rules that Charlestown’s ZBR made an error – almost a sure bet once the
CCA Party finished packing the ZBR with clowns – not only is the ZBR decision overturned,
but the property owner can recoup all litigation costs from the town. Be
prepared for lots of such lawsuits.