Thirteen
quick takes for busy readers
By
Will Collette
Tight
race in neighboring district decided by absentee ballots
 |
| Kathy Fogarty and her family |
As the cliche goes, "every vote counts." That cliche was proven again in the House district that bumps right up against the Charlestown-South Kingstown line.
House
curmudgeon Rep. Spencer Dickinson (D) has lost his primary battle to continue
to represent House District 35 next door in South Kingston. Dickinson lost in
an encore of their 2012 primary fight to former South Kingstown Town Councilor
Kathy Fogarty.
On
election night, Dickinson was ahead of Fogarty by ten votes. However, after all
the mail-in and other ballots were counted, Dickinson lost his ten vote lead
and was beaten by Fogarty by 34 votes.
 |
| This is from Lacey McGreevy's campaign website. Seriously. She's giving stuff away at the polls. Not sure what. Any guesses? |
Sarah Palin also included this in her resume, but she also had Mayor of Wasilla and a view of Russia from her window to complete her qualifications.
Here’s
how she describes herself in her campaign bio: “Lacey McGreevy attended
South Kingstown high school then went on to Southern New Hampshire University
with a double major of marketing and fashion merchandising. She currently works
as a trade show consultant and helps to keep women safe with princess pepper spray.” [emphasis added and I am NOT making this up.]
In other races…
Sen. Cathie Cool
Rumsey (D) will face off against Hopkinton dry-cleaner Elaine Morgan (R). Morgan has cleverly called herself the "Warm" candidate, since I guess she realizes she will never be Cool - Cathie won that honor by being born with the name.
Justin
Price (R) beat Michael Picillo (R) in the September 9 Republican Primary for
the right to contest Rep. Larry Valencia for House District 39. He came up with
the ingenious campaign slogan “Price is Right for Rhode Island.” OK.
A radical millionaire
registered to vote in Block Island named Blake Filippi (I) is challenging Rep. Donna
Walsh for District 36 which includes all of Charlestown. Filippi runs the RI
Liberty Coalition which is tied into a thing called the “Tenth Amendment Center”
and advocates states nullifying (ignoring) federal laws they don’t like.
“Tenthers,” as they like to call themselves, don’t accept that the Civil War has already settled that question.
“Tenthers,” as they like to call themselves, don’t accept that the Civil War has already settled that question.
He is linked to
radical militia groups, such as the Oath Keepers and the sovereign citizens movement.
I anticipate an enthusiastic endorsement of Filippi from
the Charlestown Citizens Alliance since he also seems to support Charlestown's position that it can ignore state laws it doesn't like.
Charlestown Dems hosting a series of schmoozes
These are the confirmed dates for
the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee’s “Meet the Candidates”
- October 9 - Charlestown Gallery, 5:30-7:30 PM
- October 11 - Breachway Grill, 2:00-4:00 PM
- October 18 - Quonochontaug Grange, 2:00-4:00 PM
- October 19 - K&S Pizza, 2:00-4:00 PM
Snap-back against Aqua-NIMBYs
Charlestown is close to fully
embracing resistance to shellfish aqua-culture based on opposition from CCA
Party supporters who own property on the water and don’t like the look of
shell-fishing as they sip martinis on their verandas. Town Councilor and
what passes as CCA's "Mr. Science" George Tremblay stirred the pot some more by
wanting the Town Council to invite a retired professor who doesn’t like oyster
farming to speak before the Council.
He saw this guy’s letter to the editor to the Sun and naturally bought into it.
Tremblay’s has shown himself to be a
sucker from plausible sounding nonsense – example: he thought there were legions of billionaire elderly people poised to grab
affordable housing for seniors as investments they could flip for a profit. He
heard part one of a two-part story on the radio but missed part two where this tale turned out to be totally false.
Since science guy Tremblay seems to find the
Westerly Sun letters column to be a top best source for science research, I hope he read this letter (click here) by David Beutel, the aquaculture specialist for the state Coastal
Resources Management Council. Beutel recommends more reliable research
before buying into the aquaculture NIMBY position.
Conservation Commission's new plan for
moraine trail
The Charlestown Conservation
Commission has come up with a proposal for siting a parking area and building a
walking trail so residents can start to enjoy what they bought for $2.14
million. That’s the proposed site of the now-dead Whalerock wind turbine
project on a prime stretch of moraine land overlooking Route One now
officially called the Charlestown Moraine Preserve.
The trail map appears below. The
proposal only provides access to half of the land the town purchased in order
to block the Whalerock project. I’ll be interested to know what the Commission
has in mind, if anything, for the other half.
Where are the
red light cameras?
At the September 9 Town Council meeting, Town
Administrator Mark Stankiewicz included a section in his report to the Council
on an inquiry he had received regarding the long-overdue red light cameras that
were originally planned for all four traffic signal intersections in
Charlestown along Route One, but now only include the two intersections at East
Beach and West Beach Roads.
Stankiewicz had told me two to four weeks when he
e-mailed me back on September 5. Channel Ten had reported they would be up and running by the end of August. The
deal with vendor Sensys USA (a Swedish company) was approved in May 2012. The idea of installing cameras to catch red-light runners has
been in discussion since a red-light runner killed Charlestown’s Colin Foote in May
2010.
I check those two intersections frequently for
signs of the life of this project, but to date, haven’t seen any. We’ve already
missed the busy traffic summer season. I can’t imagine that this is a one or
two day job.
The idea of installing the cameras was initially
opposed by anonymous commenters on the official CCA Party website, but was adopted nonetheless.
I just wonder how much of this delay stems from mistakes by Council Boss Tom Gentz when he initially pushed to hire this vendor, thinking then (and
probably still) that they are a Rhode Island-based company. Which they are not,
but Boss Gentz cited that as the reason why he decided to pick
them. Classic.
Clean Bugs
We
have not had a recurrence of positive West Nile Virus findings in mosquito
pools just north of Charlestown in Great Swamp, where there were two earlier
findings of the dangerous bug-borne disease. It also looks like our cool, dry
summer and early onset of fall weather may have shortened this year’s season. I
remember last year being especially bad.
But
you’re not totally off the hook. My colleague Linda Falaco warns of the
invasion of an invasive form of Praying Mantis, called the Chinese Mantis.
These are the bad boys who are big and mean enough to go after hummingbirds, as
this very instructive short video (click here) shows.
Linda
speculates that this should trigger Charlestown’s special border protections under
the able command of Councilor Dan Slattery to repeal invaders. Although, Linda
writes, “If the Chinese mantises can be trained to attack children
and/or public employees, they will be required as part of any land development
proposal.”
Guess where
Rhode Island’s most affluent community is?
Did you guess
Barrington? Newport? Charlestown? Nope.
It’s Ashaway at a
median income of $84,500.
BusinessInsider crunches US Census data to determine
the richest community in each state. They looked at places with populations of
1,000 or more, whether or not they are incorporated. Thus, Ashaway, an
unincorporated village that is part of Hopkinton, qualified.
Worm Ladies of
Charlestown want to organize statewide co-op
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- to pool resources to provide composting worms for worm bins in cafeterias in RI
- to sell worms wholesale and retail in New England all year
- to create chemical free soil enhancers/fertilizer
- to certify worm castings as organic
- to eliminate food waste
- to create commercial worm bins adaptable to different need
JOBS
Sign up for daily e-mails on job openings in the non-profit sector. RI Community
Jobs is a unique service by Brown University’s Swearer Center. I have
cherry-picked the recent postings for southern RI, but there are dozens of
other openings all over our area.
South County
Community Action has an opening for a pre-school teacher to work in Wakefield.
Get the details by clicking here.
Momentum Inc. is looking to hire several behavior
technicians, one for Westerly. Get details here.
Chariho
social worker named Educator of the Year
Pumpkin spice whiskey comes to Rhode Island
Pumpkin spice, in case you haven’t been paying
attention, is now a thing. For some reason, almost every consumable is now
coming in a pumpkin spice flavor. So naturally, Rhode Island’s own award-winning
whiskey makers, the Sons of Liberty Craft Distillery in South Kingstown, has released
a pumpkin-spice whiskey to go along with its other flavored blends. If you are
intrigued, click here for a list of places where this is sold.Also, before you overdose on pumpkin spice stuff, you should CLICKHERE to learn about the side-effects.
Free shots
No, we’re not talking about shots of pumpkin spice
whiskey, but flu shots for protection from the usual nasty flu season. While
most Rhode Islanders can get flu shots for free at most of the major pharmacy
chains, BlueCross/Blue Shield of Rhode Island is also running almost a dozen free flu shotclinics for uninsured Rhode Islanders.Here are the BC/BC flu shot clinics in South County:
9/29: 12:00 PM-3:00 PM, Johnnycake Center of Westerly, 23 Industrial Drive, Westerly
11/24: 10:00 AM-1:00 PM, Johnnycake Center Inc, 1231 Kingstown Road, Wakefield
We’ll bring you the dates for other flu shot clinics in future Charlestown Tapas.