Ethics, Morality and the CCA Party

Avoiding the appearance of conflict of interest…by not disclosing it.

CCA Party Town Council candidate owns an OIL WELL? Read on.

By Will Collette

In an earlier article by my colleague Bob Yarnall, we covered the significant differences between what the two Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) candidates for Chariho School Committee said on their CCA Party biographies compared to what they reported to the RI Ethics Commission.

Click here to read Bob’s entire article, but in a nutshell, both candidates, Donna Chambers and Ron Areglado, have some explaining to do about these blatant inconsistencies—especially given that Areglado calls himself the president of something called the Center for Ethical and Moral Leadership (which may or may not exist - sort of like Blake Filippi's RI Liberty Coalition).

But the CCA Party slate’s problems with the RI Ethics Commission are broader than resume inflation.

Three additional members of the CCA Party ticket for 2014 appear to be in violation of the state’s ethics laws by failing to disclose what they need to disclose.

Full disclosure is important to open and transparent government. Disclosures tell us a lot about potential conflicts of interest. And the CCA Party trumpets their high ethical standards and their devotion to open and transparent government every chance they get.

For example, before the CCA Town Council majority had launched its attack on the state Water Resources Board for their effort to buy undeveloped land owned by the Glista Family to protect the water below it, it would have been nice to know that Town Council Boss Tom Gentz has invested in the American Water Works Company, one of the nation’s largest private water system developers.

That may explain why Gentz and his CCA Party colleagues tried so hard to characterize the state Water Resources Board land purchase as a precursor to a public water supply.

Based on his Ethics disclosure report, we also know that Boss Gentz and his wife have substantial investments in an amazing array of companies, including a batch of fossil fuel and petrochemical companies.

From Boss Gentz's financial disclosure form. 

These include: Dupont, Merck, Northeast Utilities, Total (Europe’s largest oil company), lots of big bank stocks, Xcel Energy, Pfizer and even Waste Management, Inc., famous for its landfills and shady record.

You won't find this on Donna Chambers' Ethics report
because it isn't true.

A lot of town issues – green energy, recycling, even bad actor regulations – run counter to the interests of the companies where Boss Gentz has his money.

But there’s another lesson to be learned from Gentz’s ethics disclosure report – at least one member of the CCA Party leadership team knows how to fill out the form.

So why then did Town Council candidate Denise Rhodes – who was personally recruited by Gentz – fail to file any disclosure form at all?

I like Denise. She and I worked together on the Copar fight, especially in deciphering Copar and Armetta’s finances. But why did she fail to file? Why didn’t Gentz take her in hand rather than leave it to mean people like me to file a formal complaint against her with the Ethics Commission?

The failure to file a report is a pretty easy one for the Ethics Commission to judge. I filed a complaint against Tina Jackson who ran for state Representative in 2012 for failing to file her ethics disclosure report. The Ethics Commission issued a ruling against her and fined her $100. To my surprise, Tina actually paid that fine, while still owing the Board of Elections almost $6,000 in fines for not filing campaign finance reports.

This should be on Areglado's NEXT report

Sorry, Denise, but that’s what you get for throwing in with unscrupulous people like the CCA Party. Click here to read my complaint against her and two of her colleagues.

These other two complaints are against Bonita Van Slyke, another CCA Party Town Council candidate, and Barbara Heavers, a CCA Party candidate for Planning Commission.

Both of them failed to list the contents of their trusts the way the law requires, and the way Boss Gentz did it. Again, were they left without guidance from Gentz and the other senior CCA Party leadership?

Both Ms. Van Slyke and Ms. Heavers simply wrote that they owned “stocks and bonds” without naming the companies – and that’s the key piece of information.

We did get one tantalizing detail from Ms. Van Slyke’s disclosure statement and that is that she and her husband own an oil well. It looks like it might be in Kansas; I really hope it’s not in Charlestown.

Screen shot from the Van Slyke ethics disclosure form

But again, with so many renewable energy issues on Charlestown’s plate, it’s hard to see how she can be objective when she owns a frigging oil well.

I filed ethics complaints on the two of them, and added that Ms. Heavers did not disclose her ownership or income from a house she owns.

You can read all three complaints by clicking here.

Compare this Trust disclosure to that of Boss Gentz. Failure to detail the
contents is an alleged violations of the Ethics Act. What those stocks and
bonds are could have an impact on how she makes decisions on the
Planning Commission.

Ms. Heavers is assured a spot on the Planning Commission while Ms. Rhodes and Ms. Van Slyke will have to compete for their spots. But if they couldn’t figure out their legal duty to file Ethics disclosure reports, or understand the instructions on how to complete the forms, that raises some serious concerns.

As members of the town government, they will have to handle far more complicated documents than these disclosure reports.

And shame on the CCA Party regulars who recruited them for the CCA Party ticket. While candidates are personally responsible for their compliance with the law, the CCA Party leaders had a moral and ethical responsibility to guide them along, instead of leaving them to flub around and make mistakes like the ones that spurred my formal complaints.

This isn't the first time we've caught CCA Party leaders acting unethically. One of my favorite episodes is HERE and involves George Tremblay who is running for re-election for Town Council.