Charlestown
Tapas - the news in tasty bites
By
Will Collette
There seems to be a lot more theft of campaign signs
this year than most election years. Donna Walsh has had many of her signs
stolen but strangely, no one seems to have touched the signs touting her
opponent, radical secessionist Blake Filippi. Charlestown Democrats also report
lots of sign thefts and tell me they plan to cover several of their signs with
the little mini-cams used to observe wildlife.
They plan to place a notice on
the back of their signs reading: “SMILE
FOR THE CAMERA…The latest wildlife cams are really small and effective.”
Nearly all Democratic signs were taken down from Route One - but not by RI DOT. Plenty of these kinds of signs remained untouched. |
Police
reports have been filed and Dems are on the look-out for CCA and Filippi sign thugs. When caught, they will be prosecuted.
Copar victims
score important court win
The
victims of the Bradford Copar quarry haven’t had a whole lot to celebrate in
their effort to get some relief from the constant noise and dust coming from
the site. Three families have mounted an on-going legal effort to stop the quarry without
much success and have also had to contend with a legal counter-attack from
Copar (also called Armetta LLC) and its landlord Westerly Granite which is
owned by the Comolli family.
This
action was one step too far for Judge Brian Stern who threw out Westerly
Granite’s claim, citing Rhode Island’s Anti-SLAPP law. A “SLAPP” is a “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” a
term coined by two Colorado legal activists, George Pring and
Penelope Canan
in the 1980s.
Generally, SLAPP suits are lawsuits by polluting companies aimed
at stifling public opposition. I dealt with a lot of those in the 1980s in the
South and Midwest.
RI’s
anti-SLAPP is pretty much the one single reason why the CCA Party hasn’t tried
to shut Progressive Charlestown down.
Many
states, including Rhode Island, adopted state laws outlawing SLAPP suits and
it’s great to see Judge Stern rule that “The Anti-SLAPP statute grants conditional immunity from vexatious
claims to citizens exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech and
legal petitioning.” Stern has ordered Westerly Granite to pay the
victims’ legal costs. Click here for details from the Sun’s Dale
Faulkner.
Unfortunately, Copar continues to
operate. I am not a big fan of lawsuits in fights with polluters like Copar. In
my 40 years of experience in hundreds of these fights, I can’t remember ever seeing a lawsuit stop a polluter
from polluting. But getting the ruling on the SLAPP portion of the case is
nonetheless a great thing. It’s just going to take organized action to stop
Copar once and for all.
Internships
Available: Apply before October 31
Mystic
Aquarium is looking for college students interested in getting an internship in
a variety of occupational settings - working with animals, marketing,
education, IT, AV and other areas. Click
here
for details.
Campaign Jobs
available NOW through Election Day
The
Rhode Island Democratic Party wants to hire field staff and canvassers to work
on Democratic campaigns. Jobs pay $50 for each four-hour shift. Click here
for details.
Charlestown’s
Indian Fighter cleared of one ethics violation
Former
East Providence Mayor Joe Larisa, who is paid $24,600 by Charlestown to watch
and fight the Narragansett Indian Tribe, won a small piece of personal
vindication. Larisa has frequently played very close to the edge of ethics law,
but a 2010 ethics charge and subsequent 2011 RI Ethics Commission ruling and
fine against him cost him his Mayor’s seat in East Providence.
Larisa
took that Ethics Commission finding of violation to Superior Court and, in
early October Superior Court Judge Susan E.
McGuirl reversed the Ethics Commission, ruling that there was inadequate
evidence that Larisa had knowingly and willfully violated the
law and dismissed the $1000 fine.
In
Charlestown, we know too well how hard it is to prove knowledge and intent as
we’ve seen in so many of the rulings against the CCA Party town leadership on
violations of state open government laws. Click here for an example.
The
Ethics
Commission’s 2008 ruling against Larisa still stands.
Another one of Charlestown's assistant Solicitors, Bob Craven, is running for re-election for state Representative in House District 32 which is primarily in North Kingstown where he lives. He is in a tough race with conservative Republican Sharon Gamba who is capitalizing on a GoLocalProv article that reports that Craven was arrested on domestic assault charges in 2001 and 2002.
Click here for the case records. In an e-mail, Craven told GoLocal:
Bob Craven had domestic assault arrests expunged
Another one of Charlestown's assistant Solicitors, Bob Craven, is running for re-election for state Representative in House District 32 which is primarily in North Kingstown where he lives. He is in a tough race with conservative Republican Sharon Gamba who is capitalizing on a GoLocalProv article that reports that Craven was arrested on domestic assault charges in 2001 and 2002.
Click here for the case records. In an e-mail, Craven told GoLocal:
"It was not a marital problem and was not my wife. Someone brought the records to my attention about three or four years ago. I had to file a Motion to Expunge and the expungement took place before I contemplated running for public office....I will reiterate the alleged victim withdrew the allegations and indicated that they were not true to both the prosecutor and the Court."
Barrington loses
Around Rhode Island, Barrington and
Charlestown have the reputation for being the two towns most hostile to
affordable housing. Charlestown is well known as a town hostile to working
families, especially families with children, due the CCA Party lobbying
campaign that saw Boss Tom
Gentz, Planning Commissar Ruth
Platner and Councilor George
Tremblay lobbying for the repeal of the state’s affordable housing law – an
effort that didn’t pass the laugh test.
Charlestown’s only ally has been
Barrington which has mounted its own epic battle to keep the riffraff out. But
Barrington’s ethnic cleansing campaign was dealt a severe setback when Superior
Court Judge Daniel
Procaccini ruled against challengers to the Palmer Pointe affordable housing
project and upheld the state law and the
Barrington Planning Board’s decision to approve the project.
Judge Procaccini quoted Maya Angelou in
his decision: “The
ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and
not to be questioned.”
HousingWorksRI
has released its 2014 factbook on affordable
housing in Rhode Island and once again shows Charlestown as woefully short of
the mandates of the law that at least 10% of the town’s housing stock qualify
as affordable housing. We are 279 units short of meeting the 10% mandate.
Even
with the welcome addition of the Churchwoods affordable rental units for
low-income seniors, we’ll stay be over 270 units short.
We’ll address that report and
Charlestown’s affordable housing record in a separate article, but as
Barrington goes, so eventually will Charlestown.
Maybe there’s a tie in
It’s not unusual for us to get poor
scores in the multitudes of national rankings for various attributes, but
several recent ones caught my eye. For example, I was said to see the Chronicle of
Philanthropy’s ranking for charitable giving
and seeing Providence and Hartford ranked at the bottom. Rhode Island, as
a whole, was the worst in New England and at #40
nationwide.
I thought we were better than that.
But two other rankings may shed some
light on our poor showing on charity and volunteerism. One is a ranking
by WalletHub that rates Rhode Island as close to the worst in the country
when it comes to student debt and that’s coupled with the nation’s highest
unemployment rate for young adults aged 24 to 34. That puts quite a crimp into their discretionary spending, but...
Then there’s a rating by the real estate
website Estately.com that rates Rhode Island men as the most immature in
the nation. They base this rating on the
popularity of porn, fantasy football and “Family Guy” among Rhode Island guys.
Sigh.
Good idea
In an
article I wrote on things Charlestown can do, on its own, to improve the town’s
economy and reduce unemployment, I listed the creative use of our power to
levy property taxes as one of them. Tax policy is and always has been a key
tool in enforcing social policy, but one rarely used by Charlestown, except to
aid veterans, the disabled, low-income seniors and promote open space. But not
to promote an improved economy.
Richmond has
just changed its taxing ordinance to grant the
Town Council the power to award tax breaks for land used for renewable energy,
in particular solar energy. This change was spurred by the approval by the
Richmond Planning Board of a 600 kilowatt, 4.4 acre solar panel project.
While Charlestown generally does not
have the same level of tolerance as its neighbors for anything big and
man-made, Charlestown could nonetheless use its taxing authority to encourage
small scale solar and geo-thermal installations for homes and small businesses.
Yes, I know – wind power is effectively banned in Charlestown. But why not
follow Richmond’s example and promote solar?
Events