Politics
makes strange bedfellows
By Neniu Sciu
A recent exchange of letters to the Westerly Sun debated whether the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) had endorsed (or maybe just “endorsed”) the opponents of our two incumbent legislators, Donna Walsh, whose House district includes all of Charlestown, and Cathie Cool Rumsey, senator for the northern half of Charlestown, both of whom happen to be Democrats and both of whom failed to win reelection.[1]
Granted,
apart from the fact that the CCA would endorse a turnip if it were running
against Donna, Blake Filippi seemed like an odd choice for the CCA to endorse. After
all, his motto is “Don’t Tread on Me” and theirs is more like “We tread on
everyone.” Under the rule of Planning Commissar Ruth Platner (CCA-Martha
Stewart Living), the town has passed excruciatingly detailed ordinances that regulate
everything down to the color of switchplates on outdoor electrical outlets and
the color
and depth of mulch.
These ordinances generally accomplish very little other than to drive businesses away, set neighbor against neighbor (since ordinances are generally “complaint driven,” meaning the town doesn’t actively enforce them and, instead, merely responds to citizen complaints), and put the personal preferences/phobias of CCA acolytes on full display.
These ordinances generally accomplish very little other than to drive businesses away, set neighbor against neighbor (since ordinances are generally “complaint driven,” meaning the town doesn’t actively enforce them and, instead, merely responds to citizen complaints), and put the personal preferences/phobias of CCA acolytes on full display.
Yet
oddly enough, regulating mines had
somehow escaped the CCA’s attention until the folks near the Copar quarry
started complaining about noise and dust. And even then the CCA town council
majority tried to claim that Charlestown’s quarry owners were all good actors
and there was no need for the town to take action, since Copar is in Westerly
and is therefore Westerly’s problem.
Till,
of course, election season rolled around, and suddenly, crass opportunists that
they are, the CCA was vowing to take action. Heavy on the “vowing,” light on
the “action.”
Speaking of Copar, it sure did seem in the weeks leading up to the election like someone was feeding Donna Walsh’s opponent, Blake Filippi, information about town issues. And it wasn’t the Democrats, trust me.
But
apart from Copar and his jobs
plan, it’s hard to see where Filippi’s agenda aligns with the CCA platform.
Filippi’s main issue seems to be eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits,
a worthy goal but not one that would appear to hold much interest for the CCA
given that their supporters generally aren’t reliant on Social Security income
to begin with and many of them probably maintain residence in states that don’t currently tax
benefits anyway.
Though Filippi is far from the first person to suggest it either; the idea has been put forward in the legislature any number of times over the years, but the problem always becomes how to make up for the shortfall in revenues. Indeed, given Filippi’s antigovernment rhetoric, his failure to put forward a solution to the revenue problem could lead one to conclude that his tax plan is of a piece with the Grover Norquist “starve the beast” strategy.
Though Filippi is far from the first person to suggest it either; the idea has been put forward in the legislature any number of times over the years, but the problem always becomes how to make up for the shortfall in revenues. Indeed, given Filippi’s antigovernment rhetoric, his failure to put forward a solution to the revenue problem could lead one to conclude that his tax plan is of a piece with the Grover Norquist “starve the beast” strategy.
But
politics, as they say, makes strange bedfellows. For people who supposedly
didn’t endorse the challengers, the CCA certainly was quick to invite Blake
Filippi and Elaine Morgan to their coronation
on November 17 and not our currently
serving legislators—despite the fact that Filippi and Morgan have not yet been
sworn into office themselves.
Indeed, the CCA is so anxious for them to take office that they usurped Donna’s and Cathie’s titles and referred to Filippi and Morgan as “Representative” and “Senator” in the invitation rather than their proper current titles of “Representative-elect” and “Senator-elect.”
So much for that much-vaunted CCA “civility.”
Indeed, the CCA is so anxious for them to take office that they usurped Donna’s and Cathie’s titles and referred to Filippi and Morgan as “Representative” and “Senator” in the invitation rather than their proper current titles of “Representative-elect” and “Senator-elect.”
So much for that much-vaunted CCA “civility.”
To
top that off, the CCA was so determined to deny Democrats any place
in town government that they had themselves sworn into office by their new BFFs, despite the fact that Filippi and Morgan have not yet been sworn into office, meaning neither
one currently holds any official title that allows them to administer oaths of
office themselves. Then they started referring to it afterward as a “ceremonial” swearing-in.
So much for that CCA commitment to “open and transparent government.”
So much for that CCA commitment to “open and transparent government.”
And
there is, in fact, one major area where the CCA’s and Filippi’s interests
align, namely on the issue of “nullification.” Filippi has endorsed the discredited
legal theory that governments and even individuals can disobey laws they don’t
believe in.[2]
While the CCA of course would never allow anyone[3] to
opt out of their onerous and often laughably silly regulations, they do very
much want the town to be able to opt
out of various state laws that are not to their liking, such as the affordable
housing law.
Indeed,
they even oppose it when the state does things that they claim to be in favor
of. Witness their rabid
opposition to Frank Glista’s (D-Real World) family’s attempt to sell a
piece of property to the state Water Resources Board to be preserved as open
space. This was actually a threefer for the CCA:
First, it was a chance to bully a Democrat, namely Frank (along with his relatives), but second and more importantly it gave the CCA a weapon to scuttle the reelection campaign of Paula Andersen, who happens to be married to Frank, with their paranoid and fantastical fabrications about the state supposedly buying the land to pump the water underneath it up to Providence.
And third, it became fodder for our resident conspiracy theorist, Town Councilor George Tremblay (CCA-Oz), who currently has a bee in his bonnet about RhodeMap RI, the new statewide economic development plan that he and Platner have decided is the equivalent of World Government, the Trilateral Commission/”New World Order,” and “Agenda 21” all rolled into one.
First, it was a chance to bully a Democrat, namely Frank (along with his relatives), but second and more importantly it gave the CCA a weapon to scuttle the reelection campaign of Paula Andersen, who happens to be married to Frank, with their paranoid and fantastical fabrications about the state supposedly buying the land to pump the water underneath it up to Providence.
And third, it became fodder for our resident conspiracy theorist, Town Councilor George Tremblay (CCA-Oz), who currently has a bee in his bonnet about RhodeMap RI, the new statewide economic development plan that he and Platner have decided is the equivalent of World Government, the Trilateral Commission/”New World Order,” and “Agenda 21” all rolled into one.
Now
I’ll grant you, our state legislature can be pretty dysfunctional. But the
state does manage to do some good things. And I think preserving water
resources for future use would come out pretty high on anyone’s list of good
things the state is doing. Indeed, two groups of homeowners in Quonochontaug
that have been experiencing rapidly degrading water quality in recent years are
currently seeking the assistance of that very same state Water Resources Board
that the CCA has portrayed as some sort of illegal interloper in Charlestown
affairs.
How
the CCA could manage to cast preserving future water supplies as some sort of
nefarious plot is baffling—until you realize where
their money comes from. By and large, their donors are not state residents
and clearly feel no obligation toward the state of Rhode Island. So in exchange
for those donations, the CCA attempts to lift the burden of any pesky state
mandates from their supporters. It’s sort of the flip side of “pay
to play”: “pay to not have to play.”
FOOTNOTES
[1]
Oh, and newly reelected town councilor George Tremblay (CCA-FFOS) also denies
that his party is a party and bragged that he doesn’t even know the party
affiliations of the CCA leadership, by his own admission a possible aftereffect
of something he smoked in the ‘60s.
[2]
Filippi is closely associated with the Oath Keepers, a group of military and
police personnel who believe they can interpret which orders are constitutional
and which are not.
[3]
Other than one of their supporters, that is; witness CCA moneyman Joe
Quadrato’s continued flagrant violation of the dark sky ordinance.