News bites for our busy Progressive Charlestown audience
By
Will Collette
Bad
News: Charlestown unemployment jumps
Good News: there are also more jobs
out there
Charlestown’s
November unemployment rate was adjusted to 6.1%, a big jump from October’s
4.5% rate, and the rate stayed at 6.1% in December. That means that out of
Charlestown’s workforce of just over 4,500, there are 277 who are unemployed.
This does not include the much higher number who are underemployed at part-time
jobs when they want full-time work.
But
the overall improvements in the economy means a lot more jobs are out there,
though not all of them are what adult breadwinners need to provide for their
families.
Case
in point: the long list of part-time jobs being offered by the Town of Charlestown
for summer 2015. The town is looking to hire life guards, beach attendants,
beach managers, camp counselors, seasonal laborers and more. This is temp work
but work is work when you need it.
Click here for the complete listing of jobs and click here for the job
application form.
Here
are other job listings that might interest you, starting with South County jobs
that have been posted on RI Community Jobs, which produces a great daily e-mail
listing community jobs from all over RI and nearby. Click here to sign up.
- The WARM Center in Westerly is looking for a Street Outreach Case manager. Click here for more details.
- The Thundermist Health Center in Wakefield is looking for a Behavioral Health Nurse Practitioner. Click here for more details.
- Two different families in South Kingstown are looking for a personal assistant to help with a disabled young person. Click here details on the job where the young person is mildly autistic and click here for one where the young man needing care has unspecified disabilities.
The
Patch websites in the
area have also been posting some job openings of note such as:
- Clinical Operations Study Team Lead – Oncology (Director) at Pfizer in Groton, CT
- Sr. Director – Development Operations Outsourcing Strategist at Pfizer in Groton, CT
- DSRD Regulatory Strategy Site Lead (Sr. Director) at Pfizer in Groton, CT
- Account Services Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Groton, CT
- Nurse Manager at the Community Health Center in New London, CT
- Director, Engineering for General Dynamics in New London, CT
- Branch Manager for Banknewport in Narragansett
- Store Manager for GameStop - Narragansett
- Assistant Director of Nursing for Brookdale Senior Living - South Kingstown
Bus stops in Charlestown?
 |
| Why can't we get a bus stop in Charlestown to help workers get to work? |
For
many workers, if you lose your wheels, you lose your job.
That is especially true in rural areas and for towns like Charlestown that has no access to public transportation. In my modest proposal for things Charlestown can do on its own to help Charlestown workers find or keep their jobs, I suggested exploring a mini-bus alternative (click here for that and other ideas).
That is especially true in rural areas and for towns like Charlestown that has no access to public transportation. In my modest proposal for things Charlestown can do on its own to help Charlestown workers find or keep their jobs, I suggested exploring a mini-bus alternative (click here for that and other ideas).
Now,
RIPTA is considering
using its small, 15-passenger Flex buses to run a route between Hope Valley and
Westerly
between 10 AM and 2 PM. It may not include Charlestown. It’s also not very
useful for workers. However, it is a step in the right direction. Area social
service agencies are praising this trial balloon as something that would help
their clients get to the grocery or drug store.
Tenth
Amendment Center excited about RI nullification legislation
Our
new state Representative Blake Filippi was the legal advisor to the Tenth
Amendment Center (and won their endorsement) which believes in the totally
incorrect notion that no federal program is Constitutional unless it is
specifically authorized in the Constitution.
Among the programs not mentioned in the Constitution:
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration, EPA, etc.
 |
| Flipper tried to disguise his radical political beliefs during the election. Will his true colors come out now? |
The
Tenth Amendment Center (and Blake Filippi) believe that states can “nullify”
federal laws they think are unconstitutional.
Two
wingnut bills (SJ67
and SB66) have been
introduced in the Rhode Island Senate which would allow petitions to place
ballot questions before the voters to nullify federal laws or programs they
think they don’t like.
Hey, if you’re going to advocate for a Second American Civil War, you might as well let everyone in on the fun.
Hey, if you’re going to advocate for a Second American Civil War, you might as well let everyone in on the fun.
There are no House versions of these bills yet. I’m betting that
Flip Filippi will file them in the House, maybe as his first bills.
Despite his
promises to file a whole bunch of bills as soon as he was sworn in to repeal
state income tax on Social Security, stop the Copar Quarry, eliminate state
taxes on National Grid’s recent rate hike and so much more, a whole month has
gone by and Flipper hasn’t filed one single piece of legislation.
He has, however, issued several news releases that feature what a
hot guy he is.
Rhode Island Foundation gives
$50,000 to help area needy
The Basic Human
Needs Network of Washington County just received a $50,000 grant
from the Rhode Island Foundation to provide the basics of survival to
low-income households in our area. This includes direct help with rent,
utilities, food, medicine, etc.
The Network includes more than 30 agencies, non-profits and
churches in southwest Rhode Island. The WARM Center wrote the proposal that won
the grant.
Nuke News
We live downwind from the troubled Millstone Nuclear Power Plant
Waterford, CT, just 20 miles from the Charlestown line. Over the history of
nuclear power, we have learned the hard way that when it comes to nuclear
power, there are no minor or trivial accidents.
The feds feel the same way so they have mandated that nuclear
power plant operators need to have emergency centers at least 10 miles away
(and not in the likely path of radioactive fall-out).
Despite being in operation for more than 40 years, Millstone is finally getting around to setting up its emergency center in Norwich, CT.
Despite being in operation for more than 40 years, Millstone is finally getting around to setting up its emergency center in Norwich, CT.
Concerns include attacks by foreign or domestic terrorists,
tsunami, earthquake or severe storms that could cut off outside power that
powers the pumps that cool the reactors. Without coolant, the reactors can
melt-down or explode, spewing radiation over an area with a 50-mile radius.
The company held an
open house for the center on January 30. Milestone Vice-President
John Daugherty told the attendees “When you need
it, you need it to work right, and this facility does that. Our job is not only
to protect ourselves, but it’s to protect all of you.”
The issue of loss of outside power lines arose at the Pilgrim Nuclear
Power Plant in Plymouth, MA during Blizzard Juno. At 4:05 AM on
January 27, Pilgrim automatically shut down when two transmission lines were
wrecked by the storm.
In this instance, the downed lines meant that the power produced
by the plant could not be sent out into the grid. This is not as dangerous as
losing in-coming power that runs the cooling pumps, but nonetheless, while the
lines were down, Pilgrim used its own on-site emergency diesel generators.
News
from Texas
 |
| Bill sure looks a lot happier than he did in Charlestown |
Former Charlestown Town Administrator Bill DiLibero is in the news
lately in his new job as City Manager for South Padre Island, Texas. His coastal
vacation town of 2,900 permanent residents just got a state grant of $400,000
to build their first city park.
Bill
told the local NBC affiliate "There
are a lot of things that we'd like to do to improve this city and to make it
useful for winter Texans, for people coming to the beach, for people fishing,
for people just looking to come on the island and play,"
“Winter Texans!” That's a great expression that is probably like Rhode Island’s “Fake Floridians.” Bill certainly got quite a lesson in how
to deal with non-resident vacationers with a sense of entitlement from his
experiences in Charlestown.
Don’t
gimme that old time religion
All the talk about nuclear calamity might lead some to seek
solace in religion, but apparently not in our area.
According to another one of those seemingly endless comparison
surveys that GoLocalProv
loves so much, the Providence area ranks as the “least Bible-minded city in the
US.” And that’s for the third year in a row, according to the survey done for
the American Bible Society by the Barna Group.
We were tied with New Bedford. Birmingham, Alabama was ranked as
the most Bible-minded. Click here to read the study.
Speaking of surveys
South County Hospital is rated in the top ranks in the nation for
its obstetrics care. It was given a 2015 Women’s
Choice Award. The hospital has often ranked among the best in the country in
survey after survey despite being one of the few remaining independent small
hospitals in the country.
