Charlestown
Tapas: tasteful bites of news for the discerning Progressive Charlestown reader
One of spring’s
most wonderful signs
One
sure way to know that this dreary winter with its succession of snow and ice
storms is almost over is when you start to see announcements for the annual
Easter Peeps® diorama contests. I just spotted the New London Day’s
notice of their contest. They run a pretty decent one, although my own
personal favorite is the Washington Post’s. There are dozens of imitators.
The
general idea is to use marshmallow Peeps®, one of American industry’s perfect
foods, in little tableaus that will catch the judge’s eye and make people
laugh. The themes can be political, historical, literary or theatrical, pop
culture, etc. Whatever works.
Talkin’ taxes
Just
as Peeps® are a harbinger of spring, so too are the W-2 and 1099 forms we get
so we can prepare and pay our state and local income taxes on or before April
15.
During
2014’s campaign, there was a lot of talk from Republican challengers such as
new Rep. Blake “Flip” Filippi who now represents Charlestown and the rest of
District 36 (which he would need a map to find, since he actually lives in
Lincoln, not in the District).
Flip promised that he would introduce a state
law to exempt Social Security from state income tax. When the time came, the
lead bill to exempt Social Security and other retirement income was actually introduced by
Rep. Bob Craven
(D-No. Kingstown) who is also an assistant Charlestown town solicitor.
Flip
ended up signing on to two bills introduced by Republican colleagues that have
no hope of passage.
Driving
the issue is the myth that state taxes are causing Rhode Islanders to move to
other states, especially Florida, when they retire. In fact, the two leading
reasons for Rhode Island’s rather modest out-migration are the lack of
affordable housing (which is something we can address) and sunnier, warmer
weather (which we have no power to change).
The
tax argument took another hit in a recent survey that showed
Rhode Island is only ranked #38 out of 50 states and the District of Columbia
for tax burden. Repeating,
#38!
All
of the rest of New England (except New Hampshire) come out worse than Rhode
Island.
This
isn’t the only myth at work in the deliberations over cutting income taxes.
Rhode Island’s most powerful politico, Speaker of the House Nick Mattiello who
supports Bob Craven’s legislation to cut taxes on retirement income, has been
repeatedly asked whether the real priority should be on middle-class tax relief
by taking back some of the huge tax cuts for the rich.
To
which Mattiello has answered, "There
haven't been tax cuts for the rich" in Rhode Island.
The
Providence
Journal’s Politifact took this claim on and awarded Mattiello a nice “False” rating. Since 2006, Rhode Island
has not only cut income tax rates for the top brackets but also changed the
estate tax to exempt more heirs from taxation.
In
the interest of full disclosure, when I turn 66 in October, I will start
collecting Social Security. Cathy and I stand to see just about our entire
Rhode Island income tax bill disappear (since almost our entire income comes
from Social Security, pensions and earnings on retirement accounts) if Bob
Craven’s bill passes as currently written.
Which is nice for us and others like
us, but is by no means a factor in whether we stay in Rhode Island or leave,
and may not be in the best interests of the majority of people in the state.
And speaking of
surveys…
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| My birthplace came in last |
I
know a lot of Charlestown residents are scared to death of urban areas and love
living in Charlestown because it offers them a safe alternative to, for
example, Central Falls. Even though I was actually born in Central Falls, I
prefer Charlestown, too.
But
Charlestown is not the safest place
to be in Rhode Island, not by a long shot. According to a new study by Movoto Real Estate, Charlestown
only ranks at #15 among Rhode Island’s 39 cities and towns. Yes, Central Falls
comes in dead last. But Charlestown falls in behind Richmond coming in at #5
and South Kingstown at #8.
Hopkinton
was ranked #11, Block Island #16, North Kingstown #17 and Westerly #23.
Overall,
Rhode Island is the 14th safest state in
the nation. The list also shows a sharp divide between urban (all
bottom-ranked) and rural/suburban (all top-ranked).
In
another survey, Rhode Island
was ranked #2 in the country for having the best anti-bullying laws and
policies. I shared this finding with a friend who is a leader in CABINS (Community
Against Bullying In Schools), which BTW, has its major
fund-raiser
coming up. She commented that:
“Overall there's more consciousness about [school bullying] all around, especially from teachers and school depts. who know their funding can decrease with test score zeroes from kids too afraid to attend school. There's now a software program in use by many towns & cities as in Lincoln called PBIS, (Positive Behavior Intervention System), that tracks behaviors and offers positive rewards when students are 'caught' doing the right thing.”
As
usual, GoLocalProv weighed in with
perhaps its 100th survey showing that
Rhode Island sucks (what is it with those guys?), this time a survey that says
that Rhode Island is the worst in the United States for “Social Well Being,” whatever that means.
We’re down there with West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. They say the
fifth best are South Dakota, Wyoming, South Carolina, Virginia, and
Nebraska
Bad “Kleen” energy
There
was recent news involving the most ambitious enterprise ever launched by Phil
Armetta, the controversial owner of what most of us call the Copar Quarries,
with sites in Bradford on the Charlestown line, Charlestown itself, Richmond
and several in Connecticut.
Before
financing the launch of the Copar Quarries, Armetta was the principal investor
in “Kleen Energy, a scheme to use an old quarry as the site of a large scale
industrial “recycling.”
In
2010, Kleen Energy blew up, killing six workers and leading to a proposed OSHA
fine of $6.7 million against one of the lead Kleen Energy contractors, Keystone
Construction. That was almost five years ago, but according to the
Hartford Courant,
Keystone has finally paid the first installment on its penalty: $35,715.
Naughty Nuke
Our
local nuclear power plant, Millstone, got off with no fines at all for yet
another spate of safety violations. These violations were so bad that the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission held a closed-door session with Dominion Resources, the
Virginia-based owner of Millstone, to discuss the "apparent violation, security significance and
regulatory concerns,"
Later, the NRC released yet another report citing four more safety violations, including
more problems with the plant’s cooling pumps (without which a major nuclear
catastrophe could take place), but levied no fines.
Nasty National Grid
 |
| Blake is our hero! |
Nobody is happy with
National Grid’s recent rate hike of almost 30% and our media-hound new state
Rep. Blake “Flip” Filippi saw opportunity in everyone else’s woes.
After the rate hike
was announced, Filippi promised that as soon as he took his new seat in the
General Assembly, he would introduce legislation to exempt from state taxes and
fees the amount of any rate hike that exceeds the rate the utility charged at
the end of 2014.
He introduced the bill
one month later than he had promised. The odds of this bill passing, regardless
of its merits, is very close to zero.
Flip’s news release does not explain how any lost revenues to the state will be
made up. That’s a pretty serious problem given that new Governor Gina Raimondo is projecting a state deficit of $500 million over the next three years.
Filippi hasn’t done
anything yet on his other big campaign promises, most conspicuously how he was
going to lead the charge as soon as he was sworn in to rein in renegade mining
operations such as the Copar/Armetta Quarry in Bradford.
He has had time to
write for GoLocalProv musing on what the US Supreme Court might do in their
pending decision on Obamacare and what that decision might mean for Rhode
Island.
I’ll save you the trouble of reading the article (though if you must
read it, click here) by giving you the summary: he doesn’t know
how the Court will rule and he doesn’t know what it will mean for Rhode Island,
but regardless, it is a matter that requires some deep and prolonged thinking.
Thank you, Flip, for
sharing that with us instead of dealing with Copar.
National Grid
invades Charlestown
National Grid
has installed a new weather station in Charlestown and six other
coastal Rhode Island communities in collaboration with Earth Networks, the folks who
developed the Weather Bug® ap.
 |
| If we let National Grid get away with their invasion, will this be next? |
According
to National Grid’s news release, the data collected by this station and the
others will be used primarily by National Grid to plan its responses to severe
weather situations by giving them more precise information on local conditions.
There will be some sharing of the information with town emergency and public works
departments. For example, Westerly used the data to plan during Winter Storm
Juno.
National
Grid apparently installed its Charlestown weather station without expressed,
explicit permission of the town – there is no record of any approvals granted
to National Grid by the Charlestown Town Council, Planning Commission or Zoning
Board of Review.
If
these CCA Party-controlled bodies are going to be consistent with the “Slattery Rule” (invoked
against the state Water Resources Board) and Charlestown’s well-established
practices regarding the Narragansett
Indian Tribe,
no new land uses may be undertaken by anybody unless the town approves it.
Let’s
watch and see what Charlestown does in response to National Grid’s infringement
on the CCA Party’s sacred principle.
Elaine Morgan
introduces her first bill
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| Elaine Morgan, crime fighter |
Alleged police
impersonator
State Senator Elaine Morgan introduced her first piece of legislation, the Senate version of a House bill
by Rep. Doreen
Costa (R-Tea Party)
that would boost the penalties for persons convicted of sex trafficking from a
maximum of forty years to a maximum of fifty years.
This is one of those “sure,
why not?” kind of bills that Rep. Costa often introduces – symbolic, feel-good bills are the only
kind she can get passed.
Like
every normal person, I think sex traffickers are scum and deserve harsh
punishment. Who doesn’t? It’s not like they have a lobby, although maybe they
share a lobbyist with the pro-gun or pro-tobacco folks.
But bumping up the
sentence by ten years won’t mean all that much either for deterence or for punishment, especially when you consider
that many sex traffic busts also involve federal felonies, including
kidnapping, plus multiple other state charges. So there are already plenty of
prosecutorial tools available to send sex traffickers away for a very long time.