Will Council
Boss Gentz try to kill ballot question on recreation funds?
By
Will Collette
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| This budget proposes a tax rate of $10.10, the highest since 2004 and the seventh tax hike under the CCA Party. SOURCE: Town Tax Assessor |
TONIGHT (MONDAY): What will the CCA do to poison the $1 million recreation bond proposal?
What piece of property does Ruth Platner plan to buy with the $2 million open space bond money? Is she willing to reveal it?
Will the CCA be willing to work a deal / Rescind the property tax rate hike they propose in return for support of the open space bond? Or will they tough out their 7th straight tax hike and try to sell open space as if it increases the tax base by taking land OFF the tax rolls?
Tune in tonight.
Having
run a truly
bizarre annual budget hearing last Monday, the Charlestown Town Council
meets again this Monday for its regular meeting.
Aside from a long consent agenda
that will be adopted on one vote without discussion or debate, there are only a
few small items and a few silly ones besides the really big issues related to
the town budget and three ballot questions that will be put before Charlestown
voters in a special financial election on Monday, June 1.
The
four items that will go before the voters are:
- The 2016 Charlestown budget, not including our share of the costs of the Chariho School District, a matter voters already approved in a separate election. This budget calls for the seventh tax rate increase in a row which is, in my opinion, unwarranted.
- Proposed authorization for the issuance of $2 million in new bonds strictly for the acquisition of more open space. More than 50% of Charlestown is already open space – tax exempt property owned by federal, state, town government, non-profits (including two fake fire districts) and some businesses and individual, all of which is tax-exempt. In addition, more land receives deep tax discounts due to conservation easements or participation in the FFOS program (forest, farms and open space). I like open space, but how much land can the town afford to take off the tax rolls?
- Proposed giveaway of town property to either the state DEM or the Charlestown Land Trust. The Council wants to grant a conservation easement and thus effective control to the former proposed site of the Whalerock wind turbine project that was purchased by the town in 2013 for $2.14 million. Nothing can be done with that land other than leave it as open space without a vote by town residents. But that’s not good enough for the paranoid followers of Ron Areglado’s Anti-Wind Cult. The town already gave them $50,000 in free legal services and already paid $2.1 million for the land. How much more do the Areglados and the Chambers expect the town to give them?
- Proposed authorization for the issuance of $1 million in new bonds to begin the improvements at Ninigret Park that were approved by the town. The Ninigret Park Master Plan was initially approved in 2008 and updated in July 2014, but under a town government controlled by the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party which is hostile to human activities in the park, no meaningful action has been taken to carry out the approved Master Plan. Indeed, “recreation” was omitted from the CCA-approved $2 million bond proposal (see above) so concerned citizens took up a petition to put this question on the ballot.
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| What kind of moves can we expect from Gentz on the hated $1 million recreation bond proposal? |
However, I
am curious to see what Council Boss Tom Gentz and his cronies will do about the
$1 million recreation bond proposal. Council members said almost nothing during
the budget hearing – and people in the audience didn’t like that one bit – but
Gentz did venture to say that he opposes the recreation bond question.
He
says the Plan it seeks to implement hasn’t been thoroughly vetted. Yeah, like
all the work that was put into the 2008 original and 2014 update aren’t enough
for a careful and thorough guy like Boss Gentz (who still hasn’t figured out
that he screwed up in picking the wrong contractor for our non-functioning red
light cameras).
Gentz
and his puppet master Planning Commissar Ruth Platner really hate the
recreation bond. And even more importantly, key money people behind the CCA
Party who live in Arnolda would like to see existing recreational facilities
and activities in Ninigret rolled back.
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| Ultimately, Platner will tell Gentz what to do, as she always does |
The
question is what are they going to do to mess it up? Will they take a direct
approach and try to concoct some reason to pull it from the ballot. Or will
they “amend” it by adding some poison pill?
Or will they let it go to the
voters and mobilize their famed electoral machine? As of the end of March, the CCA
Party had over $6,500 in the bank, more than enough to run an intensive
campaign.
The
CCA Party could also take a passive-aggressive approach: don’t resist the
recreation bond ballot question. If it passes – and unless the CCA mounts one
of their patented attack-and-smear campaigns – it will, then just don’t spend
the money. Since they’ve already
purged Jay Primiano as Parks and Recreation Director, nobody by the Parks
& Rec Commission will push for spending the money.
Other
than these items, the rest of the agenda is consumed with light-weight stuff.
They will talk about building bridges – actual
bridges to replace the old ones linking Richmond and Charlestown through
Carolina – frankly, I think the CCA Party would just as soon let the
bridges fall since we have been in a virtual state of war with Richmond over
Chariho since the CCA Party took control.
They
will discuss and pass a Boss Gentz resolution recognizing the week as “Women’s
Lungs Week.” No, I am not making this up and for the record, please note that I
am not going to crack the joke I think you all are expecting me to crack.
They
will also discuss a stupid resolution opposes the legalization of marijuana in
Rhode Island. Naturally, this comes from Boss Gentz. The resolution rests
heavily on a discredited
report out of Colorado that claims to prove that legalizing marijuana in
Colorado has caused very bad things to happen. Virtually
nothing in the Gentz resolution is actually true, but that’s never stopped him from charging ahead before.
When
the Council rubber-stamps this resolution and they send it to state Rep. Flip
Filippi, it’ll be interesting to see how our Libertarian state representative
responds. Libertarians have been among the leading forces pushing to legalize
marijuana. But that’s just a matter of curiosity, since no one in the General
Assembly actually cares what the Charlestown Town Council says or thinks. Or
Flip Filippi for that matter.
Charlestown Town Council
Regular Meeting 5/11/2015 7:00 PM Council Chambers
Town Hall 4540 South County
Trail Charlestown, RI 02813
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Downloads:
 Agenda  Agenda Packet
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