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Fellow Residents
of Charlestown,
Our time is short
and your time is valuable, so I will make this as brief as I can.
On Monday, April 19th, there will be a
continuation of the Joint Public Hearing of the Charlestown Town Council
and Planning Commission to discuss the proposed Comprehensive Plan. This
plan rigidly sets the priorities for the town for years to come. https://www.charlestownri.org/compplan2020
Our current
comprehensive plan is already years overdue for an update and this document
has been in the making since 2014. Now, with pandemic restrictions and with
a town-wide survey being planned, this is being rushed to approval. The
proposed new plan is so different that a side by side comparison to the old
plan is not possible. It has been watered down and anything that doesn’t
fit with dark and quiet has been removed.
The town is on the
verge of a town wide survey to find out what all the residents of the town
truly want for our community. The survey has been stymied at every
opportunity by the CCA-led majority of our town council when a
comprehensive plan should take into account public input. The only logical
conclusion one can come to as to why the CCA wants to push this comprehensive
plan through now is because they don’t want public input.
If you want
Charlestown to be anything other than dark and quiet, with public
recreation greatly reduced and the remaining undeveloped land relegated to
open space properties that the town doesn’t maintain, a place that is not
conducive to raising a family, and a statewide reputation as a bad place to
do business, we need to make our voices heard.
If you enjoy
festivals and sporting events in Ninigret Park then write to your town
council and members of the planning commission demanding that this
comprehensive plan not be approved until after the results of the town-wide
survey are available. Regardless of what they claim, the vast majority of
our town has not participated in this process and they want it that way. We
have to ensure that not only those with time, money, and inclination to be
involved get to dictate our town’s future.
Please send your
comments by Monday, April 19, to Amy Rose
Weinrich, Town Clerk, at arweinreich@charlestownri.org.
An example of a letter can be
seen here. Please modify that
as you see fit and send it as an email to arweinreich@charlestownri.org.
Then, log in to the
meeting on Monday, April 19, at 7 p.m. and raise your hand to be
heard! https://www.charlestownri.org/virtualtownmeeting
While not a CRU
statement, another article objecting to the proposed Comprehensive Plan as
it's currently written can be read here.
Respectfully,
Jodi Frank
Charlestown
Residents United
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