CCA runs stealth ticket to confuse voters
By Will Collette
Since 2008, the CCA ran
its candidates exclusively as “independents.” They disparaged traditional parties and claimed
their candidates were the only ones without strings.
They don’t mention that
every person running under the CCA banner swears to obey the CCA platform,
which changes depending on the whims of campaign donors. If elected, they must
follow orders from the secretive CCA Steering Committee, usually conveyed by
CCA founder and de facto leader, Charlestown Planning Commissar Ruth Platner.
In 2022, Charlestown
voters ousted the CCA and elected a supermajority on the Town Council who were
endorsed by Charlestown Residents United (CRU). CRU candidates ran openly under
the party affiliations and have governed as a coalition.
In 2024, the CCA decided
– without explanation – to toss out its founding principle of nonpartisanship.
Most of its Council candidates are running under a party label whether or not
they have any real ties to that party. The practical effect is to scramble the
ballot, mixing CCA and CRU candidates without differentiation.
The Charlestown
Republican Town Committee (CRTC) is also outraged at this decision based on
this statement from CRTC Chair Laura Rom:
The CCA deception
machine is beginning the campaign season in full swing.
Ruth Platner and Bonnie
Van Slyke were registered Democrats until they declared a run on Wednesday for
Town Council as "Independent Candidates".
Angela Jalbert was a
registered Independent until she declared for Town Council and is now a
registered Republican, however the very active Charlestown Republican Town
Committee has never heard her name.
All the best to all the
Candidates that are willing to make the commitment to help better Charlestown.
Let's make this an honest campaign, the voters of Charlestown deserve that from
all the candidates.
Laura Rom, Chair
Charlestown Republican Town Committee
Ruth Platner responded
in Nextdoor.
I have run in non-partisan elections for more than 20 years and have been
unaffiliated, namely "Independent". In RI statewide politics most of
the real choice is in the primaries. I voted in the governor's office primary
in 2022 and probably failed to disaffiliate.
I discovered that this spring and [SIC] you can't disaffiliate close to
an election if you are a candidate. I have also voted in Republican primaries.
RI has open primaries and unaffiliated voters can vote in either primary.
One of the laws this general assembly passed was to make disaffiliation
automatic for unaffiliated voters who vote in primaries. Had the law been in
place, I would have automatically been returned to unaffiliated after voting in
the primary.
When John Chafee was our US Senator, I was registered as a Republican as
his brand of pro-environment politics very closely fit my political view.
Claudine Schneider was our congressional representative then, a Republican, and
also a strong environmentalist.
Political parties are not one thing, they change, and town political
committees don't own the ballot. There are a lot of different ways to be a
Republican or a Democrat or an Independent. You should vote for the person and
not the party.”
Platner
does not address the party affiliation of her faithful servant, Bonnita Van
Slyke, nor the other CCA candidates running under party labels even though they
never asked for party endorsements. Indeed, the CCA slate carries nobody’s
endorsement other the CCA Steering Committee, which means Ruth Platner.
So
begins what Republican Chair Laura Rom calls the CCA’s “campaign of deception.”
NOTE:
For clarity, I added line breaks to both Rom’s and Platner’s statements rather
than run them in one long block of text as published in Nextdoor.
