Is there ever enough?
By Will Collette
CCA Town Council candidate Ruth Platner, who has run the
Charlestown Planning Commission for years since elbowing out Bob Rohm as chair,
makes her case that this is the CCA imperative. Read HERE
if you doubt what I’m saying.
Like most Charlestown residents, Cathy and I love our open
space, starting with our own 5 acres of trees and meadow. More than 60% of
Charlestown’s land area is already protected space. The official list includes:
- Town owned land,
- Narragansett Tribal lands,
- Federal land, especially National Wildlife Refuge,
- State land, especially Burlingame Park and Charlestown Beach,
- Land held by non-profits (e.g. Nature Conservancy and Charlestown Land Trust), and
- Privately owned land protected under conservation easements or the Farm, Forest and Open Space Program.
These properties comprise more than 60% of Charlestown's dry land and that's according to the town's Comprehensive Plan that was written by Platner herself. See this map ↓ that was included in the Plan's narrative.
Platner complains about those of us who question whether we
can have too much of a good thing and should make more strategic decisions
about acquiring more open space. According to Platner:
“Our opposition in this year’s election is claiming that we have too much open space, that we shouldn’t acquire more, and that land preservation is competing with development and causing residential growth to be too slow. The data do not support their claims.”
Except that data does indeed support those claims.
Ironically, that data includes those used by Platner herself. For example, she
opens her statement by citing a 2016 consultants’ report that projected a
tripling of the town’s population unless more land was preserved.
Tortured data
Charlestown’s population flat-lined starting in 2000, more
than a decade before Platner went on her open space buying spree.
The only time our population triples is during the summer
when the tourists and part-time residents swell the population from
under 8,000 to around 30,000. For our three-month tourism economy, we must
maintain – and pay for - a year-round municipal infrastructure that can handle
that influx.
Tourism, the only form of economic activity the CCA supports, is fine while it lasts at least for those in the tourism business, but it is expensive for the rest of us.
In
addition to the infrastructure costs, summer workers who can’t afford to live
here must drive in since the CCA has steadfastly resisted RIPTA extending into
town. They earn low wages with no benefits, and many survive on public
assistance programs.
I would like to see an impartial study done to determine whether tourism brings in enough revenue to cover its costs.
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| Platner cherry-picked numbers to "prove" her theory. By using 1970 as her starting point, she misrepresents Charlestown population "growth" |
Last March, Platner offered up some truly tortured mathematics. In an article titled Charlestown Has Grown 11 Times Faster Than The State Yet The State Says We Must Grow Faster. In it, Platner gives a master class in how to cherry-pick numbers to prove an untrue theory.
Platner's disciple, CCA Council hopeful Bonnita Van Slyke tries to copy her mentor in a letter to the editor of the Sun where she tries to use Auditor General data to argue that the CCA didn't mess up town finances, raise taxes and let expenses run amok - except that's what the CCA did. CLICK HERE to see what the Auditor General really said and then judge whether Van Slyke can be trusted to another Council term.
Platner’s manipulation of data
in this article rivals her all-time classic thesis, a mathematical formula she
concocted to “prove” that families with children are parasites feeding off taxpayers. Think I’m
making this up? CLICK
HERE.
One of things I love about Ruth Platner is that when she
lies, her own past writing often offers the best rebuttal.
Here’s what Platner wrote in Charlestown’s Comprehensive
Plan that contradicts her current arguments:
"The Town of Charlestown experienced rapid population growth in the last decade of the 20th century, moving from 6,478 residents in 1990 to 7,859 in 2000, a change of 1,381 residents or 21.3%.
Since 2000, however, population growth has declined or been flat, as is shown in the above table (See Plan, page 10-2, Table HC-1) showing an estimated town population of 7,772 in 2015 (a decline of 87 residents or 1.1%). Population projections provided by the RI Office of Statewide Planning show a return to a growth trend, with a population of 9,329 by 2040.
This represents a 20% increase between 2015 and 2040. However, this level of growth is not likely to be realized given recent trends, the ageing [SIC] of the local populace and expected modest declines in average household size. While the actual numbers are likely to be considerably less, these projections will be utilized in this chapter for estimating housing growth, and the need for low and moderate-income units relating to the state’s 10% threshold…”.
As I wrote in my March article on Platner mathematics, “Let’s
put a stop torture in Charlestown:”
“Rather than responding to “the need for low and
moderate-income units,” Platner as head of the Planning Commission and
the Charlestown Citizens Alliance and its precursors clamped down on housing in
general but especially new affordable housing.
“This led to this situation described by Ruthie herself in
her article:”
“From 2010 to 2023, 357 new homes were built in Charlestown. However, those 357 new dwellings barely register in the census data as many are consumed for non-resident use. An additional 54 new house lots were approved in 2023 and have not been built yet; the majority are likely to be second homes."
Let’s remember Platner’s latest declaration is that “Open Space Is Not A Threat To Population Growth” even though she details in her article that the CCA has been dedicated to buying more open space and admits in the Comprehensive Plan that we need more housing for seniors and families but aren’t building it.
AND she admits almost all new housing has been bought up by outsiders for vacation homes.
She also catalogs some, but not all, of the properties that the CCA acquired, or tried to acquire, for open space using either town money or town money plus some state bond funds (state money is still all OUR money). Let's take a look at several of the most recent.
Dirty deals but not dirt cheap
Platner’s land deals usually share these features:
- Sales price is often far higher than tax assessment
- Appraisals are often based on improbable conditions, usually with the appraiser noting that factors used in the appraisal are fictional
- Seller often has some political connection to the CCA
- Deal is cloaked in secrecy where documents are blacked out or simply withheld
Platner flags one failed transaction to mount a personal
attack on Town Council President Deb Carney (D/CRU):
“We also received a $400,000 Natural Heritage Grant to purchase the 100-acre Saw Mill Pond Watershed, but that purchase was blocked by Councilor Carney [emphasis added].”
So Deb is bad for not liking this deal. Except there’s a
lot more about this deal that Platner leaves out.
Let’s start with the fact that Platner, aided by her Council
puppet, aforementioned Bonnita Van Slyke, insisted that the
owner, property location and the proposed sale price be kept secret from the
public while the town applied to the state for matching funds in October
2021.
DEM
awarded Charlestown the $400,000 grant referred to by Platner in March 2022 but
still did not reveal the owner, location or actual sales price.
When we finally got all the details, we learned it was the
Richard Family property, already on the town tax rolls since at least 2010 as
tax-advantaged open space, zoned "R40 Open Space," assessed by the town at $312.800. Platner wanted
to spend at least $800,000 for a property that was already open space
and worth less than half the assessed value.
And it’s all Deb’s fault, right? Well, in my opinion,
congratulations to Deb and to late Councilor Grace Klinger for opposing this
rip-off.
But in a twist, the real reason Platner didn’t get her way because one
of the CCA Council members Cody Clarkin insisted on recusing himself - his mom owned property abutting the Richard Family land. That denied Ruthie her
usual 3-2 margin. She doesn’t mention Cody’s rare display of ethics in her
slander against Deb.
So many of Charlestown’s land scandals originated in the elected Planning Commission under Platner’s rule.
For example, Platner and her stooge Town Plan Jane Weidman tried to buy a piece of property from CCA affiliate group, the Sachem Passage Association (SPA), and even secured a DEM grant for part of the cost.
The SPA wanted to sell the vacant lot they had obtained at no cost to the town for $426,000, a stark contrast to the fair market valuation of $61,900 on file at the Charlestown Tax Assessor’s office.
Weidman was warned by Charlestown Tax Assessor Ken Swain that the property was wildly overpriced, but Weidman pushed the grant forward using an appraisal that contained this warning:
The SPA-Gate deal was good to go as far as Platner and the CCA were concerned. However, there was a catch in DEM's grant award: there had to be another appraisal, this time WITHOUT "extraordinary assumptions" or "hypothetical conditions."
That appraisal gave the property a generous value of $75,000, not the $426,000 SPA and the CCA wanted. SPA leader Ron Areglado turned down the new, honest amount of $75,000 and this dirty deal died.
To get to that $900,000 asking price, Platner had Planner Jane Weidman force the appraiser to re-do his appraisal until he got a number that met the seller's demand.
Even using the bogus assumption that 22 units of housing could be built on the property, the town's appraiser's first appraisal was $660,000. Pushed by Platner and Weidman, he did a second appraisal but could only bring it up to $725,000. No matter how hard Weidman pushed and how much he tortured the numbers, he couldn't get it up to $900,000.
Owner Brian Lind wasn't satisfied with those numbers and commissioned his own appraisal. To no one's surprise, his appraiser came up with $915,000 which Lind, out of the kindness of his heart, rounded down to $900,000.
Somehow, Platner and Weidman convinced DEM to accept this bloated appraisal and Bonnie Van Slyke heralded it as a great triumph.
That's not what I would call it. Us Charlestown taxpayers paid $500,000 directly with state taxpayers paying the $400,000 - $900,000 for a property assessed at $333,600.
Any or all of these deals could have gone to a grand jury since each involved deliberate deception in applying for and receiving state funds.
These are just the recent deals from just before the CCA was ousted from power by voters in the 2022 election. One of the first stories Tom Ferrio and I covered in Progressive Charlestown was one of Ruthie's first dirty deals, the 2001 "Y-Gate" scandal.
No to Platner, no to Van Slyke and yes to CRU's Planning Commission candidates
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| We need change on the Planning Commission. Please support these candidates endorsed by Charlestown Residents United (CRU) |
Voters cannot do that. Only by giving the Charlestown Residents United (CRU) majority a second term in office can we curb the CCA’s land lust. Plus, we need change on the Planning Commission itself and I urge you to support the CRU candidates for Planning.
There must be a balance between our farms, forests and open
space and meeting the needs Platner herself admits Charlestown has for housing
for seniors, workers and families. I urge you to cast your mail-in, early or
in-person votes for the CRU on or before November 5.