March Town Council Meeting - the play-by-play

by Tom Ferrio

Like baseball, it's hard to predict whether the Town Council meeting will be a thrilla or a snooza. But we'll be here giving you a near real-time commentary on the action.

Will has been doing these real-time reports for several months and I honestly think his results are better than mine. But it's time for me to share the load a little, and maybe there's some benefit to practice.

I have loaded up the agenda that Will previously published, along with some of my pre-meeting comments. I'll be adding commentary on what happens in red as the meeting progresses. I plan to be at Town Hall for the end of the Executive Session and then zip home to my ClerkBase connection and a glass of wine.

Without any Grassroots, This Austerity Group Withered

The American people know a fake when they see it.

By Sarah Anderson

The austerity mania that plagued our political system for four years is finally subsiding. The latest sign is President Barack Obama’s decision to nix the Social Security cuts he had previously included in his budget proposal.

This was a body blow to the most powerful pro-austerity force in Washington — the Fix the Debt campaign. Starting in 2012, this fake grassroots — or “astroturf” — organization had deployed more than 100 CEOs to try to persuade the nation that our economic survival depended on expanding tax breaks for big corporations and slashing earned benefit programs.

Fix the Debt once boasted a budget of $40 million. Today, it’s shedding staff and going into hibernation, having failed to win any of their top priorities.

PRIVACY: Does Your Smartphone Spy On You?

What Can You Do About it?

Posted by: Samuel Warde in Liberals Unite

For every second of every day, someone is tracking your every move, and you probably don’t even realize it. 

People think no one’s watching, that they’re on their own. But as long as their smartphones are on and in their pocket, they’re never quite alone.

Buried in your iPhone settings is a detailed history of where you’ve been, how often you’ve been there and it’s time-stamped down to the minute you were there.

And on a Droid, it’s even more detailed. It’s all plotted on Google Maps. GPS and Wi-Fi networks pin-point a person’s every move from home to work and back. Smartphones send all that information back to tech companies.

Town Council meeting preview – TONIGHT at 7 PM

Quarry ordinance, plan for former Whalerock site, impending war with Hopkinton and Richmond on the agenda

By Will Collette

Before the public portion of the Charlestown Town Council meeting, there will be a closed, Executive Session. The only item on the agenda is the lawsuit against Charlestown and several present and former Charlestown officials by Council member Lisa DiBello. That lawsuit is now over two years old and may be ripe for settlement. We will not know what they discussed unless they take a vote and then tell us about it.

Despite a seemingly full agenda, there are actually only three matters that seem likely to take up a lot of time. Coming first in the order of business is a continuation of the discussion about the town’s plans for the future of the Charlestown Moraine Preserve. This is the property bought by the taxpayers for $2.1 million in open space/recreation bond money last summer to end the on-going battle over the proposed Whalerock wind farm.

While there seems to be broad agreement that this is a great piece of land, there’s debate about whether to give away property rights to an outside group to “lock up” the land as open space and close the door on any other conceivable municipal use in the future. 

Former Town Council President Deb Carney argued at the last Council session that locking up the property and foreclosing other uses was ill-advised and unnecessary while CCA Party Mike Chambers mounted a personal attack on Carney in the Westerly Sun. Mikey seems to want to give away the land, largely for his own self-interest as Richard Hosp pointed out in a great letter to the Sun. Deb skewered Chambers for his usual misstatements of fact, if not outright lies.

Let's give that $2.1 million parcel to the deserving
poor, like the Charlestown Land Trust or the
Arnolda neighborhood

Town Council Boss Tom Gentz of the CCA Party crafted a memo some months ago listing several potential recipients of a conservation easement to lock up the property. However, after pursuing Gentz’s list, the Conservation Commission discovered that only one of those groups – the Charlestown Land Trust – is still interested. Readers may remember the central role played by the Trust in the 2012 Y-Gate Scandal.

If the Town Council majority insists on locking up the land by giving away a conservation easement, it will have to go before the voters, probably at this summer’s financial referendum.

Next in the batting order is what to do about mining. The Council has before it a flawed but important ordinance to ban new mining and blasting and to regulate existing mining. Some Council action is needed at this meeting because the six-month moratorium the Council passed expires this month.

They will hold a public hearing and will no doubt hear pro and con testimony. Then they must decide whether to pass the ordinance, flaws and all, or send it back to the Planning Commission to fix while extending the expiring moratorium. Or do something else.

Toward the end of the meeting, the Council is scheduled to take up five closely related issues all tied into the potential civil war within the Chariho School District pitting Charlestown against Hopkinton and Richmond over the apportionment of power, control and costs. 

CCA Party Council member Dan “Vladimir” Slattery wants war in order to preserve the status quo. Maybe he’ll talk about mobilizing the Charlestown town militia to occupy the Richmond piece of Carolina to protect ethnic Charlietowners who happen to live on the wrong side of the town line.

If Charlestown withdraws from Chariho, which is what Vlad Slattery is threatening to do, we will need an alternative way to teach Charlestown’s children. Planning Commissar Ruth Platner may suggest that we deport families with school-age children.

Our current Chariho School Committee members "Swami" Ron Areglado and Donna Chambers might want to start up a charter school or craft a home schooling curriculum for them.

Or maybe we’re going to need that land in the Charlestown Moraine Preserve for a new school building.

Here’s the agenda listed in the actual order of business. The Clerkbase documents were not posted after business hours on Friday, so not all of them are posted below. I think I managed to get the important ones linked. My snarky comments are in bold red.

New twist on the wind power debate

Offshore wind farms could tame hurricanes before they reach land

Science Daily

Computer simulations by Professor Mark Z. Jacobson have shown that offshore wind farms with thousands of wind turbines could have sapped the power of three real-life hurricanes, significantly decreasing their winds and accompanying storm surge, and possibly preventing billions of dollars in damages.

For the past 24 years, Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, has been developing a complex computer model to study air pollution, energy, weather and climate. A recent application of the model has been to simulate the development of hurricanes. 

Another has been to determine how much energy wind turbines can extract from global wind currents.

Charlestown Tapas

Ten tasty tidbits of Charlestown news

By Will Collette

Bill (left) in happier days

DiLibero gets a gig

Charlestown’s former Town Administrator William DiLibero will be heading down to Texas on March 28^th where a new job as City Manager for South Padre Island awaits him. Readers will remember Bill’s tumultuous service in Charlestown where he made a rapid fall from grace – applauded by the Town Council for his great service – to being forced to resign due to the “Kill Bill Campaign” waged against him by the CCA Party.

Bill says South Padre has “2,300 residents, 1 million visitors, $2 billion in commerce and $2.50 per thousand tax rate. They liked my experience in managing through storms, project management skills, and my thoughts on improving economic development.”

I wish him well.

Quonnie Crime Wave

Charlestown Police Chief Jeffrey Allen told the Westerly Sun that least nine vacant summer houses, mostly in Quonochontaug, were hit by bandits who stole copper pipes and fittings from crawl spaces under the properties and from outdoor showers. Crooks presumably sell the valuable metal as scrap at the current going rate of $2.85 a pound.

These crimes are hard to spot since the houses aren’t occupied for months at a time. CPD expects more reports of copper thefts when the beach property owners show up as the weather warms.

I’m surprised the Charlestown Town Council isn’t calling for volunteer crime fighting patrols to protect the homes of the people who provide the Charlestown Citizens Alliance with the bulk of its campaign funding.

Dead man found on Quonnie Beach ID’d

All your questions about black holes answered

From Fake Science

Corporate America Needs to Change Our Diapers

Popular brands of disposable diapers contain dioxins and other toxic chemicals.

By Jill Richardson

As you probably know, disposable diapers sit in a landfill, undecayed, for generations. They’re convenient for parents and caregivers but deadly for Mother Earth.

Maybe you didn’t know about another big problem. There’s evidence that most popular brands of disposable diapers are bad for your baby too.

The good news is that there are brands of disposable diapers that are better for babies. The bad news is that most parents don’t use them.

Your average disposable diaper has three layers: a waterproof outer one (typically made of plastic), an absorbent core, and an inner layer that touches your baby’s skin.

Minor changes recommended

Firearms Safety Task Force recommends limited expansion of reporting to NICS database

STATE HOUSE – The 20-member task force that has been studying the nexus of gun rights and mental health law today recommended that Rhode Island begin submitting limited additional information about mental health actions to the national database used to screen gun buyers.

After studying the situation this fall and winter, the Joint Behavioral Health and Firearms Safety Task Force, led by co-chairwomen Rep. Deborah Ruggiero and Sen. Catherine Cool Rumsey, today accepted its report to the General Assembly detailing the many limitations the state faces in widening reporting of mental health or behavioral health records under health care privacy laws.

Keeping it simple

Simple Things You Can Do to Protect Our Waters

By ecoRI.org News staff

There are many streams and rivers that flow through backyards and drain into ponds, lakes, bays and ultimately the ocean. Pollutants such as animal feces, fertilizer, oil, hazardous waste, road sand and grease on land can be washed into our waters, but we can reduce this type of pollution. Here is a list, courtesy of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM), of things you can do to help clean our local waterways:

Learn about your local waters. Everyone lives in a watershed, which is the drainage area to a local body of water — think of washing everything in a sink down the drain and the drain is your local river or stream. Figure out what waters are closest to you and where they flow. Learn about local animal life and plants that live in and around these waters.

URI Prof talks about the weather

URI professor discusses this season’s winter weather, climate change

URI Today

KINGSTON, R.I. –From Atlas to Zephyr, the Northeast has endured quite a few storms during the 2013-2014 winter season. And with this week’s forecast calling for more snow and another possible polar vortex, it doesn’t look like the winter weather is going to loosen its icy grip anytime soon.

In this Q&A, we asked URI Oceanography Professor John Merrill to describe the science behind this season’s wintry weather and its relationship with climate change. An atmospheric scientist, Merrill uses meteorological techniques to study the long range transport of substances in the atmosphere and the impacts of meteorological processes on the environment. He teaches a graduate-level course in climate and radiation, and an undergraduate course in oceanography and global change at URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography.

URI: Between the snowstorms and polar vortexes, how does the 2013-2014 winter season compare to past winters?

Permanently temporary

U.S. Lags Behind World in Temp Worker Protections

by Michael Grabell, ProPublica

For nearly six years, Limber Herrera has toiled as a temp worker doing the same work for the same company in Mira Loma, Calif. About 40 hours a week, he unloads shipping containers for NFI—one of the largest freight distribution firms in America—moving goods that will eventually stock the shelves of Walmart and Sam's Club.

Herrera, 30, has been a temp so long that he's outlasted the agency that hired him. But that mattered little. One day in late 2012 he was called into the break room to fill out some paperwork. Then he went back to work—only now employed by the temp agency that took over the contract.

If Herrera worked in South Korea, his temporary assignment would be limited to two years, after which the company would have to hire him as a regular employee. If he worked in Germany, he would be guaranteed the same wages and working conditions as employees hired directly by the company. And if he worked in Chile, his temp agency could be shut down if it failed to pay him his wages or put him in harm's way.

But Herrera works in the United States, which has some of the weakest labor protections for temp workers in the developed world, according to data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which produces research on behalf of 34 of the world's industrialized nations.

One in four Americans isn't down with heliocentricity

Settled Science

By Ted Rall

Click here to see a newly revealed plot.

I wonder if it would make a difference if they were carrying gun?

Michigan Legislature Wants to Pass Bill To Fine Citizens Up To $1,000 Per Day For Picketing

By Randa Morris, Addicting Info

The Michigan House of Representatives took up HB 4643, legislation which was introduced by Republican Tom McMillin, that imposes massive fines against citizens who exercise their basic first amendment rights.

Under this law, citizens can be fined up to $1,000 per day for picketing.

The Hanging of John Gordon

Chariho Rotary hosts talk by author on March 18

From David Henley

The Rotary Club of Chariho is inviting the public to join them March 18 for an evening with author and historian John Caranci, who will speak about his book “The Hanging and Redemption of John Gordon: The True Story of Rhode Island's Last Execution”.

 Caranci, a former North Providence Town Councilor and currently RI Deputy Secretary of State, tells the story of the 1843 murder of Amasa Sprague, a wealthy Cranston mill owner, and the corrupt trial that lead to the hanging of a 29 year old Irish Catholic immigrant.

On February 14, 1845, John Gordon became the last victim of capital punishment in Rhode Island. Caranci brings this case to life, graphically describing the murder and exposing a corrupt judicial system, a biased newspaper and a bigoted society responsible for the unjust death of an innocent man.

New state website on climate change

Ocean State Pushes Climate-Change Awareness

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI.org News staff

Rhode Island continues its campaign of climate-change awareness with a new website and new legislation.

Created by the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Institute, the new website, called “Waves of Change,” aims to make climate change more approachable for the public. The articles are concise and free of jargon. Videos, cartoons, and even humorous music make the often-unsettling topic easier to appreciate, according to those behind the project.

A team of researchers, scientists and media experts, called the Climate Change Collaborative, runs the project. The site serves as a resource for the uninitiated, from the cynical uncle to curious students. It also encourages readers to discuss their ideas and opinions with climate experts.

Skeptics, however, won’t find information on Waves of Change to support their views.

This week’s Pet of the Week from the Animal Rescue League of Southern RI

Meet Brody

Hi, my name is Brody.  What can I say?  I am a playful yet shy cat who really misses being in a home.  I would really like a new home, a place where I can be loved and return the favor without other animals making me nervous. 

Adventure is my game, and if you could share your home with me I will not only entertain myself, but with time, I will follow you around the house ready for whatever adventure may come next.  I like to nuzzle and get head scratches.

"Come here, Lassie"

Human and dog brains both have dedicated 'voice areas'

Science Daily.

The first study to compare brain function between humans and any nonprimate animal shows that dogs have dedicated voice areas in their brains, just as people do. Dog brains, like those of people, are also sensitive to acoustic cues of emotion, according to a study in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on February 20.

The findings suggest that voice areas evolved at least 100 million years ago, the age of the last common ancestor of humans and dogs, the researchers say. It also offers new insight into humans' unique connection with our best friends in the animal kingdom and helps to explain the behavioral and neural mechanisms that made this alliance so effective for tens of thousands of years.

How Facebook REALLY works

Billy the Kitty goes to the click farm for Facebook likes.
by Ruben Bolling

Click here for the secret behind FaceBook "Likes".

Can Someone Please Cancel this Pity Party for the Rich?

Billionaire Tom Perkins wants you to feel the pain of those poor 1-percenters.

By Jim Hightower

The über rich are full of ideas. Not ideas to help humanity, unfortunately. They’ve thought up new ways to help themselves grab more money and power at our expense.

Take Tom Perkins. He’s one of a growing number of the put-upon rich — billionaires who grabbed a fabulous fortune by hook or crook but now complain that they are victims of a “rising tide of hatred.”

Excuse me, Tom, but the words “billionaire” and “victim” aren’t a natural pairing.

Yet, even though he candidly concedes that he lives a life of vulgar excess, Perkins wrote a sob-story letter to the editor The Wall Street Journal published in January. In it, he pleaded for relief from the “war on the American 1 percent, namely the ‘rich.’”

Benefits of clean living

Healthy habits pay off in long term

Science Daily

Initial habits concerning nutrition and physical exercise will influence
physical fitness and health in a statistically significant
way in the long term. Credit: © Photographee.eu / Fotolia

Can initial modes of behavior be used to predict how fit and healthy a person will be 18 years later? 

This question was in the focus of studies performed by researchers of KIT, Technische Universität München, and the universities of Konstanz and Bayreuth. A basic survey covered about 500 adults over a longer term. 

The result: Initial habits determine physical fitness and health in the long term. The study is now reported by the scientists in the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise.

CERT Volunteer opportunity (Citizen Emergency Response Team)

April is National Volunteer Month!  It’s just around the corner!

Deadline for next training class is March 21

From the Southern Rhode Island Volunteers

Do you feel like you wish you could do something to help when disaster strikes for family, neighbors and our community?  We are offering you an opportunity to step up, get involved, and learn new skills or update and use old ones. 

Southern Rhode Island Volunteers is recruiting volunteer members to join its regional CERT team serving the northern area of Washington County, including South Kingstown, Narragansett and North Kingstown. 

This CERT team assists first responders and the community in times of emergencies and/or disasters by taking responsibility for staffing the area’s regional shelter and local shelters for smaller events, setting up and providing direction at MEDS medical distribution PODS (flu clinics) and more. 

What’s the Rush?

The Charlestown Moraine Preserve, a Needed Pause

View from the Champlain Glacier Park in Westerly. Westerly took its
publicly owned stretch of moraine and turned it into a 
beautiful educational site

By Cheryl Dowdell

EDITOR’S NOTE: A version of this also ran as a letter to the editor in the Westerly Sun. It is another rebuttal to CCA Party pundit and appointee to the Zoning Board of Review Mike Chambers. Chambers wrote a fact-challenged attack letter to the Sun against Deb Carney. Click here for Deb’s rebuttal.

Richard Hosp also wrote to the Sun to say he was “offended by the inappropriate personal attack by Michael Chambers on Deb Carney.” Hosp said “I’m not sure what Mr. Chambers has done for the town except to be desperately opposed to anything being built in his backyard” noting that the Moraine Preserve is in Chambers’ backyard, a fact Chambers left out of his attack letter. 

And the story goes on. Today's Sun ran a Chambers' letter that tries to refute Deb Carney's rebuttal. Advice to Mikey: there's that old saying "when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." - wc

A beautiful piece of property has recently been purchased by the Charlestown and has been named The Charlestown Moraine Preserve. The remaining Open Space/ Recreation Bond was used to complete the $2.1 Million purchase. This transaction took 70 plus acres out of private development, permanently, and put that acreage in our hands, the taxpayers of Charlestown.

To seal the deal, 2 buildable lots with magnificent panoramic ocean views were split off from the town's open space purchase. A core group of perhaps 300 people in town, many who abut the property, followed this issue closely, attended meetings and communicated opinions with their Town Councilors. Much treasure in addition to the purchase price was spent for legal counsel, including an additional $50,000 for a special counsel.

While talking about this with many people living in other areas in town not near the new Moraine Preserve, I am concerned about how little so many of the other 7,000 plus taxpayers know about the purchase, how quickly it came about,  how it was funded and that two private lots were part of the deal.

The flip side of beauty

From Fake Science

Second worst bird killer

Millions of Birds Killed Annually due to Window Collisions

From: Editor, MONGABAY.COM, More from this Affiliate 

365-988 million birds are killed in the U.S. each year in collisions with buildings, estimates a review published last month in the journal The Condor: Ornithological Applications.

The research, based on some 92,869 records across 23 studies, finds that low-rise buildings (56 percent) and residences (44 percent) rather than skyscrapers (1 percent) are responsible for most of the toll.