Next time, let DEM negotiate the deal

Vanover wants to know why one deal is bad and the other is good

Due to objections from readers who didn't like to see
Cliff Vanover's photo, I have replaced his photo with
that of another open space devotee

By Will Collette

Tip of the hat to CCA leader Cliff Vanover for drawing attention to two recent land deals. One is the purchase of 84 acres in Richmond by RIDEM which were added to the Arcadia Natural Resource Management Area.

The other is the deal where the Charlestown Town Council gave the Charlestown Land Trust $475,000 of town tax dollars to buy the old acre busted-out YMCA Camp on Watchaug Pond. I call that deal Charlestown’s Y-Gate.

Cliff wrote an irate comment to EcoRI News complaining that EcoRI applauded the Arcadia acquisition, but not the YMCA Camp deal. Cliff blames the difference in EcoRI's coverage on me.

Leaving aside Cliff’s interesting take on the power I have over a statewide environmental on-line journal, I loved Cliff’s idea about comparing the two deals.

To get full details on acquisition of the Greene Family’s 84 acres and their addition to the state’s Arcadia Natural Resource Area, click here. Cliff Vanover’s comment appears after the article.

In case you haven’t been paying attention to the one of biggest taxpayer rip-offs in recent Charlestown history, you can read up on Y-Gate by clicking here.

Now let’s compare how the Arcadia deal compares with Charlestown’s Y-Gate:

Arcadia acquisition of the Greene property	Charlestown’s Y-Gate
Size of acquisition – 84 acres	27.5 acres
Acquisition cost: $600,000	$942,000
Basis for cost: open space bought at an open space price	Trashed-out Y-camp zoned as open space-rec, but priced as if it was a residential development
Source of money: federal and state	Town of Charlestown and state DEM
Cost per acre: $7,143	$34,255
Condition of property: pristine	Trashed out campground, derelict buildings, old septic systems, cracked asphalt, etc.
Ownership & management: State of Rhode Island	Charlestown Land Trust
Access: unlimited	By appointment only
Water access: Pond and river	Pond
Is the land really open space? Yep, no question	The Charlestown Conservation Commission says it isn’t
How was the deal done: cleanly	By deception and the use of an assessment based on assumptions “known to be false” that inflated the land price
Who benefits: the RI public	The Westerly YMCA, the Charlestown Land Trust and the Sonquipaug Association

I know Cliff has often expressed his view that no price is too great to pay for open space. If Cliff, and his wife, Planning Commissar Ruth Platner, had their way, they would depopulate Charlestown (except for themselves and a few special friends) and turn just about all of town into open space.

DEM's new addition to Arcadia

I know that Cliff holds the peculiar belief that you add to the town's tax base by taking land off the tax rolls by designating it as open space.

I know Cliff  thinks I am “anti-environmentalist” because I don't share his fanaticism for open space. 

Reasonable people can put Cliff's logic – and mine – under rigorous scrutiny. Taking a hard, objective look at the differences between the Arcadia land deal and the Y-Gate land deal is a good place to start.

In the Arcadia deal, the state acquired 84 acres of pristine open space in a critical natural resource area for one-fifth the cost per acre as the Y-Gate rip-off. The state will not need to hire contractors to come in and do major demolition and clean-up.

None of the town of Richmond’s money was used to purchase the 84 acres.

The Arcadia land will belong to the citizens of Rhode Island and be available for their use. The Y-Gate land will be owned by a private organization. Under the specific terms of the town’s conservation easement with the Charlestown Land Trust, public access will be “by appointment only.”

There is no sign of deception, fraud, inside dealing, conflict of interest or lies in the Arcadia deal, while the Y-Gate deal reeks of duplicity, conflicts of interest and inside dealing. This was a heist of almost $1 million in public money.

Those are the conclusions I have drawn by studying the documents and the details. Look for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

And, Cliff, please keep the story leads coming.