Cleaning up non-residents' property

A very touchy subject for the CCA

By Will Collette

If it wasn’t for the Charlestown Citizens Alliance, I would have very little to write about. Indeed, the CCA provides an endless stream of straight lines as they bumble around providing their version of leadership to our town.

I was especially taken by the CCA Council members' hilarious proposals at the January 14 Town Council meeting. Throughout this relatively short meeting, it was one thing after another. 

There was Council boss Tom Gentz proposing that Charlestown build a mile and a half long bike path and walkway to Town Beach. All it would take is an unspecified amount of money and the willingness of each and every single property owner on the western side of Charlestown Beach Road to voluntarily donate at least four feet of their front yards so Tom and Dan Slattery and everyone else can ride their bikes to the beach.

Then there was their rejection of a simple resolution saying that they supported Chariho School Superintendent Barry Ricci’s position that Chariho taxpayers should not have to spend public money to send children to charter schools if those charter schools provide an inferior education.

But apparently my lampooning of yet another bit of silliness by our CCA leaders really got under the skin of an ever-touchy CCA supporter base. I described an odd debate that pitted CCA Councilor Dan Slattery against his CCA colleagues Boss Gentz and George Tremblay, as well as litigant Councilor Lisa DiBello.

For perhaps the first time ever, I found myself on Slattery’s side as he pressed for the town to take action to require beach property owners to clean up the storm debris that still remains on many properties. Slattery said most of the errant property owners were non-residents.

His Council colleagues thought Slattery was being much too harsh to actually expect our non-resident beach property owners to (a) obey the law; (b) not be pigs and (c) act in their own self-interest.

Instead, they proposed that Charlestown mobilize volunteers – I am not making this up – to clean up those properties for them. Indeed – and again, I am not making this up – Charlestown should make this its way of celebrating Earth Day, which takes place every year on April 22. 

Councilor DiBello was so excited by the idea that she wants the town to use its emergency phone notification system, called Code Red, to make three or four robo-calls to solicit Charlestown residents to volunteer. I’m not making that up, either.

If you think I might be making this up, click here and here to watch and listen for yourself.

I found this whole idea hilariously ridiculous. I still do. But there’s at least one reader who thinks I should be ashamed of myself. Of course, this person is anonymous, but boy, he or she sure is pissed off. Here’s what he/she has to say to me:

Wow. You are one angry, spiteful man. So apparently any suggestion of having a community beach clean up should be tabled and mocked until you have achieved your goal of preventing anyone richer than you from owning a beach front home? Perhaps you are going to propose having the taxpayers subsidize beachfront houses to the tune of a few million dollars so they can be considered "affordable housing" Sure, we could house more people by rehabbing existing affordable housing rather than providing Aid to Families with Dependent Contractors (and union organizers) but your way of subsidizing unaffordable housing to provide low income individuals with better homes than the taxpayers providing the subsidy has so much upside - specifically that it will allow you to get on board with a community beach cleaning!

This anonymous message gave me a lot to think about. Do I need anger management? Do I have class envy? Do I really want to turn beach front property into affordable housing? And if so, why would I want to do that? If not, where in the hell did this anonymous person get this stuff? 

What did my commentary on the idea of mobilizing residents to clean up the properties of irresponsible, absentee property owners have to do with affordable housing anyway? Why does this person think I somehow oppose retrofitting existing housing? 

What is this person’s point other than he or she thinks I’m a commie because I think the idea of dragooning residents into cleaning up vacation properties for Earth Day is stupid? 

And I have enough guts to put my name on the stuff I write so why doesn’t he/she?

In fact, none of what this anonymous crank said bears any resemblance to what I actually wrote. While I admit to a very high degree of snark in my article, I basically supported Dan Slattery's proposal that the town should tell property owners that it's long past due for them to clean up their property. Anybody who reads my stuff knows how it pains me to be on Dan Slattery's side.

Look, I don’t care if all the CCA people want to toddle down to the beach and clean up all the Floridians’ properties before they arrive on Memorial Day. Go for it. In fact, the CCA should definitely do this for all those out-of-staters to repay them for funding the CCA’s 2012 election campaign.

While they’re at it, they can wash their windows, re-paint their trims, plant some flowers and polish their lawn jockeys. This is just the sort of public service project that fits the CCA culture and philosophy.

Or maybe the CCA Council should just go for it and make the citizen clean-up brigade mandatory. After all, Gentz, Slattery, Ruth Platner and the other CCA folks frequently tell us that Charlestown citizens owe the absentee property owners a tremendous debt of gratitude for gracing our humble town with their august presence (and their taxes).

So why not make it a requirement that every full-time resident is obligated to give at least one day – let’s make it Earth Day to keep Lisa DiBello happy – of free labor and spend it cleaning up the property of absentee owners.

That way, when the town activates the Code Red robo-call system, you’ll get a recorded message like this:

“Citizens. You are required to report to the Ninigret Park parking area at 6 AM on April 22. From there you will be taken to sites along the Charlestown shore to perform clean-up and maintenance at private properties until sundown. This duty is compulsory and there will be severe penalties for failure to report. Have a nice day!”