Rep. Donna
Walsh and Sen. Cathie Cool Rumsey talk to town residents
By Will
Collette
Usually,
just a handful of people show up for community meetings with our local
legislators, but not so last Saturday. More than a dozen people came to the
Cross’ Mills Public Library on a dreary cold Saturday morning to talk with
state Representative Donna Walsh and Sen. Cathie Cool Rumsey about the issues
that concern them.
Donna
represents all of Charlestown and Block Island, and parts of South Kingstown
and Westerly. Cathie represents Charlestown north of Route One, plus Richmond,
Hopkinton and Exeter.
Residents
were very interested in Donna’s new legislation to cut the amount of trash
going to our crowded state Central Landfill. Donna proposes a new law that would require restaurants and commercial establishments to pull food trash from
their refuse so it can be recycled or composted.
“Too
much food is wasted in general,” said Rep. Walsh, “If we can’t cut down on the
waste in the first place, then let’s divert the waste so it can be converted
into either animal feed or compost.”
Many of
those in attendance said they already compost at home and thought the idea of
large-scale recycling of food waste was long overdue.
Residents
also supported other environmental initiatives such as banning plastic grocery
bags and generally boosting the use of reusable resources and also boosting
recycling. Many were surprised to learn that Charlestown now ranks lowest among
Rhode Island cities and towns for recycling, which ran counter to their idea of
Charlestown as an environmentally conscious community.
Audience
members also noted that managing waste through more recycling and composting
would generate much needed jobs for the local economy.
Other
measures to boost the economy were lively topics at the meeting. Donna noted
that her legislation to eliminate the sales tax on original art work took
effect in December and that there was a well-attended workshop in Charlestown
with the RI Council for the Arts to discuss how the new tax-free system would
work.
“I want
to see the state, our tourism council and businesses to get the word out,
especially out of state to reach people who come to our area for vacation,”
said Rep. Walsh. “In South County, we rely on tourism and I am hoping this will
help generate more tourism dollars in our local economy.”
That led
to a lot of brainstorming about ways to promote Rhode Island and its tourist
economy.
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Senator
Cool Rumsey discussed the recently completed work of the Joint Commission on
guns and mental health that she co-chaired with Rep. Deb Ruggiero
(D-Jamestown).
Cathie
explained that in the wake of the Newtown shootings in Connecticut just over a
year ago, the Taskforce was created to look at whether Rhode Island was doing
what it needed to do to restrict access to guns by persons with a history of
violent mental illness.
She
noted that the Taskforce discovered that Rhode Island was not feeding in names
of persons who were treated or hospitalized for violent mental illnesses,
largely due to strict medical privacy rules.
She said
the state has to be careful to honor the rights of citizens, even when those
rights come into conflict. Patients’ right to privacy, Second Amendment gun
ownership rights, and the right of the people to be safe require a delicate
balancing act.
She said
the Taskforce intended to recommend to the General Assembly that it enact
legislation to widen how much information Rhode Island will input into the
national database that determines whether a potential gun buyer is allowed to
make a purchase, but very carefully restrict that to persons who have been
involuntarily committed to a mental institution who pose a “substantial risk of violence to themselves or others, not
those who are committed but determined to represent a low risk of violence.”
Only basic identifying information, and not details about
the person’s condition, would be included in the data sent to the national
database.
It will be up to the General Assembly to evaluate the Task
Force’s report. New bills would need to be drafted, enacted by both Houses and
signed by the Governor before any changes are made.
Donna and Cathie invited all those present to feel free to
contact them with ideas, problems or concerns. Rep. Walsh said “I get lots of
great ideas from my constituents.”
Both Donna and Cathie discussed how getting good
legislation passed isn’t easy and often takes time and patience. Donna noted
that it took years to get her bill to get rid of cesspools enacted, and that
she’s been working for over ten years to try to get a bill passed to require
that state magistrate judges be selected on merit.
“I’m willing to take however long it takes because it’s the
right thing to do,” she said.
