Charlestown Tapas

Juicy and delicious tidbits

By Will Collette

Gee, what a shame if we were to lose Joe Larisa

Where is Joe Larisa?

Unless Charlestown is violating the state open records law, Charlestown’s Special-Counsel-to–Fight-Anything-the-Narragansett-Indian-Tribe-Wants-to-Do Joe Larisa has not sent the town a bill for his monthly $2,050 retainer since last February. 

That’s the last bill the town provided to me under the Access to Public Records Act. Usually Larisa files his bills every two months. Maybe this means Larisa is no longer on the payroll – I sent that question to Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz over a week ago and am still waiting for a reply.

According to the Providence Journal, Larisa has moved his family out of state, from their long-time home in East Providence to South Dartmouth, MA “to provide more room for the children and be closer to his wife’s family.” 

OMG! If Charlestown loses Larisa, who will carry on the town’s – actually the CCA Party’s – perpetual war with the Tribe?

Charlestown Dems have some early campaign ups and downs

Just days after filing a four-member slate of candidates for Town Council, the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee was told by Nick Bottai that he had to withdraw from the Council race. Nick is about to enter his sophomore year at URI and just can’t see how he could campaign, and then serve, while carrying a full course load and working his ass off to pay for his schooling.

However, the CDTC is still optimistic about taking back control of the Town Council from the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) which has ruled Charlestown for the past six years with its remaining three candidates.

Two-term incumbent Lisa DiBello is running for a third-term, this time as a Democrat. It is still an open question whether this will be in concert with or separate from the endorsed slate. DiBello filed as a Democrat in the final hour of the final day of declarations after the CDTC had already endorsed its slate.

Whatever the decision is on DiBello, I won’t be part of it since I have resigned from the CDTC. Though my main reasons for resigning are health issues, I also decided that I wanted to leave no question about the independence of Progressive Charlestown from the CDTC – the CCA Party has repeatedly told the lie that the CDTC controls Progressive Charlestown (or vice versa).

The CDTC kicked off campaign season with a successful July 5^th tag sale that netted over $900 for the Democrats’ campaign coffers. Check the CDTC website for information on their plans for the 2014 campaign.

Jobs, jobs, jobs

The uptick in the economy can easily be seen in the increase in Rhode Island non-profit jobs. The best source for information on public service and social change work is Rhode Island Community Jobs sponsored by the Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown University. To sign up, click here.

They have jobs all over the area. I have cherry-picked recent postings for jobs in South County. For example, Wood River Health Services in Hope Valley is looking to hire a Behavioral Health Manager. Click here for the details.

The YMCA of Greater Providence wants to hire an “Out of School Time Coordinator” in Peace Dale. Click here for the details.

South County Community Action has two job openings. One is for a Residential Energy Auditor (details here). The other is for a Head Start Teacher Assistant (click here for the details).

Speaking of jobs…

It looks like former Westerly Town Manager Steve Hartford is determined to hold at least one new job per month until the end of Governor Lincoln Chafee’s term. Hartford, who left Westerly after losing the Town Council’s support at least partly due to botching the Copar Quarry matter, was quickly hired by the Chafee Administration as a “special policy advisor.” He has since served as policy director, as special receiver for the Central Coventry Fire District. There may be a couple of other jobs as well.

Now he can add another job title to his resume. Gov. Chafee has named Hartford to be the new Director of Administration, replacing Richard Licht who was given a judgeship. Governor Chafee’s term ends at the end of this year. He is not running for re-election. And Steve Hartford will have to look for yet another job and will have to explain why he keeps moving from job to job.

South County Beaches among the dirtiest in the nation

If ever there was a dubious distinction for “The Ocean State,” coming in 25^th out of 30 states for beach water quality is not one of them. The annual report of the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) rates beaches based on the number of days when bacteria levels exceed national standards.

While none of Charlestown’s beaches were on the list for excess bacteria, nine South County beaches were listed, including close-by Green Hill Beach and Weekapaug.

Here’s the list of South County beaches that had excess bacteria. The percentages show the number of samples that showed contamination.

• Scarborough State Beach South, Washington County (28%)
• Narragansett Town Beach, Washington County (22%)
• Scarborough State Beach North, Washington County (21%)
• Greenhill Beach, Washington County (20%)
• North Kingstown Town Beach, Washington County (16%)
• Saunderstown Yacht Club, Washington County (13%)
• Capt Roger Wheeler State Beach, Washington County (10%)
• Weekapaug Fire District, Washington County (7%) – this is one of our area’s fake fire districts
• Camp Grosvenor, Washington County (4%)

Sorry, Leo

Even though CCA Party Treasurer and candidate for Town Moderator Leo Mainelli may detest oyster farms in Charlestown’s salt ponds, the tide may be against him. The Providence Business News just ran a great feature piece on local oyster farmer Jim Arnoux.

Oysters account for 98% of Rhode Island’s total aquaculture yield and revenues have gone up by almost 50% just in the past year. Oyster farming is not only good for the local economy, but also good for the salt ponds as oysters remove massive amounts of nitrates from waters of the ponds.

Those nitrates get there from the septic systems and lawn fertilizers used by local Aqua-NIMBYs like Mainelli, who claim the oyster farms spoil their view and impede recreation uses of the ponds – not that Mainelli wants anyone but the right people using the ponds. 

Unless you hate the sight of people working for a living, I think they actually enhance the view by adding an element of authentic New England water culture. This PBN article focuses especially on the pilot project in Quonochotang Pond that Mainelli and his CCA Party cohorts are trying to block.

Use it or lose it

Though the top brass at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, owners of Westerly Hospital, have expressed their general happiness with Westerly’s turn-around from near bankruptcy, they warn that Westerly Hospital’s future is far from secure.

If the hospital, or key services within the hospital, fail to bring in customers, a.k.a. patients, Lawrence & Memorial will be free to close down services when it hits the two-year anniversary of their takeover last on this year. Said Westerly Hospital board chair Stephen Greene: 

“If all the numbers show that there’s no reason to continue various lines of services because there’s no usage from a business perspective, any business would discontinue a particular service line,”

While L&M brass may be looking only at the bottom line, I think Westerly Hospital could learn a lot from South County Hospital where the high level of patient care and satisfaction – care so good it has made South County Hospital the #1 ranked-hospital in New England – results in a healthy balance sheet.

Blackmail, on the other hand, and L&M’s ham-handed, cut-and-slash management style does not do much to promote community loyalty.

Idiot alert!

It shouldn’t take new or harsher state laws to make people curb their irresponsible conduct, but sadly, that’s sometimes what we must do. It is now illegal in Rhode Island to leave your pet confined to a car in extreme heat or cold. You can get up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine for doing so. Personally, I’d like to have you confined in that car under the same conditions for the same amount of time. 

Further, the new law allows firefighters, police or animal control to use whatever means necessary to rescue the pet.

Littering fines have been substantially raised from $500 to $1,000 for the first offense and from $500 to $5,000 for a second offense. AND – pay attention, Charlestown – local municipalities will be entitled to a share of the fines.

Speaking of idiots

If you know a person who is hopelessly addicted to his or her electronic devices, try this challenge on them. Have them click on Do Nothing for Two Minutes and dare them to do it. You may even want to consider attaching a small wager to the challenge.

Glimmer of hope

During the first few months of the year, the sky-rocketing number of overdose deaths in Rhode Island from heroin and fentanyl were big news. There were 103 deaths in the first five months. But as more police departments – Charlestown was among the first – began equipping officers and EMTs with doses of Narcan, the number of overdose deaths in Rhode Island has now dropped to a four-year low.

This is quite a triumph for sensible community policing.

Lots of miles of bad road

You are more than twice as likely to get killed on one of Rhode Island’s rural roads than on any other kind of road in Rhode Island. According to the Trip National Transportation Research Group, Rhode Island is tied with West Virginia for having the second-worst rural roads in the United States. Connecticut comes in at #1.

According to their report, 33% of Rhode Island (and West Virginia) roads are in poor condition and 25% of our rural bridges are in disrepair. The death rate for Rhode Islanders travelling on rural roads is 1.85 per 100 million vehicle miles compared to 0.76 for all other Rhode Island roads.

Federal funding to road infrastructure expires on September 30 unless the US Congress passes legislation to renew or extend the funding. What do you think the odds are that the House of Representatives will agree to do that?

“Carcieri Fix” sponsor rates its chances

For those of you who pay attention to the warnings of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party), you know the CCA Party expects that Charlestown always stands in perpetual peril of a casino built right here in Charlestown by the Narragansett Indian Tribe. 

Even though we are more likely to have a UFO landing after they spot Joe Quadrato’s flag illuminating beacon, the CCA Party routinely tries to drum up fear of an Indian casino in Charlestown.

One of their fears is that an arcane bit of civil rights legislation, popularly called the “Carcieri Fix,” might pass the Congress. Currently, this legislation is stalled, probably permanently, in the Senate. The bill’s sponsor, Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana) gave an interesting interview to Indian Country Today where he talked about the chances of the Carcieri Fix being enacted.

Referring to Republican colleague John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) substitute bill to instead create a study on the effects of the Carcieri v. Salazar decision on the 500 affected tribes, Tester said:

“Yeah, that’s something we do here all the time. We study stuff all the time, and then we study it some more. I think Carcieri is a known entity, and I don’t think it necessarily needs to be studied anymore.”

Mutant Orange Lobsters

In my last Charlestown Tapas, I reported that Charlestown’s Nordic Lodge had gotten a very rare naturally orange lobster (I call him Bohner) and that instead of serving him up to a customer, they planned to donate Bohner to a local aquarium so others can see this rarity. The chances of a naturally orange lobster are one in 30 million.

Then I got an e-mail from our friends at the Mystic Aquarium announcing that they were putting not one, but two orange lobsters on display. Both were donated by Stop & Shop stores.

I contacted the Nordic Lodge and suggested that this might be a good home for Bohner so that s/he might cavort with similar mutant lobsters. Lisa Brown e-mailed me back to thank me for the tip, but said that Bohner had found a permanent home at the Beavertail Aquarium in Jamestown and that “he is residing very comfortably there now.”

For more Rhymes With Orange cartoons, click here.

Some might call this a bad idea

But I think it’s great. Those marvels of nature – marshmallow Peeps® - are planning to go year round and break out of the Easter-only rut. Now, in my pre-diabetes days, I considered Peeps® to be one of the four basic food groups, but times have changed. 

I keep Peeps® around solely to deal with hypoglycemic attacks (and strictly in their most perfect state, which is hard-as-a-rock stale). The makers of Peeps® are trying a new marketing approach to celebrate Peeps® every day by celebrating 365 holidays a year, some real and some iffy.

The Consumerist thinks this is crass, but I think it’s brilliant! Click here to see what Peeps® holiday today is.