New bills from
town’s Indian fighter shows cost spike
By Will Collette
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| "Circle the wagonss!!!!" |
They’ve never gotten over the Tribe’s 1975 effort to gain back the land that was stolen from the Tribe by some of the old-name families in Charlestown and
the settlement agreement that gave the Tribe the core of the lands they own in
Charlestown.
Since the
settlement, town leaders have taken every action they can to prevent the Tribe
from doing anything that might bring
some measure of prosperity to tribal members. Though their total war against the
Tribe is cloaked as opposition to a casino in Charlestown, the town actually worked to block the Tribe from getting a casino elsewhere which would have been in their self-interest, as well as
Charlestown’s. But if the Tribe had built the casino they proposed in West
Warwick or bought Twin River in Lincoln, they would have gained economic power
that some here in Charlestown find intolerable.
The RI Shoreline Coalition
(now
called RI Taxpayers) and
the nascent CCA Party have turned their animus toward the Tribe into a science as well as an obsession.
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| This is how the town initially "complied" with my open records act request for copies of Larisa's bills |
And we, as
taxpayers, get to pay for it. The town retains a special counsel for such
matters, “Injun
Joe” Larisa, who receives a base retainer of $24,000 a year plus expenses, plus additional charges if he has to do more than
just read articles on-line.
I had to fight
the Town and Larisa just to get the town to reveal Larisa’s bills. At first, the Town sought to meet its obligations
under the state’s open records act by sending me bills with everything blacked out (see sample, right). But on appeal,
the town (and Larisa) realized that while they may think they are simply
protecting state secrets, the Attorney General was going to give them a
spanking.
It used to be that
Larisa turned in his bills every two months like clock-work, but that changed
when I would actually publicize what was in those bills. The interval changed
and just now, the Town has turned over six months’ worth of Larisa bills that
cover July through December 2014. Click here to see those bills.
The difference is
almost $2,500 extra that Larisa is billing Charlestown for taking an active
role in a misdemeanor case currently being heard in Superior Court. This case
has been elevated into a test case for the Tribe’s sovereignty and its
resultant right to police its own land.
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| This is Larisa's preferred view of law enforcement on Tribal land |
It stems from an
arrest Charlestown Police made of two young members of the tribe on tribal
land. The tribe contends the CPD did not have jurisdiction and had not been
called to render aid, as has occurred on other occasions. The defense for the
two young men argues there’s no evidence to support the charge that they were
allegedly riding around on a motorbike brandishing a gun.
Making the case
uglier was an audio tape that appears to have captured Charlestown Police
officers making disparaging remarks about the Tribe. And Larisa is making no Tribal friends by
attacking Tribal sovereignty, which Larisa
claims is non-existent. “By law, tribal police have no power.” Larisa
said, adding
“There is no special jurisdiction on tribal land.” These remarks are the rough equivalent of insulting one's mother.
This, in a nutshell,
is how Larisa presents the town of Charlestown to the world.
So far, according to
the new
set of bills from
Larisa, he has billed Charlestown for an additional 10.25 hours of work at $130
an hour. Since the court is scheduled to reconvene on January 8, expect more
additional costs that you are going
to have to pick up to continue this farce.
But that’s not all
that Larisa does.
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| This graphic explains the effect of the "Carcieri Fix" dreaded by the CCA |
According to his
bills, he also spent time watching and working on such touchy Charlestown
issues as the “Carcieri Fix” and the Camp
Davis land transfer.
If you having been
paying attention, the “Carcieri Fix” is an effort by some members of Congress
to remedy the injustice down by the US Supreme Court in 2009 when it handed
down its Carcieri v. Salazar
opinion that originated in Charlestown’s lawsuit to block the Tribe from
building low-income senior citizens housing on its own land without
Charlestown’s direct permission.
The Court rules that
Congress was not clear in its 1934 legislation that codified national policy
toward Native Americans whether that policy applied to tribes that were not
federally recognized when that law was passed. As a result of the decision,
over 500 tribes, including the Narragansetts, lost the right to put land into
trust. The “Carcieri
Fix” would simply
say that Congress did indeed intend that federal policies should be
consistently applied to all Native American tribes.
The CCA Party
supports continuing to screw over 500 Indian tribes. I think their position is
a disgrace.
But they’re in
charge and I’m not, so Injun Joe Larisa is paid to watch what’s happening with
the Carcieri Fix and, according to his latest bills, he spent five hours doing that. I can do the same thing for cheaper: nothing is happening on the Carcieri Fix.
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| The proposed Camp Davis land transfer. Tribal land is in purple. Town land is in yellow. Camp Davis is the orange wedge that splits the Tribe's land in half |
The Camp
Davis transfer is an announced plan by the RI Transportation
Department to transfer ownership of the old 105-acre Camp Davis property on
South County Trail just south of Town Hall to the Tribe. The land transfer is
to compensate the Tribe for DOT construction work on I-95 that will disturb
archaeological remains, as is required under federal law.
The CCA Party wants
to either block the transfer or attach onerous conditions to it.
This plan was first
revealed in 2013 but has been bottled up ever since with few facts or details
leaking out and no public discussion. But Joe Larisa is on the job, including
three billable hours in his billing statements.
Then there’s a
mysterious 1.25 hour time-block included in Larisa’s November statement for
November 25:
“Extended phone conference with Town Manager regarding recent developments; research legal issue.”
I don’t know what
took place during that conversation. Town Administrator
(not Manager – a distinction with a lot of difference) Mark Stankiewicz no longer answers questions from me
or Progressive Charlestown. But even
if he did respond to my questions, his conversation
with
Larisa would justifiably be subject to attorney-client privilege.
I’m guessing it might have to do with the potentially explosive impact of the new US Department
of Justice policy, issued on October 28, that the feds would not try
to stop Native American tribes from growing or selling marijuana according to
the laws of the states they are in. R.I. permits the growth and sale of medical
marijuana.
Rhode
NPR’s Ian Donnis reported that Narragansett Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas was thinking about
whether this was something of interest to the tribe.
Personally, I think we
could use a compassion
center for medical marijuana around here and the Smoke
Shop on Route Two
seems to be well maintained though unused.
However,
I think such a move
would generate a Category Five Caca-Storm from the CCA Party, which is why I believe Stonewall
Stankiewicz held his long consultation with Larisa on November 25.
Even though some
readers may think Joe Larisa is giving the town bargain rates by only charging $130 an hour to intervene
in the misdemeanor case I mentioned earlier. But consider this: the $2,500 for
representation in that case is in
addition to the $12,500 Larisa is paid under the retainer agreement for
July through December.
For
his regular retainer, Larisa
logged a grand total of 9.25 billable hours (not real hours) for “work” on the
Carcieri Fix, Camp Davis and November’s mystery issue. Divide those 9.25 hours
into $12,500 and you’ll see that Larisa’s effective hourly rate is $1,350.
Larisa’s
last batch of bills that covered March through June 2014 showed that the
town paid him $8,200 for ten billable hours for an effective hourly rate of
$820 compared to the $1,350 effective hourly rate in these new bills. That a
nice 67% raise for Larisa to pursue his obsession with the Narragansetts, and
our town leadership’s paranoia.
