Charlestown Tapas: 17 tasty nuggets for the refined news palate
In case you
missed it: L&M/Westerly Hospital exec wants a Westerly monopoly
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| Bruce Cummings is playing the blackmail game again |
Bruce
Cummings, as you may recall, was responsible for last year’s
awful strike and lock-out at L&M that put hundreds of hospital workers
out of work between Thanksgiving and Christmas, 2013. Cummings hard-nosed
union-busting style also shows itself with cutbacks in services not only at the
parent hospital in New London but also in Westerly.
While
Westerly may be somewhat indebted to L&M for keeping poorly managed
Westerly Hospital open, for Cummings it was a pure business decision because he
bought the distressed hospital at a bargain basement price and expanded his
empire across the state line.
He
has done little to improve Westerly
Hospital’s less than stellar rankings for quality of care, safety and patient
satisfaction, perhaps because L&M ranks pretty low among Connecticut
hospitals. Clearly, workers' rights and quality care are not Cummings’ priorities.
But
for Cummings to have the gall to tell the Westerly Town Council that South
County Hospital is “poaching” patients and that the Council needs to be mindful
of all the jobs Cummings saved by picking up Westerly Hospital for peanuts is
plain outrageous.
I
think a large part of it is that South County
Hospital’s services not only rank highly in Rhode Island where they
often come in #1, but even nationwide. Plus, South County Hospital is expanding
broadly into the community (e.g. their modest operation here in Charlestown) and
beefing up services at the main hospital while L&M and Westerly have been
pulling back. And finally, South County Hospital has a long history of
labor-management harmony.
I
attribute most of these characteristics to the legacy of my old friend, the late Donald Ford who ran South
County Hospital from 1958 to 1986 and always put patient care first. Cummings seems
to put profits first.
On
the subject of South County hospitals, let’s applaud the decision of Washington Trust
bank to donate $50,000 for the support of South County Hospital’s upcoming
Community Cancer Center. The hospital aims to raise $6.5 million for this
new program to provide enhanced care for cancer patients. Hey, Bruce
Cummings…that’s how you build community support, not with job blackmail.
A few more
details on Primiano’s ouster
As
most Charlestown readers know, popular Parks & Recreation Director Jay
Primiano was forced to resign by the CCA-controlled Town Council after a long
battle that pitted family-friendly Charlestown is going to be. Families lost.
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| Stankiewicz won't trash-talk Jay if someone calls to do a resume check |
The
Westerly
Sun came up with some added details on how Jay’s ouster was engineered. Jay
will be paid through June 30 although he has not been at work at least since
his ouster. After that, Jay will receive a severance package of three month’s
salary plus unused vacation and sick leave. The town is also paying $1,000
toward Jay’s legal costs.
When
Jay looks for other work, the agreement prohibits Charlestown from doing
anything to interfere with his efforts, including trash-talking him to
potential employers. Instead, if someone calls to do a reference check,
according to the Sun, the Town “will simply confirm
his hiring date, employment length, and that he separated from the town…[and] no
other statement could be made regarding the reasons for separation.”
Yeah,
I’m sure no prospective employer will see anything negative in a statement like
that. And I believe in unicorns.
Hot contest for
RI House District 33 seat
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| The top contenders - Susan Cicilline-Cuonanno (l) and Carol Hagan McEntee (r) |
There
are six candidates in the race to replace state Rep. Donald Lally who
abruptly resigned in March. Three of them are Democrats – Susan
Cicilline-Buonanno, Carol McEntee and Jason Colonies – and they will face each
other in a May 5 primary.
The
winner of the Democrat primary will then go on to face lone Republican Robert
Trager and two independents – Elizabeth Candas and James McKnight - on June 9.
Cicilline-Buonanno
is the sister of US Rep. David Cicilline. McEntee is a member of the South
Kingstown Town Council. Already, there’s some sharp barbs being exchanged.
Cicilline-Buonanno announced her candidacy within hours of Lally’s resignation
and she secured the Democratic endorsement, leading to accusations that the
state party was trying to influence the election in her favor.
Cicilline-Buonanno
has been endorsed by the
Narragansett Democratic Town Committee and the District 33 Democratic
Committee (which was appointed by Lally). McEntee has been endorsed by the
South Kingstown Democratic Town Committee.
District
33 includes large sections of Narragansett and South Kingstown.
Is your daughter
or son interested in politics?
Rep. Jim
Langevin
is again taking applications from college students interested in unpaid, 10
hour+ per week internships for his Rhode Island for the summer. Despite the
no-pay part, this is a great way for a young person with ambitions in politics
or an interest in public service to get started. Click
here
to apply.
Coming Up
Chariho budget
passes easily
Chariho
School District politics are like a roller coaster. After suffering past
rejection at the polls, largely due to “no” votes in Richmond and Hopkinton,
the Chariho School District decided to play it safe this year and not upset the
anti-tax crazies by dipping deeply into its reserve funds to come up with a $57
million budget that is actually less than last year and places no additional
demands on the three Chariho towns.
Even
though the gambit of raiding the piggy bank may come back to bit the District
in the ass, it was enough to allow the budget to pass in all three towns by
healthy margins. The turn-out was very low with 500 people (71%) voting yes and
202 voting no.
Charlestown
voters had the biggest yes margin, voting 175 (92.6%) to only 14 no votes. Hopkinton
went 180 (66%) yes versus 93 no. Richmond was a relative squeaker with 145 yes
(60.4%) to 95 no.
Congratulations
to Kevin Gallup
Charlestown’s hard-working Emergency Management Director Kevin Gallup was
named the Emergency Manager of the Year by his peers at their April
8 annual meeting. This is well-deserved praise made even more significant because it comes from his colleagues in other municipalities.
It’s like the Screen Actors Guild awards being more highly prized than, for example, the Golden Globes because the choices are made by people in the trade who know from their own experience when a person is doing a good job.
Rhode Island to
receive $4.7 million in disaster money for January storms
As
I predicted, President Obama
approved $4.7 million in FEMA funding to help Rhode Island recover some of
its losses from the heavy snowstorms we endured this winter. Municipalities,
state agencies, the Narragansett Tribe and some non-profits are eligible to
apply for funds to reimburse them for the extra costs of snow removal
(including overtime) damage repair and for projects that will help prepare for
future weather emergencies.
Individuals will not be eligible for reimbursement
although casualty losses, if high enough, can be listed as an itemized
deduction on your taxes.
I’m
sure Charlestown will put in for its own slice of the pie. We’re still spending
money we received from past storms, awarding an $8,800 contract for a back-up
generator at the Senior/Community Center at the April 13 Town Council Meeting.
Speaking of
disasters…
.JPG) |
| Dick Sartor wants what he wants |
The
CCA Party and its Quonochontaug constituency
are all a-twitter because the Dunn’s Corner Fire District is no longer offering
public access to the Quonnie Grange. The public alarm was
sounded by Dick Sartor, Charlestown’s former town Administrator and prime antagonist
of former Council member Lisa DiBello.
There
was a leak in the grange’s sprinkler system that caused as much as $10,000 in
damage, plus there are other costly maintenance issues that led the Fire
District to close off access to the grange.
Fire Chief Michael Frink told the irate Quonnie/CCA crowd that “we’re here for fire protection services not to act as grange manager….We could be putting that money into something that could be used better like towards fire-fighting gear and equipment.”
Fire Chief Michael Frink told the irate Quonnie/CCA crowd that “we’re here for fire protection services not to act as grange manager….We could be putting that money into something that could be used better like towards fire-fighting gear and equipment.”
The idea of a fire district that places first priority on fighting
fires may seem to be a quaint, perhaps
even alien, concept to the Quonnie denizens. After all, their
own Central Quonochontaug Fire District
provides them with tennis courts, docks, private beaches, road-plowing, trash
pick-up, public water and other amenities - everything except actual fire-fighting services or, I guess, public meeting space.
Members of the audience suggested a fund-raising drive that would
include seeking grants from private foundations. CCA Party leader and
Charlestown Town Council Boss Tom Gentz says he knows a guy. Gentz claims he is
talking to a potential anonymous donor (the CCA loves anonymous donors!) who
might be able to do the repairs for free. Meanwhile, he said “We need a short
term fix, then we can work together to fix it long term.”
I think the short-term fix for the CCA Party and the spoiled
brats in Quonnie is to leave Dunn’s Corner Fire District to stay focused on their
primary mission which is to protect lives and property from fire. If Gentz,
Sartor et al come up with money to fix the Grange, that's great, but understand that
the first duty of a fire district is fighting fires.
And
the disaster after the disasters…
The National Flood
Insurance Program is $24 billion in the red, largely because the
program has had to pay for damages to homes, mostly owned by members of the top
1%, built in coastal where they never should have been built in the first
place. Many of them simply build again, anticipating they will be covered the
next time a big storm trashes their house.
But Congressional conservatives have been tweaking the program to
be more reflective of the market (i.e. let rates reflect actual risk) and that
means major flood insurance premium increases all up and down the eastern
seaboard.
In Charlestown, the impact will be softened somewhat because of
actions by town officials like Housing Official Joe Warner and our decorated
Emergency Management Director Kevin Gallup (see above) who positioned
Charlestown to win the state’s best preparedness rating from FEMA.
That should be good for a 15% discount on flood insurance which might partially
make up for anticipated rate hikes.
Sorry Mikey
For the third year
in a row, the Rhode Island Foundation passed over the Charlestown Citizens
Alliance’s resident scholar and pundit Mike Chambers and instead awarded its
annual “Genius” grants to others. To read about these souls who beat out own
local champion, click here.
Adding insult to injury, one of the honorees, John
Halley, has come up with an innovation that may boost shellfish aquaculture,
one of the economic and environmental initiatives the CCA Party is doing its
best to stop.
A wet version of
RhodeMap RI?
I wonder whether all
the tinfoil hat conservatives who have been so cranked up about RhodeMap RI will turn out in force to attack the state’s new phase of
management planning for our offshore waters, called the Ocean Special Area Management Plan, or Ocean SAMP for short. The new focus will
be on renewable energy projects, which the crazies really hate, and they kicked
off the public process this week at URI.
Congratulations, Tracey!
You’ve
seen her work in Progressive Charlestown. Now you can read her bylined articles
in the Westerly Sun. Professional journalist Tracey C. O’Neill is now a beat reporter for the Westerly Sun,
mostly covering Stonington. Good luck, Tracey.
Another seal release
in Charlestown
The program takes in
injured or strained sea creatures, often seals or sea lions, fixes them up and
then returns them to nature, usually from one of Charlestown’s beaches.
Two
recent articles on survey results merged in my mind for reasons that I think
you will agree makes some sense. According to a new Gallup Poll, Rhode Island
and West Virginia are the two states in the union where the highest percentages
of people admit to using mind-altering drugs. Believe it or not, California was
one of the lowest.
In fact, on the site of the present Job Lot store on Route 138 in
Richmond once sat the UFO Lab Museum, dedicated to the principle that “The
Truth Is Out There.” Our area was mentioned several times during the X-Files.
Here’s an extract from Rhode Island Legends:
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| I absolutely believe that space aliens have been summering in Quonnie...and actively participating in the CCA Party |
According to
GoLocalProv,
South County is STILL the place to go to see UFOs. Maybe it’s our legendary
dark skies. Maybe it’s an explanation for the CCA. But whatever it is, we have
experienced 30.8 sightings per 100,000 people, a rate that is three times
higher than Providence, and around twice as high as the rest of the state.
Charlestown considers
new ordinance?
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| The infamous Tom Gentz Uncle Fluffy meme |
Well
thank the stars I live in America (strike up the band) because if this was
Russia, I’d be in big trouble. It seems that dissidents and satirists in Russia
also like combining images to create internet memes (that’s the term for this
type of satire) often using Russian leader Vladimir Putin as the goat of their
humor.
Vlad
does not have a sense of humor (so he’s fit right in with the gray people of
the CCA Party) and according to the
Washington Post,
it is now illegal in Russia to “publish any Internet meme that depicts a public figure in
a way that has nothing to do with his ‘personality.’”
I’m expecting to see a new ordinance come out of the Planning
Commission for the Town Council of Charlestown to similarly ban any such
depictions of Charlestown characters. However, I would argue that my CCA memes
are actually very much fit the character of those depicted.
Jobs
Plenty
of listings for non-profit and public sector jobs on Rhode Island Community Jobs,
a free service of the Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown University. To
sign up for their daily e-mail list of new postings, click here.
Here are new job postings in our area that I spotted since the last Charlestown Tapas:
- South County Community Action, 1935 Kingstown Road, Wakefield RI 02879 is looking to hire a Teacher Assistant
- YMCA of Greater Providence wants to hire a Kitchen Manager to work in Wakefield
- YMCA of Greater Providence is also looking for Summer Lifeguards in North Kingstown, a Head Counselor this summer as well as a Program Director for Camp Fuller
- Prout School - Wakefield, Director of Educational Technology
- South Kingstown Public Schools - Wakefield, Assistant Maintenance/Custodial Director
- Brookdale Senior Living - South Kingstown, Dining Services Director
- Patch also reports several job openings at companies that have set up operations at Quonset. Click here
