Charlestown
Citizens/Sachem Passage Alliance
Association Emerges From The Mud Hole
By Robert Yarnall
In small
towns, it is easy for small decisions and big mistakes, local squabbles and
petty rivalries to become the business of everyone. This is the story of how
one neighborhood’s disputes can have a major effect on everyone, residents and
town employees alike.
Part 5 Cash
Flow Low? Try Quid Pro Quo!
The picture above was taken at the Sachem Passage Association
kayak access located on its Oyster Drive property. The fake money was digitally added to contrast with the real
money our association has been figuratively tossing into that mudhole for the
past 22 years.
The images below, from
left to right, are Belgian block pavers fronting the kayak access; a pull-back view
from the small parking area looking toward the kayak access; the kayak rack
adjacent to the kayak access; the lone picnic table adjacent to the small
parking area.
These idyllic
amenities are the prime features of the Oyster Drive property that interested
the Charlestown Town Council and Planning Commission Chair Ruth Platner. The
lot itself has been deemed unbuildable by the Town of Charlestown. Why?
Wetlands.
When it became
apparent that the coveted recreational features were no longer included in the
deal during the SPA’s November 8, 2021, Town Council presentation, Council
President Deb Carney and her fellow councilors were less than pleased.
SPA President Ronald
Areglado claimed that the inconsistencies were attributable to his leave of
absence from the SPA Board of Directors while he campaigned as the CCA-endorsed
candidate for Charlestown Town Moderator. He suggested circumstances would have
been more favorable had he been in the loop.
The Town Council collectively
shrugged off Areglado’s disclaimer. Beginning with Council President Carney,
each councilor probed different aspects of the proposal. Even with assistance
from SPA Attorney Nick Gorham, Mr. Areglado was unable to clear things up. He
knew he was in trouble, and it showed. He jokingly offered to give the property
away. It wasn’t a good look.
Planning Commissioner Ruth
Platner, de facto leader of the CCA, found herself in an uncomfortable
position. Ms. Platner had followed the Oyster Drive property sale
for over two years.
It was exactly the type of open space
acquisition she worshipped, undeveloped land with built-in passive recreational
features.
Ruth Platner was somewhat
puzzled by the SPA’s withdrawal of the boat/kayak launch:
“The boat launch was
definitely part of the grant,” Ms. Platner commented, referring to the document
package of the formal proposal that was the foundation of the SPA’s sale pitch.
For those of us
watching video of the Nov 8th Town Council Meeting, it seemed Ruth
Platner was genuinely taken aback by the SPA’s transparent bait & switch
maneuver.
Referencing Areglado’s
earlier assertion that his leave of absence from the SPA Board of Directors was
the source of the confusion, Platner offered to make sense of SPA’s double
messaging… “…there have been different association heads, I think, so that’s
probably why there’s a difference in what they are talking about, compared to
what the other people are talking about.”
Planning Commissioner
Platner was necessarily nibbling at the corners, not quite sure what was going
on with the Oyster Drive deal. If she knew that CCA Steering Committee member
Joe Quadrato had been working on the proposal for nearly two years, including the
past nine months in his capacity as SPA Real Estate and Finance designee, she
wasn’t about to mention it, certainly not in a public forum.
Ms. Platner knew that
Joseph Quadrato had been a vital cog in the CCA’s political machine for nearly
a decade. Quadrato’s natural fundraising prowess, a convenient extension of his
professional sales career, earned him a 2014 appointment to the Zoning Board of
Review. His sustained performance over the next two election cycles led to a
coveted seat on the CCA Steering Committee alongside Zoning Board colleague
Cliff Vanover, Platner’s spouse.
CCA Treasurer Vanover soon
learned that Quadrato’s services came with a price tag, in addition to the pair
of political plum appointments. Starting with the 2012 election cycle and continuing
through the 2020 campaign, Vanover wrote six checks totaling $4,515.32 to Quad
Products, Mr. Quadrato’s home-based small business. For the CCA, it must have been
worth every penny, even if it came with a whiff of quid pro quo…
It’s likely that
neither Mr. Vanover nor Ms. Platner knew that Mr. Quadrato may have had more in
mind than a measly handful of Quad Product orders tossed his way in recognition
of his contributions to the CCA political fiefdom.
In July of 2020, property
owners of Sachem Passage received a newsletter from then-SPA President Paul
Raiche. A thirteen-member sub-committee had developed three options in a quest
to get rid of an asset that had turned into
a liability.
The group settled on exploring
option #2, donating the land to a non-profit conservation group, and kicked its
recommendation upstairs to the Board of Directors.
The SPA Board of
Directors consists of SPA officers and SPA directors. In 2020, the SPA officers
were also its directors. This meant that President Paul Raiche, VP Joe
Quadrato, Secretary Ron Areglado and Treasurer Tom Gilligan were also the Board
of Directors.
Aside from Mr. Raiche,
the fate of the Oyster Drive property was now in the hands of Messrs. Areglado,
Quadrato and Gilligan, the same SPA power trio that led the SPA proxy, Illwind,
the group that dovetailed with the CCA during the entirety of the Whalerock Wind Turbine saga,
2010-2013.
It was during
Whalerock that CCA stalwarts Tom Gentz and
Dan Slattery recognized Joe
Quadrato’s formidable fundraising skills. Quad Products began showing up in the
CCA’s Expenditure Reports. Joe Quadrato meant business. The CCA bought in.
As Whalerock was playing
itself out, Illwind was able to offload its litigation-based financial worries
onto the backs of Charlestown’s taxpayers. The CCA-controlled town council
spent $50,000 to hire Special Council John Mancini to represent a group of
“anonymous abutters.”
When the town plunked
down $2.14 million to buy the 78-acre idyllic not-to-be-Whalerock open space,
now the Moraine Preserve, the voluminous pretext associated with Illwind faded
from the public discourse. Illwind, the SPA clone, had been bailed out at
taxpayer expense, while Charlestown’s CCA-dominated Town Council looked the
other way.
The “anonymous abutters” turned out to every remaining Illwind litigant who had
persevered through the 2010-2013 courtroom marathon. There were twenty-nine
individuals representing sixteen households. All but two households were SPA
members. Every SPA officer and director from 2010-2020 was on the list.
The Town’s role in Illwind’s
bailout cemented a mutualistic relationship between the CCA and the SPA that
has lasted for a decade, due primarily to the fundraising skills of Joseph
Quadrato.
Over the
next three election cycles, Quadrato maintained his CCA workload while also
accepting an appointment to the Zoning Board of Review. By 2019, however, the
floundering SPA required his attention as well. He knew what had to be done.
He rounded up his Illwind posse and got to it.
January 2020: SPA Treasurer Tom Gilligan contacts Andolfo
Appraisal Associates to commission an appraisal report to establish the fair market value of
Lot 95-5, Oyster Drive. The report includes photographs of the property’s
waterfront, woodlands, parking area, boat launch, kayak rack, and picnic area.
The fair market value is determined to be $426,000, if and only if the wetlands
lot is buildable. Unfortunately, it is not.
April 2020: SPA
Secretary Ron Areglado files an Open Space Inquiry with the Town Clerk, leading
to interactions with Megan DiPrete, Chief of Planning for RI DEM, Town Manager Mark Stankiewicz, and Town Planner Jane
Wideman. Weidman files a $213,000 grant application based on the SPA’s
conditional appraisal of $426,000, ignoring Tax Assessor Ken Swain’s definitive,
standards-based rationale of the town’s $61,900 fair market value assessment.
February 2021: The Charlestown Town Council decides that all negotiations pertinent to Oyster Drive Lot 95-5 property will be
based on a third-party appraisal by Newport Appraisal Group, listing a fair
market value assessment of $75,000. The SPA Board of Directors does not reference the $75,000 third-party
appraisal in its February mailing, nor in any other subsequent interactions, with
its members. Joseph Quadrato is appointed as Resource for Finance and Real
Estate, a position created specifically for him.
September 2021: CCA Steering Committee member Joseph Quadrato delivers
an update on the property sale to thirty-one SPA members attending the
September 16th Annual Meeting, among them Charlestown Town
Councilor Susan Cooper. Quadrato states bluntly, “… I have two contacts at Town Hall. They have told
me that one individual, who I will not name, is not cooperating with us.”
President Ronald Areglado refuses to allow Quadrato’s statement into the
official minutes, aware of its political implications.
November 2021: Newly elected SPA President Ron Areglado hand-delivers
the SPA’s Oyster Drive Prospectus in a 90-minute, live-streamed opus during the November 8th
Town Council Meeting, and promptly drops the ball. The Town Council lambastes
his performance, noting that although the SPA’s asking price remains at
$426,000, this newest SPA offering no longer includes the kayak/canoe access,
the watercraft rack, or the picnic area. The Councilors’ comments indicate they
recognize the bait-and-switch tactic for what it is. SPA Real Estate guru
Joseph Quadrato, architect of the proposal, is nowhere to be seen.
December 2021: President Ronald McDonald Areglado sends a snail mail
update referencing the November 8th Town Council Meeting by
providing an unlinked ninety-three-character URL address - it must be entered
from a keyboard - to access the
video of the meeting. “Good luck with that…,” he muses.
Also included in the holiday greeting is a terse mea culpa that the
association has neither the expertise nor the money to address the issues
raised by the Town Council, ergo “…we voted unanimously to retain the property
at this time. We will bring this recommendation to the members at our next
Annual Meeting in May 2022.” There is no mention of Resource Person for Real
Estate and Finance Joe Quadrato.
If there was ever a chance that the CCA would again bail out the SPA á
la Whalerock, Joe Quadrato killed it by way of his awkward braggadocio referencing
his “two contacts at Town Hall,” arguably Town Manager Mark Stankewicz and Town
Planner Jane Weidman.
Implicit in Quadrato’s admission is the discomforting notion that both
Stankewicz and Weidman “were cooperating with us,” and that only he, Joe
Quadrato, wielded enough influence around town hall, by virtue of his Zoning
Board familiarity and CCA Steering Committee status, to extract their “cooperation”
for the financial well-being of the SPA.
During routine business, in his capacity as a Zoning Board Official
through June 2021, Quadrato would presumably interact with town officials,
especially in Planning (Jane Weidman) and Administration (Mark Stankewicz). What
he had to say, and how he said it, is anybody’s – and everybody’s – guess.
Especially Ruth Platner.
Although Charlestown’s rank-and-file employees have workplace
protections afforded them by virtue of union representation, administrators and
department heads are not part of the bargaining unit.
They are represented by their own “association,” essentially serving
at the whim of the decade-long CCA-dominated Town Council.
Those “whims” are explicitly defined for them by the policy-making priorities
of the CCA Steering Committee, which gives Joseph Quadrato top dog billing as
its top producing cash cow.
Apparently, those “whims” don’t include a CCA Courtesy Bailout for the
SPA this time around, a mere decade after the Whalerock alliance, Joe Quadrato’s
fundraising skills notwithstanding.
It remains to be seen how Mr. Quadrato will react to the CCA’s
thumbs-down. If he was counting on the standard 6% real estate commission, a
$426,000 sale would have netted him 25,560 clams. He may just decide to pick up
his marbles - what’s left of them - and go home.
Joseph Quadrato will never admit to the impetuous speech he gave that
autumn evening at St. Andrew Lutheran Church. Indeed, his confidante, Ronald
Areglado, refused to allow the verbatim text into the official minutes. And
John Kaptinski, SPA Archivist, will swear that “If it isn’t in the minutes, it
didn’t happen.”
But for most folks, especially Councilor Susan Cooper, it happened loud
and clear.
The mouse that roared turned out to be the elephant in the room.
To read the earlier episodes in this series:For Part 1, click here
For Part 2, click here
For Part 3, click here
For Part 4, click here
