Residents hit MAGA majority on the Chariho School Committee for secrecy, bad decisions, and shutting down public comment

MAGA and education is an oxymoron in more ways than one

Steve Ahlquist

I’ve been covering the Chariho School Committee on and off this year, from the first two meetings where the new conservative 7-5 majority pulled some shenanigans to make sure their preferred choice for chair of the committee, Moms for Liberty candidate Louise Dinsmore, secured her seat [See: here and here], to a so far unsuccessful attempt to go after libraries, face masks, Title IX, and trans kids [See: here and here].

Chariho is a regionalized school district with representatives from Charlestown, Richmond, and Hopkinton. The School Committee is made up of four people from each town. What has so far prevented the conservative majority on the Chariho School Committee from enacting their radical wishlist is the sustained local opposition of residents who attend meeting after meeting to defend their school system.

At the April school committee meeting, the conservative majority, led by Chair Dinsmore, voted not to extend Chariho Superintendent Gina Picard’s contract. Superintendent Picard’s contract expires in 2027, and the committee voted against extending it to 2018. The auditorium where the meeting was being held was packed with residents and students there to support Superintendent Picard. To the anger of those in attendance, Chair Dinsmore refused to allow public comment, effectively silencing dissent.

At last night’s meeting, which had time for public comment on the agenda, a packed house let the committee know how angry they were at the conservative committee members for voting against extending the superintendent’s contract and not allowing public comment.

“The school committee has created a large leadership problem for itself,” said resident Chris Kona. “When Dinsmore, Chapman, Phelps, Hopkins, Tefft, and Champlin voted not to extend Superintendent Picard’s contract, they did not explain why.”

Kona said the school committee now appears difficult to work with, and any current employees thinking about retirement will be heading toward the door.

“As you establish a reputation for bullying and being capricious, whether it’s your goal or not, it will be much harder to recruit good talent in Chariho,” said Kona. “Chariho’s going to become a stepping stone for administrators and teachers. It’ll be a place where folks come, do a couple of years, get a resume bullet, and then move on to a place where they know they can build a stable future. Then we’ll have to take whoever we can to fill the gaps. We’re creating a brain drain here as talented teachers and administrators leave for higher ground.

“Maybe you don’t see this as a problem, but organizational change manifests with the people in the organization. You must align them with your vision, meaning they must trust you. You’ve broken all that, and fixing it will take real work.”

Trump doesn't like the Boss

Looking at the last line, Bruce might not be allowed back in

 This is what triggered Trump:

Trump is also trying to pick another fight with Taylor Swift. Good luck with that.

Prep for hurricanes before they hit - hurricane season officially began yesterday

Donald Trump wins praise from serial killer

MAGA to the end

Ailia Zehra

A convicted serial killer in Raiford, Florida, used his final moments before being executed on Thursday to express support for Donald Trump, USA TODAY reported Thursday.

"President Trump, keep making America great. I'm ready to go," Glen Rogers said just before the lethal injection was administered to him at Florida State Prison.

Journalists from The Tampa Bay Times and the Associated Press were present to witness the execution and confirmed the man's final words, per the report.

"On the night of Sept. 28, 1995, in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Van Nuys, Gallagher helped out a man she had met at a local bar. They'd hung out a bit, played some pool, and flirted, according to court records. He told her he needed a ride, Vallicella said," the report said.

That was one of the last moments of the woman's life, as Rogers killed her in her apartment.

He was reportedly referred to as "Casanova Killer," due to "his good looks and ability to pick up women in bars."

Rep. Cotter honored as Legislative Champion by Clean Water Action R.I.

Megan Cotter is a clean water champion

Clean Water Action Rhode Island honored Rep. Megan L. Cotter as a “Legislative Champion” for her accomplishments in preserving and protecting open space and forests in Rhode Island.

The award was presented at the organization’s annual Breakfast of Champions event at the Edgewood Yacht Club in Cranston.

“Clean Water Action thanks Rep. Cotter for her strong advocacy, especially with including $12 million in the most recent green bond. Rep. Cotter has always been an environmental champion and working to prevent forest fires. We appreciate her hard work and steadfastness,” said Emily M. Howe, state director of Clean Water Action Rhode Island.

Will Rhode Island finally get serious about taxing the rich?

Millionaire’s tax proposal is getting a warm reception from new R.I. Senate leadership

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

Senate Majority Leader Frank Ciccone, foreground center, a Providence Democrat, is a longtime supporter of raising income taxes on the state’s top earners. Left of him, in more ways than one, is Charlestown Sen. Victoria Gu. Ciccone may be key to advancing the perennial legislation in the Rhode Island State House this year. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)

A standing room-only crowd packed the State House basement to rehash the merits of a proposed tax increase on top earners in Rhode Island during a five-hour hearing before a House legislative panel.

Rhode Island 2025 income tax rates

Rhode Island has relied on the same three-tiered income tax rates since 2010, when lawmakers lowered the top tax rate from 9.9% to 5.99%. Earnings thresholds for each rate are adjusted annually for inflation.

Current rates are:

• 3.75% for filers who earn up to $79,900
• 4.75% for filers who earn $79,900 to $181,650
• 5.99% for filers who earn more than $181,650

But the person who might finally shake loose the long-stalled progressive priority wasn’t even in the room: Senate Majority Leader Frank Ciccone III. The Providence Democrat ascended to the No 2. position in the upper chamber last week under a leadership shuffle prompted by the death of former Senate President Dominick Ruggerio.

Ruggerio long-opposed raising taxes on wealthy residents, but his successor, Senate President Valarie Lawson, and her right hand, Ciccone, both support the idea, and are  co-sponsors of this year’s Senate legislation.

A new angle on an old CCA lie

Platner pans progress

By Will Collette

Charlestown Planning Commissar Ruth Platner, leader of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA), has put out a new version of an old CCA lie, claiming that Charlestown is being treated unfairly because the state will not allow the town to ignore the law.

In Platner’s latest screed against the state for wanting Charlestown allow more homes to be built for average families, she headlines the issue this way: New State Plan, Housing 2030, Mandates Rural Towns Grow At A Faster Rate Than Urban Areas.

She's referring to Housing 2030, Gov. Dan McKee’s attempt to appear proactive about Rhode Island’s affordable housing crisis. His plan has been mainly seen as too little, too late but to Platner, it seems like an existential threat. Why? Because it singles out rural towns, particularly Charlestown, as most in need of new housing, more so than the cities.

Duh. Of course rural towns need to do more because over the past 25+ years, they’ve done less.

In her new CCA blog article, Platner continues to try to manipulate data to make her case that Charlestown is being treated unfairly. This is far from the first time that Platner has followed the adage the “if you torture statistics enough, you can make them say anything.”

In March 2024, she attempted a particularly obnoxious approach using census data to “prove” her thesis that “Charlestown has grown 11 times faster than the state.” Her point was that the state wanted Charlestown to grow even faster and really, enough is enough.

Except Platner cooked the census numbers. Using 50 years of data, she arrived at the 11 times number. But all of Charlestown’s growth was pre-2000. In this century, Charlestown’s growth has flatlined as Platner admitted in the Charlestown Comprehensive Plan:

"The Town of Charlestown experienced rapid population growth in the last decade of the 20th century, moving from 6,478 residents in 1990 to 7,859 in 2000, a change of 1,381 residents or 21.3%. 

Since 2000, however, population growth has declined or been flat, as is shown in the above table (See Plan, page 10-2, Table HC-1) showing an estimated town population of 7,772 in 2015 (a decline of 87 residents or 1.1%). Population projections provided by the RI Office of Statewide Planning show a return to a growth trend, with a population of 9,329 by 2040. 

This represents a 20% increase between 2015 and 2040. However, this level of growth is not likely to be realized given recent trends, the ageing [SIC] of the local populace and expected modest declines in average household size. While the actual numbers are likely to be considerably less, these projections will be utilized in this chapter for estimating housing growth, and the need for low and moderate-income units relating to the state’s 10% threshold…”. 

Since 2000 and certainly since Platner rose to become Planning Commissar, the most powerful politician in Charlestown, the town has devolved into a gated senior citizens’ enclave as Platner and the CCA blocked new housing for working families.

Here's a Charlestown house that just sold to a Connecticut couple.
It was assessed at $1,060,000 and sold for $1,300,000.
(Charlestown Tax Assessor)

Here’s what Platner herself wrote about Charlestown housing under her dominion:

“From 2010 to 2023, 357 new homes were built in Charlestown. However, those 357 new dwellings barely register in the census data as many are consumed for non-resident use. An additional 54 new house lots were approved in 2023 and have not been built yet; the majority are likely to be second homes."

She made an even blunter assessment in a CCA blog article:

“The supply of affluent people willing to pay high prices for homes and short or long-term rentals will consume any increase in housing production.”

Currently, the best many low and moderate income
buyers can hope for in Charlestown is a campsite
at Burlingame Park (DEM photo)

Even though Charlestown’s overall population may not increase by much, Platner admits town demographics are changing. This is what she wrote in the Comprehensive Plan:

While median age will trend upward and the segment of the population over age 60 will continue to grow, other general population characteristics should remain steady or change in modest form. 

“This trend may suggest a greater need for housing designed for and more suited to elderly occupancy and needs, including elderly rental, single-story accessible designs, smaller unit footprints and limits on bedrooms. Location wise [SIC] such housing should consider issues of service availability, ease of access and walkability. Entry level family housing, both homeownership and rental, will remain a need over the timeframe of this plan."

Those 8,000 of us who make Charlestown our home understand the status quo that Ruth Platner created and desperately seeks to maintain. 

Contrary to Platner's claims, Charlestown experienced massive population growth each and every year. 

EcoRI photo by Frank Carini

During June, July and August, our population jets up to 30,000. We pay for an infrastructure year-round to serve those 30,000. We put up with their trash, bad driving and the inflationary effects their property purchases place on Charlestown real estate.

This morning's Providence Journal carried a deep dig analysis - spread over several articles - of housing sales statewide over the past five years. The first piece is entitled "Out-of-state buyers are purchasing more RI homes. Is that a good thing or bad thing?"

The ProJo confirms that we're not imagining the influx of out of state buyers. They also bluntly note that they buy here because we're cheaper than where they live, plus they can and do out-bid local residents.

They provide more detail in a second piece, "RIers can't compete with out-of-state home buyers. Why building more is the only way out." Their data analysis and conclusions directly contradict the CCA's and Ruth Platner's stance on housing. 

There are two more articles that focus primarily on high-end property, of the type that have been selling for enormous prices in Charlestown and the demographics of the new buyers. These articles are entitled Where are out-of-state home buyers coming from, and what brings them to Rhode Island? and Out-of-state buyers snap up nearly half of RI homes over $1 million. Where they're going. 

Finally they rank Charlestown 4th among RI municipalities for non-resident buyers behind only Block Island, Little Compton and Newport. 

Another recent sale of a Charlestown property to a Connecticut couple.
This house was assessed at $2,415,400 and was bought at $2,850,000

These five reports back up findings that non-resident buyers are driving up housing prices and forcing potential first-time and low-income buyers out of the market. Legally, they can't be stopped. The Commerce Clause of the Constitution prohibits state and local interference with interstate commerce. And we can't outbid them.

The ProJo's main conclusion is: RIers can't compete with out-of-state home buyers. Why building more is the only way out. This is the point where Ruth Platner's head explodes. The ProJo collection of articles and research eviscerates the arguments she and the CCA have promoted since the millennium. I look forward to her counterpoint to the Providence Journal.

Platner thinks the solution to Charlestown’s problems is to accept the swarms of absentee property owners and summer people while restricting housing for everyone else, young or old. And she’ll continue to search for ways to rationalize that approach.

If you’ve followed Progressive Charlestown’s coverage of the many times Platner and the CCA have made different and contradictory claims, you’ll notice a pattern. When Platner produces an official document that will be fact-checked prior to state or federal approval, or is subject to perjury, she keeps the bullshit to a minimum.

But when she writes (or ghost-writes) campaign material or propaganda for the CCA blog, anything goes.

For me as a political writer, it’s a lot easier to debate a politician’s claims by using their own words. When Ruth the politician makes a claim, often about housing or open space, it’s a simple matter of finding what Ruth wrote when she faced the pain and penalty of perjury because it's usually the opposite.

Two-faced politicians are a plague on our civil society. Charlestown voters made it clear in 2022 and 2024 that they are sick of lies and deception.

Piling it on

Yeah, Make America great again

RFK Jr. Exaggerates Share of Autistic Population With Severe Limitations

Bobby Junior insults people affected by his signature issue

Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact 

Bobby was right about the world's
most famous autistic person,
Elon Musk, not paying taxes

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attracted notice — and in some quarters, outrage — for remarks about autism, a topic he’s clashed with scientists about for years.

Kennedy held an April 16 press conference pegged to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that found the prevalence of autism rising to 1 in 31 among 8-year-olds, the latest in a series of increases in recent decades.

Kennedy said “autism destroys families” and is an “individual tragedy as well.” 

Kennedy said many autistic children were “fully functional” and had “regressed” into autism “when they were 2 years old. And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

He also said: “Most cases now are severe. Twenty-five percent of the kids who are diagnosed with autism are nonverbal, non-toilet-trained, and have other stereotypical features.”

Medical experts, along with people on the autism spectrum, told PolitiFact that Kennedy’s portrayal was skewed. A 2023 study written by CDC officials and university researchers found that one-quarter of people on the autism spectrum have severe limitations. But this is on the high end of studies, and many people in that one-quarter of the autism population do not have the limitations Kennedy mentioned. 

The vast majority of people on the spectrum do not have those severe challenges.

COVID vaccine saved millions of lives AND billions of dollars

Trump invalidates the one good thing he did in his first term by picking anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. to lead public health department

Billions Spent, Billions Saved: The True Cost of the COVID Vaccine

By Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan

Vaccinating millions against COVID-19 wasn’t just smart health policy, it was a solid economic move. A new study finds that the U.S. actually saved money, especially for older adults, and even younger adults benefited when work loss was considered.

Five years ago, as COVID-19 rapidly spread across the globe, volunteers stepped up to join the first clinical trial of a vaccine designed to fight the new virus.

Within a year, more than 66 million American adults had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, free of charge.

A Strategy That Paid Off

Now, new research highlights just how valuable that early national investment was. A study led by University of Michigan researchers, published in the journal Vaccine, found that the U.S. vaccine rollout paid for itself within the first year.

The reason? Vaccination significantly reduced the number of people who became seriously ill or died from COVID-19. As a result, the country ended up saving more money than it spent on the vaccine effort.

At Social Security, These Are the Days of the Living Dead

Trump takes away your Social Security benefits by declaring you are dead

Monty Python made real

Darius Tahir 

Rennie Glasgow, who has served 15 years at the Social Security Administration, is seeing something new on the job: dead people.

They’re not really dead, of course. In four instances over the past few weeks, he told KFF Health News, his Schenectady, New York, office has seen people come in for whom “there is no information on the record, just that they are dead.” So employees have to “resurrect” them — affirm that they’re living, so they can receive their benefits.

Revivals were “sporadic” before, and there’s been an uptick in such cases across upstate New York, said Glasgow. He is also an official with the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represented 42,000 Social Security employees just before the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Martin O’Malley, who led the Social Security Administration toward the end of the Joe Biden administration, said in an interview that he had heard similar stories during a recent town hall in Racine, Wisconsin. “In that room of 200 people, two people raised their hands and said they each had a friend who was wrongly marked as deceased when they’re very much alive,” he said.

It’s more than just an inconvenience, because other institutions rely on Social Security numbers to do business, Glasgow said. Being declared dead “impacts their bank account. This impacts their insurance. This impacts their ability to work. This impacts their ability to get anything done in society.”

“They are terminating people’s financial lives,” O’Malley said.

We must all sacrifice so King Donald can have his birthday parade

I wouldn't blame anyone who thinks this is true

RI Lifeguard Certification Tests Begin this Weekend

Lifeguard jobs pay up to $20 with up to $1000 in bonuses

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) announces that state lifeguard certification testing begins this weekend. Those interested in working as a lifeguard at any open water facility in Rhode Island must be certified by DEM’s Division of Parks and Recreation as either a Surf or Non-Surf lifeguard. Surf state lifeguard certification testing begins at Scarborough North State Beach, Narragansett on Saturday, May 17 from 9 AM – 3 PM. Non-Surf state lifeguard certification testing begins on May 28 at Lincoln Woods State Park beach from 12 – 5 PM.

All lifeguard candidates must receive state certification and bring valid cards in lifeguard training, first aid, and CPR, including infant, child, and adult.

Full-time lifeguard positions are available at state swimming areas, including surf beaches such as Misquamicut and non-surf beaches such as Goddard Memorial State Park and Lincoln Woods State Park. Lifeguard pay ranges from $18.75 to $20.00 an hour based on location, experience, and position level. Those hired by June 27, 2025, can receive a one-time, $500 sign-on bonus. Staff who remain employed until Sept. 1, 2025 and meet certain conditions will also be eligible for a one-time, $500 retention bonus.