Charlestown Citizens Alliance launches purge against town staff

CCA targets Town Administrator DiLibero, other staff

Deputy Dan and his posse - purging
Town Hall staff

By Will Collette

Town Hall morale has always been a problem, but it seems to be at an all-time low, as the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) appears poised to try to clean house.

The tempo of public attacks on Town Administrator William DiLibero by the CCA’s top elected officials, Town Council Boss Tom Gentz and Council Vice-President Deputy Dan Slattery, has escalated to the point where a vote of no-confidence, if not dismissal, seems likely within the month. It all hinges on which way Boss Gentz thinks the political wind is blowing (his e-mail is tom.gentz@charlestownri.org).

And don’t be surprised if Deputy Dan tries to figure out a way around the anti-revolving-door ethics rule to get the Town Administrator job for himself (he applied for the gig before). Under state law, there is a one-year waiting period for a Council member to become a town employee, but Deputy Dan hasn’t let the rules stop him in the past.

Boss Gentz - trying to figure out which way the wind blows

Councilor Lisa DiBello’s vote to dismiss DiLibero is a sure bet. DiBello was fired by DiLibero in May 2010 and he is one of the lead defendants in DiBello v. Charlestown. Indeed, as Gentz and Slattery come down on DiLibero, they cement their relationship with DiBello. As the saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Even though it would appear to be a clear conflict of interest for DiBello to participate in any personnel action against DiLibero (given her lawsuit), DiBello has shown a casual regard for her ethical obligations in the past.

The CCA sent out an e-bleat to its supporters on March 20, listing DiLibero’s high crimes and misdemeanors as though they were Articles of Impeachment.

They say DiLibero “concealed important information.” They say “he politicized issues.”

They say “he has risked a cordial relationship that the Town has with the National Park Service (NPS) and US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) regarding Ninigret Park.”

They say “his actions cost the Town a considerable amount of money and time spent by town employees for initiatives that were impossible to achieve.”

Councilor Lisa DiBello - pay-back time

Finally – and this one is pretty amazing, coming from the CCA – they say “his actions caused false expectations by hundreds of  local youngsters and coaches who expected to get lighting at Ninigret.”

Hypocrites!

With the CCA’s history as Charlestown’s shadow government, and the record of their town leadership team of Gentz, Slattery and Platner in concealing important information, they lack the credibility to raise this charge against DiLibero.

As for “politicizing issues,” it is the CCA and its town leadership team that have politicized every issue – affordable housing, alternative energy, land use – usually to push its own radical agenda of serving the interests of Charlestown’s elite.

This current attack on DiLibero and their parallel attack on town management of Ninigret Park shows just how the CCA runs its own political machine. While the CCA rails against the imposition of state law on Charlestown with regard to affordable housing, they seem to be pleading for more federal dominion over Ninigret Park.

Our craven colleagues at the CCA will do anything and say anything to advance their anti-family agenda – even when it means taking contradictory stances on “legal, ethical and moral principles” – and to suck up to their donor base among Charlestown’s elite.

With the CCA’s oft-demonstrated hostility toward families with children, it is shocking to see them charge DiLibero with dashing the hopes of the poor urchins regarding the prospects of sports lighting.

As for their issue about DiLibero “risking” the town’s cordial relationship with the Interior Department, it seems that DiLibero was the only person among the town leaders who was willing to at least raise issues with Interior, rather than simply knuckle under to the feds.

Federal overseer Charlie Vandemoer

Yes, it’s true that Charlestown’s federal overseer, Charlie Vandemoer of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, asked the state to hold off on granting Charlestown funds for dark-sky-friendly sports lights. He raised legitimate concerns. But since when do we simply accept the feds’ position as immutable and non-negotiable?

Instead, it appears that the CCA and its town leadership team have seized on federal resistance to proposed uses of Ninigret Park as a reason to roll back town authority over the town’s land – and to purge DiLibero.

Being the Town Administrator of a strife-torn, deeply divided town like Charlestown is a daunting challenge. The politically safe way to live long and prosper in the Town Administrator job is to do as little as possible because if you try to do anything, you will piss somebody off.

DiLibero has made mistakes. But do we have a reasonable expectation that he or anyone will never make mistakes? I think it’s pretty surprising he hasn’t made more mistakes, because he has actually tried to get some things accomplished in town.

I have not agreed with every action he has taken – I’ve called him on some of them. But his mistakes have, in my opinion, been without malice and more often due to attempts to do things that didn’t come off. One of the CCA’s charges against him is just that – that he has had his staff try things that were, in the CCA’s opinion, “impossible to achieve.”

That is their opinion. I believe the only things that are impossible are those that we fail to try. The CCA does not want progress in Charlestown. They want to freeze Charlestown like a bug in amber. They yearn for some mythical good old days when the town elite ran things without challenge. When their inferiors knew their place.

Now the CCA has decided that DiLibero threatens that vision of an antebellum Charlestown and he has to go.

There are other town staff who are on the CCA hit list. I will not identify them so as not to draw more attention to them. But don’t expect the CCA purge to stop at DiLibero. Indeed, if they succeed in ousting him – and decide to install Deputy Dan in his place – you should expect to see wholesale departures of town staff.

It’s time for good and decent people in Charlestown to say enough to the CCA. They rode into office promising a change to a more civil, tranquil political environment, openness and transparency, and an end to personal vendettas and agendas, and yet, if anything, they have clearly and indisputably made matters far worse.