CCA candidates seem more disturbed by the spotlight than the
alleged lies
In her October 11 op-ed, Ruth Platner, a Charlestown Citizens
Alliance candidate for reelection to the Charlestown Planning Commission, has
joined her fellow CCA candidates Tom Gentz and Ron Areglado in attacking the
news, opinion and local events online journal Progressive Charlestown and me,
personally.
They do not like what they see reported on Progressive Charlestown,
and they do not like the way I write.
I guess it’s easier to attack me than actually run on their
records, or respond to the specific, documented information we publish on
Progressive Charlestown.
But, for the record, I’m not running for office. Platner,
Gentz, Areglado and the rest of the CCA slate are.
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| The leaders of the CCA slate, clockwise, Tom Gentz, Ruth Platner, Dan Slattery and George Tremblay |
Platner accuses me of misinformation (despite my extensive
documentation and sourcing), but, wow, look who’s talking! Platner is the
webmaster for the CCA’s website and blog, and e-mails. For the past six years,
the e-mails and website has been chockfull full of anonymous attack comments
and unsourced columns. The CCA really doesn’t like to have anyone call them out
on their six-year run of character assassination on their own website. But they
especially do not like public criticism of the town officials who were promoted
by the CCA to run Charlestown government.
For example, under Ruth Platner’s leadership, the Planning
Commission has manufactured bad town ordinances imposing regulations with no
scientific basis, which are then rubber-stamped by the CCA-controlled Town
Council, and bogus research such as the recent one by CCA Council candidate
George Tremblay on affordable housing.
The Sun actually ran a letter from Tremblay on October 16th
containing the whopper that there are billionaires living in luxury condos in
Manhattan getting affordable housing tax breaks. According to CNBC, Tremblay’s
own source, a New York developer had applied for, but has NOT received,
affordable housing tax credits from a program unique to New York. Yet Tremblay
not only misrepresents the facts, but then make the leap of illogic to suggest
voters reject Rhode Island Question 7 that would fund more affordable housing.
Ruth Platner neglects to mention that she was the architect
behind the CCA-backed “Y-Gate Scandal,” which almost cost the town $475,000 to
buy a worthless easement on an overpriced piece of land whose value was based
on an appraisal that the appraiser himself admitted was based on fictional
conditions. The purchase was blocked by a lawsuit filed over Open Meetings
violations in connection with the Town Council vote to approve the purchase,
one count of which has already been upheld and the second count is still before
the court awaiting a ruling.
Platner also does not address the role the CCA played,
indeed that she herself played, in the Battle of Ninigret Park, where CCA
Council members almost turned over control of Ninigret Park to the federal
government rather than allow the town’s Parks and Recreation Commission to move
forward with carrying out the Ninigret Park Master Plan voted on by Charlestown
residents.
Platner’s leadership has also been central to the CCA’s
campaign to defy, if not overturn, the state’s affordable housing law. There
already exist workable solutions under Charlestown’s control that would prevent
overdevelopment and would be in keeping with the town’s Comprehensive Plan.
However, Ms. Platner has consistently advocated defiance of the law that
requires every RI city and town to provide the opportunity for low- and
moderate-income people to secure affordable housing.
She chafed when I likened her resistance to the housing law
to that of late Alabama Governor George Wallace. Yet she doesn’t say why that
comparison is inappropriate.
Then there’s the CCA’s campaign of character assassination,
The “Kill Bill” campaign, where the CCA-controlled Town Council, for reasons
known only to themselves, ousted Town Administrator Bill DiLibero just months
after it praised DiLibero to the heavens for his valor during Hurricane Irene
and gave him a raise.
Ruth Platner is absolutely correct that Progressive
Charlestown has written many articles about the conduct of the CCA’s elected
officials. And she is absolutely correct that I wrote the majority of them.
What she does not note is that every article is documented and sourced, largely
with links to the town’s own website and minutes and video of Town Council and
Planning Commission meetings.
She also does not acknowledge that each time I have made an
error, and yes, given the volume of reporting I have done, I have made errors,
I have corrected the errors in a timely fashion as any responsible journalist
does.
For example, I am correcting the reference to her own low property
tax rate. I will note that, technically, the reason she pays tax based on an incredibly
low per-acre tax assessment ($8,836) is due to a deed restriction on a portion
of her land requiring that it be used for farming and not, as I reported, due
to the “FFOS” (“Farm, Forest and Open Space”) program. I will make that change
because it clearly bothers her, even though it is a distinction without a
difference.
Ironically, that reference appears in an article I wrote
last November that features Platner’s own false statement where she justified
her resistance to affordable housing by claiming that Charlestown’s median
income is much lower than the median income for the state.
For some reason,
Platner felt that this statistic – even though it was false – somehow justified
the CCA’s opposition to affordable housing. But in fact, Charlestown’s median
income at that time was $73,857 compared to the state’s median of $55,567. She
was not only wrong, but wrong by a lot – $18,290 or 33%.
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| FAIR TAXES - on the Shelter Harbor Golf Club! |
Ms. Platner also does not explain why the CCA opposed the
Charlestown Democrats recommendation that we should at least study whether Charlestown taxes are fairly applied,
whether there should be a middle-class tax cut or whether it’s right to allow
rich institutions, such as the Shelter Harbor Golf Club, to get tax breaks
normally not granted to commercial businesses.
The Charlestown portion of Shelter Harbor’s establishment is
assessed as “open space” at a bargain rate. The portion of the golf club that
lies in Westerly is assessed and taxed as commercial property.
Platner is clearly angry at my report that her husband acted
up during the lottery drawing for ballot position held at Town Hall. I stand by
that description of events based on several eyewitness reports.
I believe Ruth Platner and her colleagues are more disturbed
that they no longer have the free run of Charlestown. They can no longer do
whatever they want to do without being called on it. She had 16 years to do
just that, minus the 21 months during which she claims we have harried her.
Let’s face it: the complaints by the CCA candidates Ruth
Platner, Ron Areglado and Tom Gentz against Progressive Charlestown are really
complaints that now, for the first time, they are being subjected to rigorous
fact-checking.
Ms. Platner, as well as Council President Tom Gentz,
Councilor Lisa DiBello and CCA Council candidate Ron Areglado, all think I am
behaving badly because I not only report and comment on the news but I name
names.
Coming from the CCA with its six-year history of character assassination
against anyone who opposes them, this is more than ironic and completely
hypocritical. But it’s also illogical. How else do you talk about politics and
public affairs without naming names? How else are voters supposed to hold
politicians accountable unless there are names connected with those actions?
How can any reporter for any medium, including the Westerly
Sun, report on town government without naming the names of the people who make
the decisions and take the actions? I guess the only answer is the one that the
CCA really seeks – that they prefer their actions to be excluded from the
bright light of public scrutiny.
Will Collette, co-editor of Progressive Charlestown
