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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Two town meetings of note tonight

Town Council and Planning Commission double header
By Will Collette

At 5 PM, the Town Council will meet and then go into Executive Session to receive its first report from the Ad Hoc Search Committee to find a replacement for former Town Administrator Bill DiLibero who was purged last year by the Charlestown Citizens Alliance.

If you read the Progressive Charlestown forecasts for 2013, we predicted that ultimately the Town Council will select the new, updated Furby doll by Hasbro Toys, one that is programmed to say "whatever you want, Tom," as the new Town Administrator.

According to the Westerly Sun, the Search Committee is headed by former Town Administrator Richard Sartor. Sartor's role is more than ironic: he is the central figure in Council member Lisa DiBello's $1.5 million lawsuit against Charlestown.


According to DiBello, it was Sartor who recruited Bill DiLibero as Charlestown Town Administrator. DiBello alleges that Sartor offered DiLibero the better-paying job if DiLibero promised to oust DiBello from her job as town Parks and Recreation Director. DiBello claims that when DiLibero did indeed fire her in May 2010, it was part of the quid pro quo he had with Sartor to fulfill Sartor's alleged vendetta against DiBello. Click here for more details. Click here to read DiBello's lawsuit.

And here we go again.

At 7 PM, the Planning Commission will meet to continue torturing two of the three non-profit affordable housing proposals currently awaiting financing and town approval. At their last meeting, the Planning Commission took three and half hours of NIMBY testimony against the ChurchWoods elderly housing plan, and that round of attacks will presumably continue tonight since the Commission never got around to taking a vote on the project.

Time permitting, the Commission will begin the Death of a Thousand Cuts for the Shannock Village affordable housing proposal.

The Charlestown Citizens Alliance claimed they liked ChurchWoods and Shannock Village before the election since they were being done by non-profit organizations, not mean and nasty commercial developers. I predicted that after the election, the CCA would trash these projects since they have made their disdain of affordable housing a central part of the CCA Creed.