After years of darkness in Charlestown

Open and Transparent Government in Charlestown

By Deborah Carney, Charlestown Town Council President

The Charlestown Town Council is committed to open and transparent government.  

Over the past several months we have held true to our election promises to make our town government more open and transparent.  We have affected positive change and created more access and more opportunity for all town residents to be heard and listened to.  

Our accomplishments, to date, include the following items which have improved transparency and open government:  

* Revised and improved formatting of Town Council meeting minutes to include information that is useful to the reader, including content of discussions.  The current format is transparent and informative. Meeting minutes are available on the town's website.  

*Returned a voice to the people of Charlestown.  The Charlestown Home Rule Charter, approved by voters in 1981 Is our town’s manual on governance of our town.  It is the primary means for voters to determine how Charlestown is governed. This Town Council amended the ordinance regarding the Charter Revision Advisory Committee, returning this committee to a “standing committee.”    

The people of Charlestown hold the power to amend the Charter.  This Committee is actively seeking input from residents, town employees, officers and elected officials.  This Committee is obligated to hold at least one public hearing before forwarding any proposals to the Council for consideration, further public hearing and ultimately, a town-wide vote.  Your vote! 

All Charter Revision Advisory Committee meetings are public.  Everyone is welcome to attend.   

*Established an Ordinance Review Ad Hoc Committee. Some of Charlestown’s ordinances are outdated, unconstitutional, or in violation of state law.  These need to be corrected. This advisory committee is made up of two Town Councilors, one member from each of the following: Planning Commission, Zoning Board of Review, Affordable Housing Commission, Economic Improvement Commission, and two members at large.  

The committee also includes a Charlestown police officer, the Interim Town Administrator, the Building/ Zoning Official, the Town Clerk, the Town Planner and the Town Solicitor. This is a broad range of representation. This process is long overdue.  The Town's ordinances have not been reviewed for compliance with state law in approximately 20 years. In addition to this committee reviewing the town's ordinances, the Town has enlisted the services of General Code to assist with the legal compliance component. 

Ordinance Review Ad Hoc Committee meetings are public. Everyone is welcome to attend. 

The Council, in addition to the above committees, has reached out to Town staff and the chairs of boards, committees and commissions, and to all residents through the town's Pipeline, to solicit input on the Charter, the ordinances, and the Comprehensive Plan. We want to hear from all town residents regarding these issues.    

*Utilized the Town Council Ordinance which provides for a second monthly meeting on the fourth Monday of the month when warranted and necessary. This allows for two meetings of reasonable length, which is conducive to more public engagement and rationed decision making.

*Guaranteed all Councilors will be treated equally, and all have the right to place items on the meeting agenda that are of interest to our town. 

As always, we encourage residents to attend Town Council meetings, or view them via the town's website www.Charlestownri.gov.

CCA throws an open space temper tantrum

Torrent of lies and personal attacks follow Platner not getting her way

By Will Collette

Let’s start with a riddle: Why would the town of Charlestown spend $800,000 (or more) in town and state taxpayers’ open space funding to buy a piece of property that is ALREADY classified as open space?

Do you have an answer yet? No? Well here it is.

It’s because Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) leader and town Planning Commissar Ruth Platner wants it. We’re talking about roughly 100 acres of land at Saw Mill Pond currently owned by Carl E. Richard. The land is assessed at $312,800 because it is already classified as open space and qualifies for special tax treatment under the Farm, Forest and Open Space program.

This property has been getting the open space tax break since at least 2010, paying annual property taxes of between $2,500 and $4,000 on the 100 acres. There are NO past, present or future development plans extant for this property.

So, back to the riddle. Why does Ruth Platner want Charlestown to buy this land? She’s made the usual arguments for the ecological wonders of the land – I don’t dispute those - but still, it’s ALREADY open space and has been for many years. Why spend ±$800,000 to remove 100 acres and an average of $3,000 in property taxes off the tax rolls?

It must be that Platner doesn’t consider land to be open space unless it’s owned by town or by one of her favored organizations, like the Charlestown Land Trust.

The CCA majority voted last October to seek DEM funding to buy this land even though they insisted the vote take place WITHOUT publicly disclosing where it is, who owns it and what it costs.

It took until March for us to find that out – CLICK HERE to read the details – after DEM announced it was awarding a grant of $400,000 for up to 50% of the cost. The town could spend more than 50% as it recently did on the Tucker Estate property. It all depends on how much the appraisal can be maniputlated.

Anyway, Platner’s peculiar desire to remove yet another property from the tax rolls was dealt a setback at the May 9 Town Council meeting. The Council was supposed to approve $4,750 for a DEM-mandated appraisal of the land that can justify spending ±$800,000 ($400,000 from DEM and ±$400,000 from the town) on property currently assessed at $312,800.

Platner’s past shady deals – SPA-Gate, Tucker Estates, Y-Gate, etc. – often featured appraisals based on imaginary circumstances such as the construction of an implausible number of housing units. No doubt, that’s the plan for the Richard’s land.

But surprise! Platner lost her usual unbeatable 3-2 CCA Council majority when, out of the blue, CCA Councilor and ex-Eagle Scout Cody Clarkin recused himself for ethical reasons. That meant Platner was stymied from getting her usual bogus appraisal because Council President Deb Carney and Councilor Grace Klinger would not go along thus creating a 2-2 deadlock.

Neither Carney nor Klinger bear the CCA stamp of approval. Both of them insisted that Charlestown needs to get a grip on its current open space holdings which are getting increasingly difficult to manage and maintain. 

Carney also questioned how much land has been taken off the tax rolls and introduced a map drawn up by town GIS Specialist Steve McCandless at the direction of Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz that shows how much land in Charlestown is taxed and how much is not. Here's what Stankiewicz gave her:

Platner and the CCA launched personal attacks against Carney and Klinger claiming the map was evidence of Carney’s perfidy. Hey, Ruth and your Greek chorus of acolytes – it’s a TOWN map. Deb asked Stankiewicz for a map showing taxed versus untaxed land, Stankiewicz told McCandless to do it and then Stankiewicz sent the map back to Carney, apparently without checking with Platner.

If Platner et al. have a complaint about the map, take it up with your boy Stankiewicz. And check out the map below which appears in Platner's Charlestown Comprehensive Plan. Look at how closely it matches up with the tax map above.

CCA Senior Town Councilor Bonnie Van Slyke weighed in by flashing a secret memo – a critique of the map – written by Platner's flunky Town Planner Jane Weidman to Stankiewicz and McCandless. It was cc’d to Platner and inexplicably given only to Van Slyke and not the other Council members.

Carney insisted that this memo be made public, especially since it was being discussed in open debate. Under Charlestown’s overly literal interpretation of the state open records law, the memo is not a public record because it was "sent" (cc'd) to an “elected official” (Platner).

Since Charlestown no longer honors open records requests from me, I suggest that you send a request for a copy of this memo to Town Clerk Amy Weinreich. You can use the town’s official form although state law allows you to do it with a simple e-mail to Amy. Ask for the May 9 memo on the non-taxable map.

Van Slyke and Platner advanced their dubious theory that buying private property for open space expands the tax base while developing private land diminishes the tax base and adds costs to the town. By that logic, Charlestown should outlaw private property, except I suppose, land owned by CCA supporters.

But it’s a silly “straw man” argument because what Carney and Klinger were proposing and Van Slyke and Platner were attacking is Charlestown taking a balanced and measured approach to open space acquisition and management, neither a ban and nor a continued buying orgy.

Here’s a list of what the town has already bought since the 2015 passage – by 11 votes – of a $2 million open space bond:

But Platner and Van Slyke insisted that the problem isn’t that Charlestown can’t manage all the open space it already owns but rather the failure of the Conservation Commission (and by extension, its long-time leader Councilor Grace Klinger) to secure DEM grants for trail management.

Platner pulled some historic “evidence” from her posterior claiming the Conservation Commission has always been responsible for finding funds for trails and they dropped the ball.

There is nothing in the Conservation Commission’s mission statement on the Town website that says they research and write grants. There is nothing remotely like that in the Town Charter description of their responsibilities. Noteworthy is that the Conservation Commission doesn’t have any staff.

By contrast, Platner has access to just about all the town staff, especially those in the Planning office, Building and Zoning, and GIS, plus she has Stankiewicz at her beck and call. It’s the Planning Commission that usually initiates DEM grant proposals.

In most small municipalities, it’s the responsibility of the Town Administrator (or manager) to watch for and pursue funding opportunities for the town. RFPs (Requests for proposals) come in all the time. With overall responsibility for all town departments, Stankiewicz is in the best position to direct the search for outside funding, not the unstaffed, all-volunteer Conservation Commission.

But under the CCA, it’s been the common practice to reduce Stankiewicz’s work load so he has more time to devote to advancing the CCA’s agenda through cover-ups and secrecy.

For now, Platner’s endeavor to buy the Richard’s land is in limbo unless they can convince Cody Clarkin to withdraw his recusal. However, the land remains unchanged under private ownership as a tax-advantaged open space property. 

Platner is painting this as an urgent matter, writing “The $400,000.00 DEM grant will be lost if the acquisition is not completed in the next year.” Frances Topping argues that “land once developed is lost forever from conservation protection.”

Maybe so, but so what? We don’t NEED to spend open space tax dollars to buy privately owned open space. There are no plans afoot to develop the property. And we have an election in November where we’ll see whether the CCA can add to or maybe lose some of its Council majority. Do I smell Platner panic?

FOR THE RECORD

During the arguing over the Richard’s property, Platner claimed the 2015 Open Space Bond's thin margin of support (11 votes) was due to a concerted campaign against it.

Council President Carney said there was no such campaign, though there was indeed a broad effort to block the CCA majority from giving away the Moraine Preserve to the Charlestown Land Trust. We had purchased that land for $2.1 million to block the Whalerock windfarm proposal and to benefit the CCA client group, the Sachem Passage Association. 

The Open Space bond was a separate, free-standing item.

Nu-uh, said Ruth. She said she remembered receiving a flyer in the mail attacking the open space bond and was pretty sure it came from the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee.

Well, that’s a lie and here’s the proof. This is a screenshot of the front and back of the card Charlestown Democrats sent to voters who responded by voting by large margins to reject the Whalerock giveaway and approve the $1 million recreation bond. Read it and you’ll see no mention of the Open Space Bond.

There was only one public dissent to the Open Space bond, and that was from me. In a Progressive Charlestown article on May 31, 2015, the day before the election, I wrote this:

Read the article for more discussion of this point. Then I added this closing to the section on why I personally was going to vote NO:

I stand by what I wrote in 2015 and believe Charlestown's record over the past seven years bears me out. 

Also, I seriously doubt that my remarks on the night before the election had anything to do with the Open Space bond's near defeat. I'm good at this stuff, but I'm not that good. 

There were also two additional misstatements made at the May 9 Council meeting that need correction since they pertain to our Town Budget – many, maybe all, of you – have received your mail-in ballot and can send it in at any time.

Both wrong statements were made by Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz. He reported to the Council that the Budget locks in the current tax rate (the tax per $1000 of assessment) at $8.22. That statement is wrong on two counts. 

First, the current rate is $8.18 not $8.22. Second, the final rate will be calculated by Tax Assessor Ken Swain based on the final calculations of key factors that make up the rate. This will happen before the bills are finalized, printed and mailed in early July. 

The second false statement by Stankiewicz is that Charlestown’s share of Chariho School system costs will be cut by $134,686 due to voter rejection of the second and final Chariho budget proposal. Council President Deb Carney later gave the correct figure, which is actually a reduction of $265,000 or nearly double what Stankiewicz claimed. Stankiewicz challenged Carney on this figure and she asserted this was the latest number. She confirmed that the following day.

Stankiewicz should know these numbers. It’s his job and he is well paid to do it correctly. Including the flap over the map he gave to Carney, that’s three unforced errors on important matters by Stankiewicz in just one segment of one Council meeting. This is the kind of sloppy management that contributed to the $3 million "oopsie" controversary that started last January.

Slyke of Hand, Part 1

The Big Lie, Charlestown-style

By Will Collette 

Van Slyke, Clarkin and Cooper: these three control Charlestown's
town council on behalf of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance

The senior Charlestown Town Council member among the majority who represent the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) is Bonnie Van Slyke. 

She leads the other two CCA acolytes, former Eagle Scout Cody Clarkin and newcomer Susan Cooper. 

Van Slyke protects the Arnolda neighborhood where she lives (at least for now) from any potential threat such as kids playing in Ninigret Park. But most of all, she carries the CCA’s water. 

She recently wrote a letter to the editor that ran in what’s left of our local newspapers as well as on the CCA website that challenged readers to “ignore deception and focus on accomplishments.” 

That's maybe the smartest thing she's ever said as a Council member. However, the rub is how you define “deception” and how you measure “accomplishments.” In Van Slyke’s view, deception includes any criticism of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance no matter how well documented . If it comes from someone outside the CCA fold, it is, by definition, deception. 

And accomplishments, well, that’s easy too: that's anything and everything the CCA has done or claims it has done, even when it hasn’t. Or wrong, such as over-paying on shady land deals. It's still all good.

She presents eight bullet points. Rather than run one giant article debunking them all, I’m going to tackle her claims in a series of articles. 

Let’s start with this Van Slyke claim of CCA "achievement":·        

“Protecting the Town from Outside Threats—The Federal Railroad Administration has announced a required study of capacity and speed in the area between New Haven and Providence. The Council has responded, including enabling our Town Administrator to take whatever action is necessary to protect the town.”

This is so classic CCA. 

They defend Charlestown from all the boogeymen, real or imagined, whether it’s AMTRAK or the Narragansett Tribe or the state Water Resources Board or whatever. One of my favorites is former CCA leader Dan Slattery's fear of poachers. There’s always something. 

Let's look at the latest "outside threat."

In 2016, there was a proposal floated by the Federal Rail Administration (FRA) to build a new AMTRAK line north of the existing track that would have cut through lots of important land – farms, nature preserves, forest, even right through the Mystic Aquarium. It was called the Old Saybrook-Kenyon bypass. 

The Bypass was a stupid plan. However, it had NO funding from the 2017 Republican-controlled Congress and NO support from newly installed White House denizen, Donald Trump. The plan also had substantial opposition, mostly from Connecticut and then, belatedly, from Charlestown. 

Unsurprisingly, the Bypass plan quickly died in 2017. Dead. Kaput. Morte. Muerte. Finito. The FRA issued a legally binding Record of Decision in 2017 that officially killed the bypass. 

But for reasons that are obscure to say the least, Charlestown’s Planning Commissar Ruth Platner declared last July that “THEY’RE BACK!” and claimed that once again Charlestown is under threat from Big Rail because the Old Saybrook-Kenyon Bypass had risen from the death. 

This graphic, created and published by the Connecticut Examiner,
is the only "evidence" that the dead Bypass has come back to life.

Except Ruth Platner offered absolutely no evidence that this was true. Nothing. Nada. 

But as we’ve seen in recent years, facts and proof mean nothing when it comes to public perception and conspiracy theories. For too many people, the default response to any alarm, real or bogus, is panic. 

Council President Deb Carney looked into it, even going so far as to talk one-on-one with William Ryan Flynn, AMTRAK's CEO. He told her there was no truth to this story, that if AMTRAK was going to build a new line, it would probably go along the I-95 right-of-way. CORRECTION: Council President Carney tells me I got the last name wrong - the AMTRAK CEO is William Flynn (not Ryan). Except for Flynn's name, the rest of what I wrote is accurate.  - Will Collette

I have been doing my own digging, looking for evidence for or against the reemergence of the Bypass. I discovered that in 2018, after the last AMTRAK crisis ended, Charlestown issued a contract to Greg Stroud, publisher of the Connecticut Examiner, noted above, doing business as Lyme Street Consulting.

He was supposed to keep track of what the FRA and AMTRAK were up to, though I don’t have his reports to the town.

More on that in just a bit. 

Did Stroud play some role in the current “crisis?” Hard to tell since I've been denied access to town records. However, it looks like he is the only source Platner has. But even his material only shows that the FRA will conduct a traffic study for rail travel from New Haven to Providence. 

There are, however, lots of reports showing AMTRAK now favors a high-speed rail line directly connecting Hartford to Providence and Boston, but NOT the Old Saybrook-Kenyon bypass.

What's in the files? Where's the proof?

I wanted to see what Charlestown had in its files to support the hyperbolic activity by the CCA Town Council majority, especially Bonnie Van Slyke, against the supposedly resurrected Kenyon Bypass. 

It seems reasonable to me that if there really is any proof, Platner, Town Hall and the CCA would have already released or published it. I know that's what I would do. The CCA's "Railroad page" has nothing in it to show there is a reanimated Bypass plan getting ready to descend on Charlestown.

So far, the CCA Council majority has given Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz unprecedented and unlimited (and probably illegal) power to do anything and everything to fight the railway beast. 

His first task was to write a whole bunch of letters to public officials about this “threat,” probably provoking some of the recipients to wonder “WTF?” especially since the letters are really about the dead 2017 Bypass plan.

Stankiewicz has hired a Providence consulting firm that primarily does public relations. Their proffer says they will create "a climate of success" whatever that means. The CCA plans to put most of the town’s reserve funds at the disposal of this “campaign.” 

According to Ruth Platner, the "campaign" will involve mobilizing all the friends and allies that were part of the 2017 effort, even though there is NO EVIDENCE of an actual threat in 2021. I’d love to know how that’s going. 

Stankiewicz turned down my request for him to recuse himself
from judging an appeal against a decision he himself made.
He denied my request to restore the decade-old
waiver of fees and denigrated my arguments. 

My Access to Public Records Act (APRA) request for the records about Stroud’s work for the town and documents showing whether or not there really is a threat have been effectively denied by Town Clerk Amy Weinreich, backed by Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz who clearly is taking his orders from the CCA’s secret clubhouse.

Rather than serve up dozens of documents completely blacked out as they did on SPA-Gate, this time the town’s denial takes the form of billing me at extortionate rates. 

For the past ten years, the town has been providing me with electronic copies for free so I can give Progressive Charlestown readers a look at the real stuff. 

They want me to pay $178.35 for electronic copies of material basically in two files - all of which should be public record. 

Not only that, the town is now refusing to fulfill my requests for any other information, including material many of you have seen on subjects such as legal bills for the war on the Narragansetts, shady land deals, blasting permits, lawsuits against the town, etc. 

Again, this is material the town has provided Progressive Charlestown without charge, in the public interest, for more than 10 years. 

This is a radical break with a decade of relative transparency by the town government. The fingerprints of Mark Stankiewicz and his CCA masters are all over this. 

How are you supposed to know if the corpse of the Kenyon Bypass has risen from the dead without documents as proof? 

Since the AMTRAK issue is listed by Bonnie Van Slyke as a major CCA bullet point, it follows that she or Ruth Platner or the town administrator would show us what they’ve got. Where is the proof that there even is a threat? If I had such records, you can bet I’d publish them forthwith. 

If the Bypass is indeed alive, I promise to publicly apologize for my doubts and pledge to contribute all I can to the fight. In fact, my initial pledge is $178.35 should the threat turn out to be real. 

But if this is all a hoax, as I believe it is, shame on the CCA and on Mark Stankiewicz for cynically corrupting Charlestown more than you ever have in the past. And shame on them for needlessly scaring the good people in northern Charlestown who were traumatized by the 2017 controversy.

"Ask Amy" 

Stankiewicz on guard to prevent any info getting out that might
damage the CCA

In the meantime, I ask readers for their help.

If you are a town employee and you have information to share, I invite you to send it on – via your private e-mail, since Stankiewicz may be monitoring your town account – to Progressive Charlestown.

If you are a concerned citizen, I urge you to “Ask Amy” by filing requests for these public records – Stroud’s contract, payments, reports as well as Charlestown’s proof that there is a threat – through the town’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA) webpage.

There is a form and an e-mail you can use.

It’s easy to ask, though lately many citizens have found it’s hard to actually get anything. 

Our CCA-controlled town government has been strictly applying Draconian rules that involve long delays and high charges.

You can also “Ask Amy” about the other things I ask the town to routinely disclose: Joe Larisa’s bills, new lawsuits or claims, the town’s dealings with the Narragansett Indian Tribe, land deals such as SPA-Gate, and blasting permits. Or anything else you want to know. 

I have been told that many Charlestown citizens have gotten "work-to-rule" treatment when they ask for records. No doubt on Stankiewicz's orders, the town charges the maximum amounts for estimated time and copying allowed by law, turning routine requests into bills for over $100 or more. 

If you have run into this problem yourself, please let me know (CLICK HERE).

One remedy for Stankiewicz's stonewall is to only ask for one thing at a time and to have your friends and neighbors to also ask for one piece at a time. This will no doubt cause more work (sorry, Amy), but the state's open records act is premised on the public's right to know, not as Stankiewicz's cash cow.

Attorney General's office urges Charlestown to look at open records law as "a floor, not a ceiling"

Public business should be conducted publicly... except in Charlestown

By Will Collette

This e-mail was blacked out even though the author, Council President
Deb Carney, did not want it to be blacked out.

Ever since the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) took control of Charlestown town government a decade ago, the public's right to know no longer exists as a practical matter.

You only get what you are willing to fight to get. I know that from personal experience in my research and writing for Progressive Charlestown starting in January 2011, ten years ago.

The CCA Party hired Mark Stankiewicz as Town Administrator. He plays the CCA's centurion guarding town records from any interloper and only revealing what he absolutely must.

Currently, the fight is to shine a bright light on a shady land deal involving the CCA's close ally, the Sachem Passage Association (SPA), that wants to sell the Town a small parcel of land the Town doesn't need and SPA doesn't want. 

But friends are friends and the CCA Party has perfected the practice of "pay to play." I call this deal SPA-Gate.

I have been trying to get full disclosure of important records such as the town-commissioned appraisal, reports on the land deal by town staff and e-mail exchanges about the deal. 

Using a provision in the state Access to Public Records Act, Town Clerk Amy Weinreich has been increasingly rejecting requests, sometimes denying records in their entirety but more often supplying records such as e-mails totally blacked out like the one above.

I filed a formal complaint with the state Attorney General's Open Government Unit over the Town's efforts to cover up what's going on behind the scenes with SPA-Gate. I acknowledged that, technically, the Town can withhold some records, but the more important question was should they.

NOTE: After I filed my complaint, the new SPA-Gate appraisal has been put on-line because it is on the Council's January agenda. You can see the bottom line appraisal value of $75,000 in this article.

Open Records Unit Chief Kate Sadeck responded quickly. She noted that under the state open records law, the AG's office cannot compel Charlestown to release records they have authority under the APRA to deny, as I conceded in my complaint.

But she added this:

This Office frequently encourages public bodies to treat the APRA as a floor not a ceiling and to consider not only whether a record can legally be withheld, but also whether it should be withheld.  

That, in a nutshell, is exactly what my complaint is about so I find Ms. Sadeck's comments to be right on the mark. But will Charlestown heed this advice?

Probably not, and here's why.

Culture of Secrecy

The Charlestown Citizens Alliance relishes secrecy. It does not allow people to become members. It does not allow people to go to its meetings. It doesn't tell you when those meetings are held except "at least once a month." You can't see its minutes, if they even exist. 

The only records you can see are those the CCA Party is legally required to file with the state Board of Elections. They are not incorporated or listed on the Secretary of State's database. They have not registered as lobbyists.

The CCA Party is governed by a self-selected Steering Committee. We're not sure who is on that Steering Committee since the list is rarely updated. The current list is dated 2019.

The CCA party dropped any reference to open and transparent government from their platform.

I have long imagined CCA meetings in a secret club house hidden away in our thousands of acres of woods. 

It is at these meetings that marching orders are issued to the CCA-endorsed officials who control the Planning Commission and Town Council, as well as the Zoning Board, most town boards and commissions, and the Town Administrator. 

But you have no right to pull away the curtain to see how Charlestown sausage is really made.

Now that Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz has gotten comfortable with wholesale document black-outs, expect to see even more town e-mails, regardless of topic, include an elected official in the CC line to make that e-mail exempt from disclosure under the loophole in the state open records law.

The Queen of Secrecy in Charlestown is Planning Commissar Ruth Platner. Though she is at the heart of just about every land use matter - including and especially SPA-Gate - curiously, there are no e-mails sent by her included in the Town's APRA responses.

We know that she receives e-mails, especially from Town Planner Jane Weidman, because they are sent to me in the form you can see to the right👉.

Platner, like just about every other elected town official, has an official town e-mail address: rplatner@charlestownnri.org.

That address should be used for official business. Under Stankiewicz's secrecy practices, her e-mails should be listed and shown on APRA responses, though the contents will be blacked out.

Under the law, the Town is not required to disclose records that do not exist. That's logical. I presume Town Clerk Amy Weinreich follows the law very strictly, so the absence of e-mails from Ruthie means Amy doesn't have them and can't get them.

So how does Ruthie do business without being on the Town's e-mail net?

Some possibilities include using a private e-mail address or communicating only by phone or in person, creating no record. 

Or maybe she has a secret letter drop out in the woods where she leaves and receives messages from under a toadstool.

Charlestown goes into full cover-up mode on shady land deal

Town refuses to release new appraisal on Sachem Passage Association property deal

By Will Collette

I suppose it was bound to come to this. 

The response I received from Town Clerk Amy Weinreich late Friday to my on-going request for records on the proposed sale to the town of property owned by CCA client group, the Sachem Passage Association (SPA) was probably the most obvious example of a cover-up I've seen  in this town for a long while.

For obvious reasons, I have taken to calling this latest dark foray SPA-Gate.

As you may recall, failed town moderator candidate Ron Areglado, on behalf of SPA, offered to sell a small parcel of land on Foster Cove, attaching an appraisal that pegged the value of the property at $426,000.

That appraisal was ridiculous, based on what the appraiser himself called “extraordinary assumptions,” the biggest one being that a house could be built on that land despite numerous legal restrictions that make construction impossible. 

Based on real-world conditions, Town Tax Assessor Ken Swain said the town’s tax assessment for the property of $61,900 was an accurate reflection of the land’s worth, not $426,000.

So in September, the town hired the Newport Appraisal Group to do a new, more reality-based appraisal. We paid $750 and the appraiser predicted a 3-week turnaround.

That was September 22. Three weeks passed, then Election Day, then Thanksgiving. I kept asking for any records discussing what was going on with the appraisal but the town revealed nothing.

Then late last Friday, I finally received a response. The appraisal was delivered to the town on December 11 and was being circulated among some select parties within the town. 

Except the "complete report" (the appraisal) has not been
released. According to Town Clerk Amy Weinreich,
the appraisal is "exempt from disclosure in their entirety,
in accordance with R.I.G.L. §§ 38-2-2(4)(N)." 

Except I can’t see it. I also can’t see the report Town Planner Jane Weidman submitted to Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz. 

The Town is now claiming these documents are exempt even though they sent me the initial SPA appraisal. The town says I cannot see the one that the Town paid for.

Also, I can see the headings for several e-mails regarding this appraisal but the entire contents are blacked out. Examples above.

Apparently, town staff have learned that if they send a “cc” to a town elected official such as a Council member or Planning Commissar Ruth Platner, that document becomes automatically exempt under an arcane section of the Access to Public Records Act (APRA).

But, as I was told in my last conversation with the Attorney General's office about Charlestown's public records policy, "just because a record CAN be withheld doesn't mean it SHOULD be withheld," especially when there is a compelling public interest.

In the case of SPA-Gate, there are many reasons why there is a compelling public interest.  Some of those concerns, such as whether the deal includes the dirt driveway so people can actually gain access to the land, might be answered in the new documents the Town refuses to disclose. 

But the biggest question hidden in the secret documents is what is the value in of the land based on the new appraisal? I can't recall the last time the town tried to hide an appraisal when taxpayer money was involved.

I have taken the required initial step of appealing this denial of public records to Town Administrator Stankiewicz – even though I believe he approved of, if not directed, this draconian refusal to release public documents.

After his denial, unless the Town Council intervenes, the issue goes to Attorney General Peter Neronha.

The last time I had to deal with such a broad refusal to release records was my first request to the town for copies of the bills from our recently dismissed Indian Affairs lawyer Joe Larisa. Thanks to help from the AG’s office, the Town released Larisa's bills unredacted. That's how we learned how much we were paying Larisa for so little. CLICK HERE for details.

I suggest Charlestown taxpayers ask this: What are they hiding? And under whose direction?

Charlestown Council rejects contract renewal for Indian fighter

By a 3-2 vote, town council says no to Joe Larisa’s retainer agreement

By Will Collette

Attorney Joe Larisa (center) announcing RIGOP lawsuit to block sports
betting. The suit was thrown out. Photo by Steve Klamkin WPRO News

At the on-line December 14 Town Council meeting, the newly sworn-in Charlestown Council voted 3-2 to end 18 years of employment under retainer by attorney Joseph S. Larisa who has led Charlestown’s never ending war with the Narragansett Indian Tribe.

The issue was debated purely on the financial feasibility of Larisa’s business arrangement with the town rather than Larisa’s role as the leading figure fighting against the Tribe’s rights to self-determination.

The Council did not go into detail about the finances of the deal other than to act on Council President Deb Carney’s observation that Larisa’s cost-plus contract seemed too expensive.

Larisa has been charging the town $2050 every month, whether he does any work or not for an annual total of $24,600.

This “work” consists primarily of reading articles about Indian law and politics, especially related to issues rising from the 2009 Carcieri v. Salazar Supreme Court decision. I do pretty much the same thing myself using several “Google Alerts” that cost me nothing.

If Larisa has to do any actual lawyering, such as writing briefs, trial work or giving testimony at hearings, he charges Charlestown extra at the rate of $130 an hour.

Since the Council decision was based on the money, not the probity of Larisa’s work, let’s first take a closer look at the financial aspects of Larisa’s contract.

I have a revolving request with Charlestown Town Clerk Amy Weinreich for documents under the state open records law (Access to Public Records Act, a.k.a. APRA).

I added requests for Larisa’s invoices to the town in 2012 but Larisa didn't want those bills revealed. Here's what the town sent me:

To read about the fight to get the town to reveal how much Larisa gets paid, CLICK HERE.

It took the intervention of the Attorney General to lift the black-out and I have been monitoring his bills ever since.

I looked over the 13 most recent invoices the town has sent me that cover June 2019 through October 2020. Four months are missing from the collection: May, June and January 2020, and December 2019.

However, the 13 months in hand give us a good picture of what Larisa does for Charlestown.

Those 13 invoices list a total of 18.75 actual hours worked over the entire 13 months under the terms of the $2050 monthly retainer. That averages 1.4 hours of “work” per month, the equivalent of $1,464 per hour for mostly reading news clips.

Larisa also billed Charlestown for an additional 40 hours worked outside the retainer on actual cases billed at $130 an hour. His extra charges to the town totaled $7,163.25.

Larisa told Council members his billing rate of $130 represents a deep discount and is only made possible by his monthly retainer. Without the retainer, his hourly fees would be “extremely expensive.”

Council President Carney made a motion, passed unanimously, for Larisa to return with a proposal showing exactly how much he would charge by the hour without the retainer. He was told to submit the proposal for discussion at the Council’s January meeting.

The motion not to renew Larisa’s retainer was based on the votes of a Democrat (Deb Carney), a Republican (Grace Klinger) and a CCA-endorsed Councilor (Susan Cooper). It has been more than a decade since the Council has had such a diverse winning vote.

The other two CCA-endorsed members, Vice-President Cody Clarkin, a newcomer to the Council, and die-hard CCA holdover Bonnie Van Slyke, voted to renew Larisa’s retainer.

Only Van Slyke spoke to the merits of Larisa’s services, arguing that he has unique Rhode Island experience in Indian law and a long history with the Narragansett Tribe.

And that, to me, raises another reason why the Council made the right decision. It is certainly true that Larisa has a long history with the Tribe, a very troubling one.

Larisa noted that Charlestown is currently defending itself in two federal lawsuits against the Charlestown Police Department (CPD) brought by tribal leaders Bella Noka and Domingo Monroe. Both are civil rights cases charging CPD with discriminatory actions against them.

Nearly all of the nearly $7,200 in extra charges from Larisa involved his work on these cases.

I have researched Larisa’s background and qualifications extensively over the past several years and found no evidence that Larisa has any actual expertise in civil rights or police misconduct.

If you look below at the proposal letter Larisa gave the Town, you can see what he says his strengths are tribal sovereignty or the lack thereof, not civil rights or police misconduct:

In numerous previous articles, I have noted how Larisa interjects his conviction that the Narragansett Indian Tribe has no sovereign rights at every opportunity even when it is wildly inappropriate.

Case in point #1: when Invenergy sought a deal with the Tribe to provide emergency back-up water at their controversial and now withdrawn proposed Burrillville power station, the first protesters against the deal were tribal members themselves, including Bella Noka, her husband Randy, Domingo Monroe and many others. For the first time in my memory, Charlestown residents and tribal members worked together in coalition.

What looked like a promising watershed in Charlestown’s racial politics was buzz-killed by Joe Larisa testifying at the Dec. 5, 2017 hearing on the issue – at a point when the fight had already clearly been won – to give the audience a lecture on why the deal could not happen because the Tribe had no sovereign right to enter into the deal.

Case in point #2: In 2014-5, Larisa interjected himself into the notorious trial of Charlestown v. Gonsalves and Barber. Norman Gonsalves and Peco Barber were two young Narragansetts who were wrongfully arrested on tribal land by the notorious former CPD cop Evan Speck.

You can read the full details in the brief filed by the Tribe (surprisingly interesting for a legal document) by CLICKING HERE. The details were unrefuted by the Town. Here’s a summary of what happened:

In April 2014, Officer Speck responded to a call from a local guy who thought that maybe he heard a dirt bike or ATV and MAYBE a shot coming from the woods, not exactly an unusual thing for any of us north of Route One to hear. He also wasn’t sure of the direction and didn’t actually see anyone.

Speck got on the case, finding ATV tracks leading toward Schoolhouse Pond. Speck was told by CPD dispatch to stop at the tribal border and wait for a tribal cop.

Instead, Speck violated direct orders by going onto tribal land to Schoolhouse Pond. There was a small gathering of Narragansetts but Speck decided Gonsalves and Barber were the perps because they were loading an ATV onto a truck.

Without evidence, Speck went to arrest them. A heated argument ensued that could easily have led to a firefight, but de-escalated when senior officers arrived from CPD and the Tribal Police.

Based on the facts from CPD’s own reports, the misdemeanor charges should have been dropped and the case should never gone to trial.

However, Larisa was determined to shoot down the Tribe’s argument that Officer Speck should not have been on tribal lands to make the bogus arrest by arguing the Narragansetts have no sovereign rights.

After a three-day trial that ended on January 15, 2015, Judge Joseph T. Houlihan granted the Tribe’s motion to dismiss the charges against Gonsalves and Barber. 

The Westerly Sun reported  that Judge Houlihan ruled Officer Speck should not have gone onto private property (i.e. the Narragansett Tribe’s land), that it was “no different than any officer going onto private property, such as Raytheon in Portsmouth without a warrant.”

Later, Speck was fired from the CPD and sued the Town for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act. But his case was dropped after an FBI raid on his house led to Speck pleading guilty to three federal charges of illegal distribution of steroids. His three-year probation was due to end last month.

And Larisa kept on going. I’ve written a lot about Larisa over the years. If you want to catch up on Larisa’s long and colorful history as the prime figure in driving Charlestown’s institutional racism against the Narragansetts, CLICK HERE to see all 73 articles where he is mentioned.

We’ll see if Larisa submits a financially acceptable new proposal to Charlestown to bill by the hour, but Monday’s Council vote ended Joe’s 18 year gravy train as Charlestown’s Indian fighter.

Charlestown's SPA-Gate cover-up begins

Town blacks out town officials’ correspondence

By Will Collette

It goes on like this for EIGHT pages. Source: 
Charlestown document 4-M-2020-8-9 Lee to Hilton
etal_Redacted.pdf

As it does at least once a year, the controlling Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) is working on a shady land deal. This time, it’s with one of its client groups, the Sachem Passage Association (SPA). It could lead to the town buying a small piece of property for seven times its assessed value.

Welcome to SPA-Gate.

We have a number of documents the town was legally required to disclose under the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA). These documents give us more than enough detail to know the deal is a really bad one for the town.

I’ll run the details down for you shortly. (Spoiler: the land is worth $61,900 but we might pay $426,000).

But let me tell you what the town is covering up: by claiming an exemption under the APRA, Charlestown is blacking out correspondence to and from elected officials on the deal.

Charlestown’s black-outs mean you can’t see the by-play between the key figures. You can’t see how the deal evolved, what promises were made, whether there is any quid pro quo or corrupt practices or intent. Some perfectly innocent documents end up looking sinister after the content is wiped out with a magic marker.

Since August 16, the town has sent me 91 documents relating to SPA-Gate. Of those, 76 have undergone some level of redaction (black-out). Nearly all have been cut up under the exemption for elected officials.

The example to the ☝upper-left is an e-mail from Council President Virginia Lee to Parks & Recreation Director Vicky Hilton with what are supposed to be photos of the land being offered for sale to the town. It is one of the more ridiculous cases – I doubt those photos give away any secrets.

You can only guess what our Town Planner had to
say to Planning  Commissar Ruth Platner
after the DEM grant was approved

The open records law does allow correspondence of elected officials – e.g. Town Council or Planning Commission members – to be withheld.

Here’s the APRA exemption for elected official at 38-2-2: “(M) Correspondence of or to elected officials with or relating to those they represent and correspondence of or to elected officials in their official capacities.”

I spoke to attorney Kathy Sadeck, chief of the Open Government Unit at RI Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office. She said that just because a document CAN be withheld under this exemption doesn’t mean it MUST be withheld or even SHOULD be withheld.

When the information is in the public interest or may involve questionable or illegal practices, the Attorney General may not allow it to stay hidden behind the exemption.

Choices to disclose or not are usually political and reflect either a commitment to transparency or to obfuscation.

These documents would not be protected from disclosure to a grand jury or in a court of law.

According to Council Vice-President Deb Carney 
these blacked out e-mails are questions about the 
black-out policy she raised with our Town Clerk
and Town Administrator. She did not ask for nor
agree to the black-outs.

Council member Deb Carney has raised this issue with the Town Council and suggested the Town stop censoring every piece of correspondence involving a Council or Planning Commission member.

CCA Council member Bonnie Van Slyke who represents Arnolda asked Deb:

“I wonder what the problem is here and why the mechanism set up, you know, to appeal to the Town Administrator if there’s an issue or to the Attorney General, I don’t understand. Deb, what is the problem? What is broken here?”

OK, Bonnie, you asked.

Every detail of Charlestown policy and practice has been controlled by the Charlestown Citizens Alliance through its secretive Steering Committee for the past ten years. That includes disclosure of information. There have been running battles over the public’s right to know for the past decade.

Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz does what the CCA tells him to do so appealing to him is pointless except to fulfill the steps set out in the APRA before making the failure to disclosure a bigger, legal issue.

Despite the 76 censored records, we have enough in those records the town had no choice but to disclose to understand why the CCA is so eager to cover-up SPA-Gate e-mails. Based on those records, here’s what we know.

The Sachem Passage Association (SPA) is a non-profit residents association of about 100 households clustered on the Charlestown Moraine. They operated under the nom de guerre “Ill Wind” to try to block a proposed two-turbine wind energy project called Whalerock.

They failed and turned to the town for a bail-out. So in 2013, Charlestown bought the Whalerock property for $2.1 million. From that point on, SPA and the CCA were joined at the hip.

SPA owns Lot 5-95-5, 4.27 acres (which includes the access road) on Foster Cove. Each of the SPA households has a deeded right of access to the lot, though the land has been largely unused. Thus, the SPA leaders decided to sell it.

We know an approach was made to the town on April 24 by Ron Areglado, CCA Party candidate for Town Moderator, acting as SPA’s Secretary (READ HERE). Areglado led the unsuccessful anti-Whalerock fight that ended up costing Charlestown $2.1 million.

The SPA presented a January 21 appraisal that valued the land at $426,000 based on, according to the appraiser, the “extraordinary assumption” that a two bedroom house could be built there even though the appraiser admits this is virtually impossible. READ THE APPRAISAL HERE.

Here is the relevant passage where the appraisal says his number is based on the "Extraordinary Assumption" that the lot is buildable.

We have a June 1 memo (READ HERE or below) from Town Tax Assessor Ken Swain to Town Planner Jane Weidman that details why he believes the town assessment of $61,900 is fair and reasonable given all the legal and physical restraints make it impossible to build a house on that property.

On June 4, despite Swain’s memo, Jane Weidman submitted an open space grant application (READ HERE) to RIDEM based on the phony price of $426,000.

So at some point between June 1 and June 4, the town decided to disregard Town Tax Assessor Ken Swain's misgivings about the value of the land and to instead submit an application for state funding, using an appraisal known to be false.

Who made that decision?

I don’t know if there were any exchanges in the blacked-out e-mails that discussed the propriety of asking for a grant based on the SPA appraisal when it was clear the $426,000 price was wrong.

On July 30, DEM awarded Charlestown $213,000 to pay for half of the inflated appraisal price for the SPA land.

I can’t tell from any of the blacked-out e-mails whether there was any thought given to telling DEM about the appraisal problem.

From this point on, just about all the documents released by the town are heavily redacted like the example to the left.

SPA-Gate is not a done deal – several shady CCA deals have been killed in the past when the details emerged.

Plus, there are some fail-safes built in such as the requirement that an INDEPENDENT appraisal will be done, hopefully without the “extraordinary assumptions” (a.k.a. bullshit) that underlay the SPA appraisal.

Proponents of the SPA-Gate deal – the SPA officers, Planning Commissar Ruth Platner and the CCA members of the Town Council – have been laying low since the DEM grant was approved. The town is still waiting for SPA to respond to its request for documents. 

And there’s the black out of public records relating to SPA-Gate which is becoming an issue in itself - although, to be honest, I think the land deal between the CCA majority and its cronies is the real issue.

We are, of course, looking at an election on November 3 where the CCA Party's 10-year control of Charlestown is being challenged.

My sources say activity will pick up again after November 3, unless the CCA Party loses its Council majority or Ruth Platner is voted off the Planning Commission (hopefully both),