Town Council meeting preview

Could be the fastest Charlestown Town Council meeting of all time

By Will Collette

Since the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) assumed control of every elected position in the town, the actual governing of the town has shifted from Town Hall to the private, secret meetings of the CCA Party Steering Committee where the real decisions are made. Out of sight and sound of the public.

This has made the meetings of the key town bodies controlled by the CCA Party – the Town Council, Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals – pretty boring affairs, since all the decisions have been made.

This has meant shorter and less substantive meetings. Instead of drawn out and often contentious three hour and longer marathons, meetings are shorter and shorter.

This Monday, I predict perhaps the shortest Town Council meeting ever since there is virtually nothing of great import on the agenda. Except maybe the new ordinance that specifies what kind of numbers you need to put in front of your property or the planned installation of a stop sign inside Ninigret Park (traffic there can be hell during rush hour).

Seriously. Check out the official agenda below and see if there’s anything there that can’t be dispensed with in a matter of minutes.

Well, one-party rule sure makes meetings a whole lot easier when you don’t have to deal with things like debate or dissension.

Planning Commission decides NOT to change proposed mining law, even though they admit it NEEDS changes

Let the Town Council do it. Riiiiiight.

By Will Collette

The mother of all quarry blasts. Ordinance #362 will prohibit
mine blasting in Charlestown

The Charlestown Planning Commission voted unanimously to send its  Ordinance #362 on to the Town Council for consideration even though they acknowledge it is full of defects and omissions.

That's a shame because Ordinance #362 is actually a pretty good step forward to deal with the problem that quarries and sand & gravel pits are largely unregulated in town. The town’s landscape is dotted with dangerous inactive and abandoned sites that are the legacy of years of allowing such businesses to operate without the requirement that they reclaim the land.

I wrote a detailed analysis of  Ordinance #362 earlier (click here to read) where I praised significant portions of the draft but also noted that this draft contained several significant flaws and omissions.

Planning Commission turns Clerkbase back on

This is one of those “good news/bad news” stories

A Progressive Charlestown reader once wrote that
Planning Commission meetings were as enjoyable
as getting your fingernails pulled out

By Will Collette

Without any mention or fanfare, the Clerkbase recording of the Planning Commission’s January 2^nd meeting was on-line on Friday. Of course, the Clerkbase link was gone by Saturday and was still gone as this article gets posted. 

But while it was up on Friday, I got a chance to hear their three-hour, mind-numbing discussion of how they plan to write the affordable housing section of Charlestown’s Comprehensive Plan update.

As readers may recall, I reported earlier that the Planning Commission had literally pulled the plug on Clerkbase audio-video recording of their last two month’s meetings. Clerkbase coverage of Planning meetings has been sporadic for the past year at least, but a complete black-out is something new.

So seeing the video posted during the same week was a pleasant surprise. Why it was pulled down on Saturday is another question.

Happy New Year, Charlestown!

Some predictions for 2013

Our new Town Administrator

By Ann Nonimus

After the crazy ride our town leaders put us through in 2012, how could 2013 be any worse? Mmmmm, well, it can and, as your Progressive Charlestown team sees it, it will.

Our prognostications for Charlestown 2013:

Town Administrator selection made - It’s the 2012 model of Furby programmed by Hasbro with only one phrase - (“Yes, Tom, whatever you say”). None of the other candidates recommended by the Search Committee were able to polish Council boss Tom Gentz’s shoes to his standards.

The entire CCA Steering Committee will take part in the Penguin Plunge charity event on New Year’s Day to benefit the WARM Center – but they will all be arrested before hitting the water. Somebody told them the affair was swimsuit optional.

Charlestown voters have spoken

A big night for the CCA

By Will Collette

Well, Town Council Boss Tom Gentz and Deputy Dan Slattery will be returning to the Town Council in their old slots, and now they have a third CCA true-blue in George Tremblay who will have to vacate his Planning Commission seat to take a seat on the Town Council. 

Democrat Paula Andersen, a first time candidate, also won a Council seat coming in third. She will be the first Democrat on the Town Council since 2008.

Councilor Lisa DiBello will also return, in her own manner, to the Council.

Incumbent Gregg Avedisian was defeated. The bottom finisher was Jim Mageau.

Planning Commissar Ruth Platner also won re-election to a new six-year term which will mean she can run her string on the Commission to 22 years if she serves out her term. She is joined by CCA candidates Gordon Foer (who was re-elected) and newcomers Connie Baker (who can’t tolerate meetings longer than 90 minutes) and Jan Knost. 

Democrat Brandon Cleary, a professional firefighter in Cranston, won the fifth slot. Brandon will be the first Democrat to sit on the Planning Commission in many years. [Readers - if you remember the last Democrat who served on Planning, please post a comment or send an e-mail with the name and year].

Here are the numbers posted on the Secretary of State's website:

Are you better off in Charlestown now than you were four years ago?

If you're a rich nonresident, then sure. If you're the average Charlestown resident, nope.

Connie Baker, CCA candidate for Planning Commission, says that the 
solution to affordable housing is for people to save up enough money 
to buy a market-rate house. Otherwise, get out and stay out.

By Will Collette

The Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA), which has controlled Charlestown’s town government for the past four years, is a political action committee (PAC), but it functions like a political party.

The CCA is more like today’s Republican Party than the actual Charlestown Republican Town Committee. In many ways, the CCA resembles the Tea Party, but with the twist that they are more concerned about the rights of people who are not Charlestown citizens than the rights of those who make their homes here.

In the past two years, the CCA has dropped all pretenses to being the populist uprising it was in 2007 against the abuse of power. After undergoing several traumatic changes, the CCA is now out of the closet as Charlestown’s party of the rich and privileged. Now, they are the Power.

Its two Town Council members, Tom Gentz and Dan Slattery, control the Council whenever Lisa DiBello shows up since they can usually count on her vote. The town Planning Commission is comprised entirely of hand-picked CCA Commissioners and is led by one of CCA’s founders, Ruth Platner, who has served on the Planning Commission for the past 16 years and wants to be re-elected to serve 22 years.

George Tremblay’s ethical tin ear

“It never occurred to me,” says Tremblay about questions raised about his pending land deal

By Will Collette

In a small town like Charlestown where everybody is into everybody else’s business and only a small percentage of people engage in civic affairs, it sometimes seems hard to avoid potential conflicts of interest or the appearance of impropriety. After all, it’s usually people with land interests who run for office or join commissions, so sooner or later, they’ll run into a potential conflict.

More than a few Charlestown political careers have been ended by turning a deaf ear to the demands for utmost care when dealing with those potential conflicts. As most Progressive Charlestown readers know, I rarely have anything good to say about CCA Councilor Dan Slattery and think he is a terrible Council member. However, he is very good at avoiding even the appearance of conflicts of interest. At the other extreme is Councilor Lisa DiBello, who seems to think that no laws or rules apply to her.

And now there’s Planning Commission member and CCA Town Council candidate George Tremblay.

Connie Baker and George Tremblay need to get on the same page

George Tremblay, saving Charlestown
from elderly scam artists.

Are they for letting millionaires game the affordable housing system or against it?

By Linda Felaco

If you’ve been following the news, Planning Commissioner and Charlestown Citizens Alliance Town Council candidate[1] George Tremblay has just completed his analysis of Low- and Moderate-Income Housing in the Chariho towns and Exeter, and he’s concluded that we’re in danger of building affordable housing for the elderly only to have millionaires purchase the units as investment vehicles. This could happen, he claims, because only income is used in determining who qualifies for affordable housing and not assets.

Now, George[2] would have readers of Progressive Charlestown believe that that wasn’t actually in his report; he claimed in a comment that he’d only suggested that as “an example for potential abuse” in an aside to the Westerly Sun reporter after giving his presentation on his “analysis.” But the fact is it’s there in writing in his report. (Click here to read it; the bit about elderly embezzlers appears on page 7.) Well, not writing, typing. As in it’s in the typewritten part of the report and not the handwritten part. (While you’re in there, take a gander at Appendix X if you don’t believe me about the handwritten part.)

Then again, Tremblay also thinks Progressive Charlestown’s “benighted readers … will neither read nor understand” the links we provide, so it appears he was counting on people not actually reading his report.

But I digress.

Connie Baker is unfamiliar with the concept of confidentiality

Keep the nuclear launch codes away from this woman

Don't let Connie Baker near this

By Will Collette

Connie Baker, one of CCA’s candidates for Planning Commission, is currently a member of the Affordable Housing Commission (AHC). Baker joined the AHC because she doesn’t like, or believe in, affordable housing as a responsibility of the town, despite the state law that mandates it. 

She wants to make the move to Planning, believing that she can be more effective at blocking affordable housing developments there, where Planning has shown it holds the ultimate Power to Obstruct.

But meantime, she’s stuck at AHC.

An alert reader tipped me off and suggested I read the draft minutes that were, at the time, posted on Clerkbase. On July 19, due to the absence of the AHC’s Secretary Suzanne Ferrio, Baker took on the job of acting Secretary. She really showed her stuff when she stepped up to this greater responsibility.

If you read the minutes Baker took for that meeting, you’ll be in for a little surprise, though.

Election scorecard so far

Declarations deadline at 4 PM

By Will Collette

As of lunchtime, a healthy number of candidates for Charlestown office had filed their Declarations of candidacy. Incumbent Rep. Donna Walsh (D) will face Tina Baker Jackson (R) for the House District 36 seat.

Three incumbents have declared for Town Council so far - Boss Tom Gentz (CCA), Deputy Dan Slattery (CCA) and their ally, Lisa DiBello who has declared she is running against Progressive Charlestown. Thanks to her attack from the Council podium on Monday night and the Westerly Sun's page 1 coverage yesterday, Progressive Charlestown readership jetted up by 40%. Thank you and please keep the insults coming!