First Review: Town Council meeting tonight – very short, mostly boring

But another moment of clarity about who the CCA Council members really represent

"Please Mr. Slattery, please Mr. Gentz,
I really am truly needy"

By Will Collette

The two lead Town Council members who ran as the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) slate, President Tom Gentz and Vice-President Dan Slattery, made it absolutely clear that they represent the interests of Charlestown’s economic elite, the high-value shoreline property owners and non-residents. They made it clear they feel it is too divisive and unwieldy to try to give struggling middle class property owners any tax relief.

Gentz and Slattery were only interested in considering help for the “truly needy” – provided they could prove they were truly needy, and not in need because of some mistake they made – and also provided it doesn’t raise taxes for the high-end property owners.

In an otherwise short (90 minutes) and generally sedate, if not boring, Council meeting, the debate over tax policy was the most interesting part of the meeting.

Before I go into detail, here’s a recap on the rest of the meeting:

The Mageau Files

Mageau on the attack on November 14

Jim Mageau’s documents tell an amazing story

By Will Collette

Town curmudgeon Jim Mageau reserved a slot under “Persons Wishing to Be Heard” at the November 14 Town Council. And he was heard.

He used his 15 minutes to attack Council Vice-President Deputy Dan Slattery, Town Administrator William DiLibero, Parks and Recreation Director Jay Primiano and Economic Improvement Commission (EIC) chair Frank Glista.

He described an elaborate criminal conspiracy led by Glista, and aided by DiLibero and Primiano, plus helpers from among Town Hall staff. And Mageau accused Deputy Dan Slattery of aiding and abetting the conspiracy by conducting a cover-up.

When he was finished, he handed his package of evidence to Police Chief Jack Shippee to be included in the official record of the meeting. Those documents are now posted on Clerkbase. 

Now we can analyze those records and find out what they say.

Council meeting preview

Get the popcorn ready
By Will Collette
This Tuesday (Monday is Columbus Day), it's Town Council meeting time again. Seems like just yesterday that the Council was admonished for censorship, fought over the historical derivation of the insulting term "Frick and Frack," saw the return of Jim Mageau to combat, voted to ban wind energy, unleashed the Spanish Inquisition on a new Charlestown business and oh so much more.

The Council held its agenda meeting last night, and if you tried to figure out what they talked about by listening to Clerkbase, you'd be disappointed. As you may recall, at last month's agenda meeting, CCA Councilors Tom Gentz and Dan Slattery went on the record opposing the right of a representative of the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee to speak before the Council. Very bad indeed, especially when it's recorded. This month, the Council members spoke in code, referring to agenda items only by number and scarcely saying anything about the topics.

Despite their great care to say nothing of substance on the audio, there are going to be at least a couple of hot items (#8b and #11a). I'll get into those in more detail below, now that the Tuesday Council meeting agenda has been posted on Clerkbase.

Emails from Jim

Last Friday, 4 days after the last Town Council meeting, I received an email from Mr. Jim Mageau.

At first I was hopeful that it would lead to something interesting, but I found that hope fades. 

by Tom Ferrio

A great year ahead for the Westerly Sun

Frank Glista soliciting donations for maintenance of the
Charlestown Naval Airfield Memorial

The performance of Jim Mageau and Joe Dolock at last week's Town Council meeting was a sufficient cue to start watching the letters to the editor in the Westerly Sun.

And we weren't disappointed! Competing letters by Frank Glista and Jim Mageau in Tuesday's Sun set the tone for things to come.

Week in Review, September 18

The Famous Frick and Frack

Wow, this was a busy, busy week for your servants at Progressive Charlestown!

It feels like we'll be busy with followup from Monday's Town Council meeting until the next one. But that wasn't all we covered and here's a recap plus some more tidbits for you.