Colin Foote’s family set up scholarship fund in his memory

Scholarship winner will be announced tonight

The Robin & Maryann Foote family today announced the establishment of an annual scholarship at The Prout School in Wakefield, RI.

The scholarship will be awarded to an outstanding rising senior with a passion for and special interest in US History.

The “Colin B. Foote Memorial Scholarship for Excellence in History” has been established in the memory of their son, Colin B. Foote, a Prout School graduate of the class of 2001. 

Colin was killed crossing the intersection of Route 1 and West Beach Road in Charlestown on May 16, 2010 by a Habitual Traffic Offender who had 19 prior traffic citations yet was still driving.

Recent local job listings

Looking for work? Looking for a better job?

By Will Collette

There are a number of interesting job openings that have appeared in the past couple of week.

Since not everyone in Charlestown is a well-to-do retiree, some of these might be of interest if you are out of work or looking for a better job than the one you have.

Many of these jobs are drawn from RI Community Jobs, a great on-line service provided by Brown University’s Swearer Center for Public Service. 

You can sign up to receive a daily e-mail with all the latest listings for the entire state plus nearby parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Here are some of the openings that drew my interest:

Looking for work in South County?

Recent job openings for public service jobs

By Will Collette

For comparison, the December statewide unemployment rate for Rhode Island was 4.6%, making Charlestown's rate just slightly higher.

If you are one of the 200 or so Charlestown residents who are out of work and looking for a job, I’ve collected an assortment of recent job postings for work in non-profits or government agencies in South County.

Or maybe you’re looking for a new or better job.

Maybe at some point Charlestown town government will see it as part of their brief to help working people in Charlestown find work. After all, not everyone in Charlestown is a retiree and there really are some constructive things Charlestown could do to help boost employment, DESCRIBED HERE.

But in the meantime, courtesy of a great service, RI Community Jobs, provided by Brown University’s Swearer Center for Public Service, here are some jobs of note. 

NOTE: you can sign up to receive a daily e-mail with all the latest listings. I am cherry-picking jobs that are close to Charlestown, but RI Community Jobs lists the entire state plus jobs in nearby parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Let’s start with the Jonnycake Center of Westerly’s search for a new Executive Director to replace departing long-time Director Elizabeth Pasqualini (Westerly Sun profile HERE). Your cover letter and resume should be e-mailed the Search Committee via Betsy Thoman.

Big Frosty Drew event in Ninigret Park on July 23rd

Features music, live auction

Frosty Drew Nature Center & Observatory will be holding Evening Under the Stars: A Benefit and Live Auction on Saturday, July 23, from 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. in Ninigret Park, Charlestown, RI. Tickets are $60 per person and will be available at the door.

All proceeds from Evening Under the Stars will be used to support the nonprofit Frosty Drew Nature Center & Observatory’s mission of delivering environmental education to people of all ages, with a primary focus on marine and aquatic habitats and the night sky.

Register NOW for Nature Weeks at Frosty Drew

“Give them the best summer ever!”

From the Frosty Drew Nature Center

Children ages 4-10 won’t want to miss out on Frosty Drew Nature Weeks!

They are a fun, educational alternative to summer day camp, and one week is already filled to capacity.

Nature Weeks begin on June 27 and runs through August 19.

Each week has a different theme and different age group, but all run Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. with the option of after-care available.

This Saturday, run for the stars!

7th Annual Frosty Drew 5K Classic Run/Walk May 7

Frosty Drew Nature Center & Observatory will kick off its season of outdoor activity with the 7th annual Frosty Drew 5K Classic Run/Walk on Saturday, May 7, 2016, rain or shine. Individuals and teams are welcome at this fun event for all ages.

The scenic course winds through the natural treasures of Ninigret Park in Charlestown, RI. This is a family-friendly event, with a Children’s Fun Run beginning at 11:00 am and the 5K race/walk starting at 11:15 am.

The first 100 registrants will receive a T-Shirt. Registration fee is $25.00 per person if pre-registered by May 6, 2016. Registration is $30.00 the day of the race, beginning at 10:00 am. Children 10 and under are free. Apple pies will be offered to the top finishers and certificates for teams with the best costume theme.

Critter Club at Frosty Drew

Starts Jan. 30 and ends May 28, 2016.

Weekly, at Frosty Drew....

At Frosty Drew....

PREVIEW: Town Council meeting, SSDD

New agenda posted on new IQM2 database but the same old content
By Will Collette

Maybe I'm letting the foul winter weather get to me, but it's hard to rouse any kind of energy about the upcoming Charlestown Town Council meeting. It's nice to see it on the new IQM2 public access database that Charlestown has deployed, but most of the agenda ideas do not inspire much enthusiasm.

There is nothing on the agenda dealing with Copar or quarries, despite the amazing series of Westerly Sun articles that have run recently. Click here for the most recent.

No added zoning ordinances from Planning Commissar Ruth Platner and her plucky planners. Nothing dealing with taxes. Nothing dealing with the Narragansett Tribe.

Nothing on Chariho or our on-going war with our Chariho Partners, despite Richmond's decision to file suit to get equal representation on the Chariho School Committee.

I find the absent of all these matters pretty strange. Maybe the Charlestown Citizens Alliance, which holds every Council seat, has just decided to slip into cruise control.

There is potential for conflict around a series of normally routine Ninigret Park permits and decisions. However, now that Arnolda has its own representative, CCA Party Councilor Bonny Van Slyke, this may be the time for us to start to see them push their agenda of driving human activities out of Ninigret Park. Especially any activity that takes place after dark and involves people laughing or possibly music.

I wonder if the same busload of elderly British ladies (including one who is now a CCA Party Planning Commission member) who came out to oppose a summer day camp shelter for children will mobilize to block these permits. Awarding the contract for construction of that shelter is on the agenda.

I'm pretty sure the links embedded in the agenda, below, work so you can view documents for yourselves. On my browser (Google Chrome), they come up as PDF downloads.

Here's the official agenda:

No good deed goes unpunished

Planning Commission tears into children’s play shelter at Ninigret Park

By Will Collette

Proposed play shelter - the latest big threat to Charlestown's security?

If only the shelter had been slightly smaller. 

The Charlestown Parks and Recreation Department came to the Planning Commission with its latest improvement for Ninigret Park, a play shelter for children (and others), intended primarily to serve as a play area for the town’s summer camp when the weather is bad.

The money for the project comes from a large state DEM grant so the town can make Ninigret’s facilities cleaner and more handicapped accessible, and from revenues the town has collected from the handful of permissible activities at the Park. Topping off the funding is more than $20,000 worth of free labor from the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 57, lined up by Parks & Recreation Commission chair Tim Quillen.

Sorry, kids, you are NOT a Charlestown priority.
Certainly NOT a CCA priority.

The structure is an concrete pad with four steel pillars at the corners that hold up a hurricane-rated metal roof. It would be set up at the site used previously for a large canvas pavillion.

It has no walls and is set flush to the ground to make it safe and accessible. It will allow summer camp children to continue to play even when it's raining. 

But, as you read on, you will see that the health and safety of the children is less important than the concerns raised by some of the neighbors and by Planning Commissar Ruth Platner.

Two bureaucratic hitches made this elegantly simple and clearly sensible project far more complicated than it would have been in any sane universe. First, the structure is 30’ x 84’ covering 2,520 square feet. If it had only been 2,000 square feet or less, the plan could have been handled administratively by the Town Planner. But those extra square feet triggered the requirement that it go to the Planning Commission for approval.

The second hitch came when Town Zoning Officer Joe Warner suggested that maybe the state Fire Marshall needed to be consulted to determine whether the totally nonflammable, wide-open structure used only during the daytime needed illuminated fire exit signs or even a sprinkler system. Oh, Joe, say it ain't so!

Oy vey.

Moraine plan – an issue of trust

Who you are determines who you trust

By Will Collette

Tom Gentz just loves giving away Charlestown property 
and money to his pals

In the end, the Charlestown Town Council decided to accept the management plan for the Charlestown Moraine Preserve offered by the Conservation Commission at the June 10 Council meeting. 

The plan lays out potential uses of the land as a natural site featuring the special topography of the Charlestown glacial moraine. The plan calls for the 75 acre parcel on Route One, the former site of the proposed Whalerock wind project, to remain undeveloped and undisturbed except for some trails that the Nature Conservancy has volunteered to design for Charlestown.

The Conservation Commission also recommended the town not seek to grant a conservation easement on the land, ending another contentious aspect of the long-running battle over this land. Click here for the video. If the link doesn’t work, click here.

When Charlestown ended the long-running Whalerock battle by spending $2.1 million to buy the land, Town Council Boss Tom Gentz (CCA Party) announced that the town would also be seeking to give away a conservation easement to a non-municipal group and he prepared a memo listing several groups that had either expressed an interest in gaining an easement or whom he considered to be good candidates.

Like so many of his brainstorms, Gentz’s proposal drew immediate criticism. One key element of his plan, that the town simply give away the easement, turns out to be illegal. A conservation easement turns out to be a “property interest” under the law, a thing of value, and the town cannot simply give away a valuable property interest like this without putting it before voters for their approval.

More Charlestown Tapas

Ten bite-sized nuggets of news for Progressive Charlestown readers

By Will Collette

Congratulations to state Representative Donna Walsh for making GoLocalProv’s “Who’s Hot” list. This weekly list is one of GoLocal’s popular political features and notes who made a difference (“Who’s Hot”) and who screwed up (“Who’s Not”) that week. She not only made the list, but was their lead.

Donna was featured for her new legislation that would mandate collection of food scraps from commercial establishments so it can be diverted for composting and recycling, rather than take up space at Rhode Island’s Central Landfill which is rapidly filling up.

Found in space

Congratulations also to Scott MacNeil and the Frosty Drew Observatory for a terrific photo that was featured on Space.com, one of the leading on-line astronomy journals. It’s a great shot; click here to see it.

Money Makes the World Go Around

Gentz’s Legacy?

Why does Council Boss Tom Gentz feel the need to give away Charlestown property rights?

By Will Collette

One issue to watch in 2014 is the maneuvering over the 78 acres of wooded land bought by Charlestown for $2.14 million to prevent the land from being used for a pair of large wind turbines. Given the amount of rancor within the town over the project and its dubious financial viability, buying the land was, in my opinion, the best solution.

We solved a major problem by buying that site, even though we took the long way around to do it. But instead of letting the healing begin over this rancorous matter, Town Council Boss Tom Gentz (CCA Party) has made clear his intentions to take yet another controversial step. As the deal was being done, he announced that he wanted to also put some non-municipal agencies in charge of the land by granting one or more conservation easements on the property.

Frosty Drew fund-raiser this Saturday in the Park

Help us polish up this diamond in the rough

Charlestown’s Crown Jewel

By Cheryl Dowdell, Friends of Ninigret Park, Sub-Committee Chair

Once a key training base for Navy pilots

Ninigret Park in Charlestown RI is a jewel in South County, where thousands of hikers, bikers, swimmers, soccer and ball players, stargazers and vacationers come from around the world to enjoy its beauty.

The Park was a gift from the United States when the Naval Training Station and Airfield was closed in the 1970’s. Since then, the Town of Charlestown has been making improvements.

Perhaps you have visited the Frosty Drew Observatory and Nature Center, the Dog Park, fished at Little Nini Pond or attended many of the annual events, including the Big Apple Circus, The Charlestown Seafood Festival, and The Rhythm and Roots Festival.

Exhibitors wanted for July arts & crafts sale for Frosty Drew

 

Best Shot at Viewing Comet PANSTARRS Come Tonight, Tomorrow

The comet is visible after sunset throughout March. Also, comets are awesome.

·         By Rob Borkowski in the Narragansett-South Kingstown Patch

The best opportunity to see Comet PANSTARRS may well be tonight, reports NASA - but when the month is out, you're probably not getting a second chance.

The opportunity to see PANSTARRS only comes along every 100 million years, according to space.com.

PANSTARRS will be be visible in the Northern Hemisphere for about 15 minutes after sunset until the end of March. To see PANSTARRS, look to the west after right after the sun goes down. 

To have the best chance of viewing night sky objects, you'll need to get as far away from local light pollution as possible. Might I also recommend Frosty Drew in Charlestown? 

UPDATED: Charity Begins at Home

Giving to help others – an alternative to holiday gifts

By Will Collette

With only a week to go, I would again suggest there is an alternative to frantic Christmas shopping - give to charity in the name of family and friends.


I have updated this earlier post with some additional suggestions for non-profits that can put your holiday donations to good use - see the end of this article.

Our family started a tradition years ago that instead of exchanging gifts (hoping they will fit, wondering how much of a hassle it will be to return it), we increased our charitable giving. We compared notes on the charities we like – RI Food Bank, Amos House, Doctors Without Borders, etc. and found this to be a much more satisfying way to mark the season.

This is Progressive Charlestown’s first second Christmas with you, so we’d like to pass on this idea for alternative gift giving, but to also pass on some specific ideas.

Deputy Dan emerges from his hideout

Just when you thought he was on the lam, here he is again
By Will Collette

On Monday night, Charlestown will be treated to what looks like the last act in Charlestown’s own Deputy Dan Slattery’s final Crusade. Yep, on Monday, the Town Council will vote on a “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) with Charlie Vandemoer, our federal overseer and head of the National Wildlife Refuges in southern Rhode Island.

After several months of laying low, apparently hoping that Charlestown voters would forget all the crazy stuff he has done (e.g., his unauthorized investigations, his nonexistent documents, studies and evidence, search for “phantom properties,” the “Kill Bill” Campaign, his attack on Chariho, RHOTAP and his attacks on Charlestown working families, censorship of political opponents, not to mention his flat-out lies), Slattery will have another moment this Monday to wrap up his quest for the Ninigret MOU.