Help address the lingering problems the Navy left behind at Ninigret Park

 

Ninigret Restoration Advisory Board Forms The inaugural Ninigret Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) will be holding their organizational meeting in the Kimball Pavillion at Ninigret Park Tuesday night (June 23) at 5:30 pm and invites members of the public to attend the event. The purpose of this meeting is to provide details about the RAB’s formation, some details about each board member’s background and experience, and to introduce the RAB to the Charlestown community while facilitating the process of communication regarding the former Charlestown Naval Auxiliary Landing Field (CNALF). The board was formed in 2025 after the community indicated strong support for establishing a type of governance over the former CNALF property that today serves as Ninigret Park and the Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge. A selection panel chose the inaugural RAB members from individuals living in Charlestown and the surrounding area. The dates and times for future RAB meetings will be posted on the Town of Charlestown website and the CNALF project website. Use the QR code below for more info or to volunteer. Charlestown Residents United | PO Box 412 | Charlestown, RI 02813 US

Monday Charlestown Town Council meeting loaded with big issues

 

Policy-packed Town Council Meeting this Monday (June 22) Night. Please consider attending to make your opinions heard. First Up: Public Hearing, Discussion and Potential Action Concerning Proposed Amendments to the Town Charter. ORDINANCES AND RESOLUTIONS: Zoning - Battery Energy Storage Systems and Data Centers. NEW BUSINESS: Discussion and Potential Action Regarding Amending the Ninigret Park Utilization Plan to Incorporate the Comments from the National Program Manager, Federal Lands to Parks, National Park Service. UNFINISHED BUSINESS: Discussion and Potential Action Regarding Ninigret Park Beautification, Presented by the South County Tourism Council Discussion and Potential Action Regarding Public Outreach for the July 7, 2026, Public Hearing and the August 4, 2026, Referendum Regarding the Charlestown Elementary School (From May 20 and June 8, 2026) Charlestown Town Hall, Council Chambers 4540 South County Trail, Charlestown RI 02813 June 22, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. Charlestown Residents United | PO Box 412 | Charlestown, RI 02813 US

Charlestown will soon hold a special election to fill Town Council vacancy

Meanwhile, CCA reminds voters again why they lost the last two elections

By Will Collette

Rippy Serra, RIP

At a December 2 Special Election, Charlestown voters will be asked to pick a replacement for recently deceased Town Council Vice-president Rippy Serra who died unexpectedly on August 8. This means another election pitting Charlestown’s former rulers, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) against their arch-rivals, Charlestown Residents United (CRU).

Rippy was one of the leaders of CRU who whipped the CCA in the 2022 election, ending their 10-year reign as Charlestown’s rulers. The CRU completed the job by beating all five CCA Council candidates in 2024.

Earlier than expected, we get to see the CCA’s plan to regain Charlestown hegemony when they pick one of their own to seek to regain a seat on the Town Council. The oddsmakers favor CCA warhorse Bonnita Van Slyke who, in the CCA’s Bizarro Charlestown, earned the honor through her last place finish in the 2024 election. But who knows, we could be in for a surprise.

Since getting pounded in 2024, the CCA has been relatively muted, posting mainly public event notices on their website. But occasionally, they post a political piece that touts their core value of stopping all housing development while pushing more town land purchases.

Dark Sky is nice, but not a cash cow

How the CCA views plans for Ninigret Park

In the 2024 election, the CCA made Charlestown’s dark sky their central campaign theme accusing the CRU of wanting to install stadium lights on every street corner, while the CCA wants to keep Charlestown dark, even during the daytime, so we can see distant galaxies with the naked eye.

Of course, I’m exaggerating but so has the CCA every time they have seriously suggested that the CRU wants to despoil Ninigret Park so they can obliterate the nighttime sky. The difference is that I’m joking and they’re not.

The CCA launched a new dark sky offensive right after losing the 2024 election with a piece called Stargazing Tourism: How Charlestown’s Dark Skies Could Boost Our Local Economy under the byline of Sarah Fletcher. Fletcher is a losing CCA Town Council candidate who had a 6^th place finish.

In this article the CCA claims Charlestown is ripe for “astro-tourism” through which Charlestown can emulate England’s northernmost region, Northumberland. The CCA claims Northumberland takes in “an estimated €25 million each year from visitors who come just to enjoy the stars.” As usual, the CCA doesn’t source their claim and I could find nothing to back it up other than articles that discuss the region’s high hopes for tourism.

Northumberland and Hadrian's Wall. From Wikipedia, 
By PaulT (Gunther Tschuch) - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

I’ve been to Northumberland and neighboring Scotland. I went there to walk Hadrian’s Wall, as well as some ancient castle ruins. There is an enormous swath of dour, treeless moorland between Newcastle and Edinburgh, attractive in a Heathcliff-Wuthering Heights sort of way, where indeed the sky is dark and great for stargazing. But there’s no evidence of the CCA’s claimed tourist bonanza.

As if they knew this article was coming, the CCA ran a piece this morning noting a positive mention in Travel and Leisure magazine about the Frosty Drew Observatory in Ninigret Park. My congratulations to Frosty Drew but I remain unconvinced this will have any effect on Charlestown's tourism economy.

Look, I’ve often said I love our dark sky – I wanted to be an astronomer when I was a kid. Relative to Providence, our sky is wonderful. But I’ve travelled enough to know that the CCA’s fetish for dark skies only means they’ve never seen the sky over Montana. Or New Mexico. Or the Rockies. Or Nebraska. Or even New Hampshire and Vermont. Given the multitude of places near and far with darker skies than ours, it’s silly to think our small patch of night sky will make us a tourist mecca.

Unless the CCA manages to black out South Kingstown, Narragansett and Westerly and bans cars from travelling at night with lights on, Charlestown will never be the black hole tourist haven the CCA wants it to be. Besides, given how our population during the summer swells from 8,000 to 30,000, do we really need more tourists?

If the CCA wants to run on the dark sky issue again in the upcoming special election, fine.

The frenzy to buy more open space

The CCA has also ventured opinions about how the CRU is managing the budget and dealing with the balance left in the town’s open space bonding authority.

There’s a tie-in between the CCA’s odd and ultimately dysfunctional management of town finances and their dark sky fetish since it all seems centered on CCA founder and de facto leader Ruth Platner’s fixation on the need to endlessly expand town-owned open space.

According to maps in Platner’s own Comprehensive Plan, more than 60% of Charlestown’s land mass is already protected from development. 

Platner’s iron-fisted control of the Charlestown Planning Commission has made new housing construction as difficult as possible even under new state legislation to alleviate the affordable housing crisis.

In 2015, Platner championed a $2 million bond that Platner used as collateral to acquire land, usually at inflated prices, to set aside as open space. 

Contrary to Platner’s claim that she has the voters’ mandate, the 2015 bond issue passed by only 11 votes. That’s a margin of less than 1%.

Despite the bond authority, the actual purchases of land – over a million dollars’ worth - were made through the use of taxpayer money from the town’s General Fund with some state taxpayer funding. That doesn’t count the $2.14 million that came out of 2004 bonds to buy the moraine property that was proposed as the site of the Whalerock wind turbines.

We’ve been paying cash rather than issue the low-interest municipal bonds authorized in the 2015 referendum. This fits the CCA’s peculiar notion that the town should generally pay in cash for capital investments rather than issue bonds like normal municipalities.

Remember, we all avail ourselves of low-interest financing such as mortgages and car loans to make major capital investments. For normal people, it makes more sense to use credit than saving for years to be able to pay cash for a house or a car or stove.

These days, you only see major cash transactions when money laundering is involved or purchases by elderly folks who grew up during the Great Depression. I don’t propose a spend-and-borrow spree but do suggest we should act like a normal municipality.

The result of the CCA credit-phobia was the creation of various accounts throughout the Charlestown budget to cover various contingencies. The CCA also increased property taxes nearly every year during its reign to pump up the town’s Uncommitted Fund Balance.

They were reluctant to spend any of that money except, of course, on Platner’s shady land deals.

The Saw Mill Pond scam

Ruth Platner complained bitterly after one such deal fell through. She blames CRU Council members for blocking the 2022 Saw Mill Pond deal even though it was one of the CCA Council members who caused the deal to fail. It’s a case worth a closer look especially since it’s a key Platner bullet point in her case against Charlestown Residents United.

This deal began in 2021 with a mysterious, unprecedented motion by then CCA Council rep Bonnita Van Slyke to authorize Charlestown to pursue DEM funding for a piece of property. She wanted the location, name of the owner and even the proposed sale price kept secret from the public. The CCA majority on the Council naturally approved this motion.

In early 2022, DEM approved a $400,000 50% matching grant. That meant the deal price was going to be at least $800,000. We also found out that the piece of property was ALREADY designated as open space and had been getting tax breaks for years under the Farm, Forest and Open Space program. The assessed value of this property was $312,800. 

CRU Council members Deb Carney and the late Grace Klinger pushed for an honest appraisal before buying land for more than double the assessed value since it was already open space. The 3-2 CCA majority usually overrode such objections, but not this time.

Former CCA Council member Cody Clarkin (←left) recused himself because his mom was an abutter. Without his vote, the deal died on a 2-2 tie vote. 

So ended the CCA Council majority’s last shady land deal before voters booted them out of power later that year.

How much is enough?

Generally, the CCA believes you can’t have too much money salted away. The CCA still takes that position, criticizing the CRU-led Town Council for failing to continue to build up the fund balance. For its part, the CRU has held that raising taxes just to salt away cash to never use it except in dire emergencies – or to satisfy Ruth Platner’s land lust - is poor money management.

If they were still controlling Charlestown, the CCA would probably put all of the town's revenue into mayonnaise jars buried in former Budget Commission Chair Richard Sartor's back yard. 

It's a fair question to ask how much the town needs to save especially since the Trump regime has made it clear states and localities are on their own in local emergencies. We already have enough uncommitted cash to run the town for a year with no outside help. But the CCA wants to add more plus some unspecified amount for other catastrophes that might occur over a 10 year period.

Charlestown is lucky to have so much cash that we can even have this conversation, but at what point does it become ridiculous to pay more taxes to soothe the CCA’s anxieties?

The CCA’s antiquated beliefs in squirreling away cash ultimately bit them in the ass. Having so many excess fund accounts led to sloppy money management that culminated in the infamous 2022 “$3 million oopsie.” Town auditors noticed $3 million was missing, later found to have been “misallocated” for two years to a fund where it didn’t belong.

Rather than learn the Watergate lesson that it’s the cover-up that gets you, the CCA tried to lie, deny and deflect their way out of trouble. However, it cost the CCA the 2022 and 2024 elections.

Getting our money back

The CCA has pitched a fit over a proposal from Council President Deb Carney to actually issue the $2 million in open space bonds and use half of it to reimburse the town’s General Fund for the money the CCA spent to buy land for Platner.

Platner says this would violate the will of the 50.9% of the voters who ok’d the 2015 bond issue. Except, as Platner knows, the ballot question read:

“Shall the Town of Charlestown finance the acquisition, preservation or protection of open space or any interest therein alone or in conjunction with federal agencies, state agencies, land conservancies, land trusts or preservation organizations for preservation and approve the issuance of bonds and notes therefor in an amount not to exceed $2,000,000?” 

The CCA used General Fund money to buy the land, not bond money. Deb Carney’s proposal to use the bond authority to put money back into the General Fund keeps faith with the voters’ intention to issue bonds for open space buys.

The key word is “therefor” which means “for that object or purpose.” Voters approved $2 million in bonds to “finance the acquisition…of open space…” not to set up an untouchable cash kitty. Paying for land deals from the General Fund and then failing to use bonding authority to put the money back was not what voters approved in 2015.

I hope Platner and the CCA test their self-serving interpretation of the 2015 bond referendum with today’s voters in the upcoming special election. I also hope Charlestown voters will pay attention and come out to vote. Our town budget only drew 160 voters out of 6,895 active voters on the rolls.

We’ll see how close I’ve come to forecasting how the CCA will approach the upcoming December 2 Special Election. In my opinion, the main issue remains the same as it was for the last two General Elections: who can you trust to manage YOUR money?

Enrollment now open though September 6 for Salt Pond Smart

New program to protect Rhode Island’s coastal waters

Kristen Curry

Enrollment is now open for Salt Pond Smart: a new program to protect Rhode Island’s coastal waters.

Enrollment is now open through Sept. 6 to join Salt Pond Smart, a new community engagement initiative offered through the University of Rhode Island Cooperative Extension. Designed for homeowners along Rhode Island’s southern coast, Salt Pond Smart empowers residents to take meaningful action to protect and improve water quality in the state’s treasured coastal salt ponds.

Aging septic systems and fertilizer use, especially in densely developed areas, contribute excess nutrients, bacteria, and other pollutants to the salt ponds. These problems have led to shellfish closures, algal blooms, and damage to the ponds’ ecosystems. Salt Pond Smart helps residents make property management decisions that reduce nutrient pollution, which is essential to safeguarding public health and preserving the ecological integrity of these fragile environments.

Narragansett Tribe’s Annual Strawberry Thanksgiving Brings Family, Community Together

Celebration of life and family

By Colleen Cronin / ecoRI News staff

Dawn Spears, a Narragansett Tribe member whose
Ashawaug Farm provided some of the berries
for the event, also connects her love of nature
and her traditions to her art.
(Courtesy of Dawn Spears)

On a rainy Saturday afternoon at Ninigret Park, pops of red stood out against the overcast sky.

Strawberries in lemonade and on shortcake, along with beaded and fabric fruit sewn onto clothes, marked a special celebration for the Narragansett Indian Tribe: Strawberry Thanksgiving.

This Thanksgiving is one of 13 celebrations held with each moon of the year, said Lorén Spears, executive director of the Tomaquag Museum and a member of the Narragansett Tribe. The museum has hosted the event for many years, but the tradition itself goes back much further.

The most recent iteration of Strawberry Thanksgiving included themed food, Indigenous art booths, dancing, and talks from tribal citizens and other community members.

Despite the dreary weather, hundreds of people, Indigenous and not, attended the outdoor event.

“There’s so many people here,” Spears said. “Even with the rain … people kept coming.”

For Spears, the event is about bringing people together — to share traditions with each other and people who didn’t grow up with them.

“It’s the community,” she said. “It’s that meaning of the berry.”

Robin Spears Jr., a Narragansett artist and Lorén’s husband, agreed.

“Strawberry Thanksgiving, to me, means bringing the community together, you know, tribal community, as well as the outside, having a good time, being able to just show our artwork from all different tribes in the area,” he said.

Citizens of tribal nations from around New England also attended the event, many bringing their own art to display and sell.

Support our National Wildlife Refuges - Ninigret, Trustom Pond and others

Interior Department asks for public comments on draft uses of the land

By Will Collette

Photo by Will Collette

Call me paranoid, but I have a bad feeling about this. Spanning the southern part of Rhode Island, we have a "complex" of wonderful National Wildlife Refuges, including the Ninigret NWR. 

As I see the new draft released for comment, it appears that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is going through a process of justifying its existence. That includes making the case that the current uses of the land for visitors to walk the land and see the forest and sea creatures is worthy of federal support.

Huge staff and funding cuts are already under way, some blocked by the courts while others have been done by King Donald's fiat. Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" makes even more cuts to raise the money to pay for tax cuts for the rich.

Birds and bunnies, wild open spaces and coastal waters are not a priority for Trump or his toadies in Congress. 

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, and this is a perfectly normal activity with no malign intent. Read for yourself, starting HERE where you will find links to the FWS's determinations for the uses of each Wildlife Refuge in Rhode Island. 

If I am wrong - and I hope I am - this is an opportunity to show your support for Ninigret NWR and the others in the "complex" and to tell the Interior Department about your ideas for uses of the land.

Continue below to read the Interior Department's request for comments.

June 7: Strawberry Thanksgiving at Ninigret

At Ninigret, May 30-June 1, Atlantis Rising

 

May 30 - June 1    Ninigret Park, Charlestown, RI

RAIN OR SHINE - NO DOGS ALLOWED

 

Tickets at the door.

$15 for adults and children over 10.

$7 for children 10 - 6.

Children 5 and under FREE!

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

 

New budget goes to Charlestown voters on June 2

CCA chimes in on Charlestown proposed budget

By Will Collette

Charlestown voters will have the final say on the town’s proposed $30 million+ budget. This new budget increases town expenditures by around 1.5%, compared to a 2.39% inflation rate for the past 12 months.

Under this budget, Charlestown’s tax rate is projected to increase from the current $5.78 per $1000 in assessed property value to $5.93. That’s an increase of 2.6%. Hopefully, this will be offset for permanent residents by a planned Homestead tax break if – fingers crossed – we get General Assembly approval and can swiftly pass a town ordinance. That might be overly optimistic, though.

Even at $5.93, Charlestown’s tax rate since the Charlestown Residents United won control of the Council continues to be lower than it was during any time in the past 50 years. Your actual tax is the tax rate times the assessed value of your property. Those assessments are also at an all-time high.

The all-day financial referendum will be held from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday, June 2, at Town Hall. Mail Ballot Applications are available on request at (401) 364-1200 or by e-mailing Town Clerk Amy Weinreich at arweinreich@charlestownri.gov.

I have been watching the reaction from the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA), Charlestown’s past rulers who were kicked to the curb by Charlestown Residents United in the last two elections. Their reaction was pretty muted compared to the kinds of rants we’ve seen from the CCA over the past 15 years.

They kvetched a little about plans to create a new home for the Parks and Recreation Department in Ninigret Park. What a concept! At its April 14 meeting, the Town Council set aside $75,000 as a contingency to pay for any needed design or engineering work. One plan is to convert the existing gatehouse into office space. If that is impractical (i.e. if repair work is too expensive), Plan B is to build a new building.

That plus improvements to existing facilities in the Park bother the CCA. Frankly, anything in the Park bothers the CCA who have fought against any and all projects, except of course, “Faith’s Folly,” their over-budget asphalt abomination of a bike path. If anyone other than CCA founding member Faith Labossiere had proposed laying down that much asphalt anywhere in town, CCA Leader and Planning Commissar Ruth Platner would light her hair on fire.

The CCA groused a little at the Town Council’s refusal to continue small grants to the Charlestown Land Trust and Community 2000. Both organizations are currently well-funded and well-endowed.

According to the Charlestown Land Trust’s most recent federal IRS-990 filing, they hold more than $2.76 million in assets, although I believe the true value is far higher, given that their acreage includes lots of prime property. The Land Trust has long and deep ties to the CCA.

More relevant to whether the town should contribute to them is another fact included in their IRS filing. The CLT only spends about 65% of what it raises. They reported an income of ~$80,000 but only spent ~$52,000.

Community 2000, a scholarship fund, reports similar data in its IRS filing. It has an endowment of $2.3 million. They only spend 60% of what they raise. In their most recent tax filing, they raised ~$228,000 but spent only ~$137,000.

While I have no quarrel with the mission of either of these two organizations, I think their own tax data show they don’t need Charlestown taxpayer money.

But here’s the kicker: The CCA makes the claim that “The Council also eliminated funds designated for the Charlestown Land Trust ($1,500) and for Community 2000 ($1,000).”

In fact, there was NO MONEY designated to be removed. Like so many of the CCA’s fiscal complaints, this is imaginary. While this is small potatoes compared to the CCA’s many other fiscal gaffs, it shows that the CCA just doesn’t seem to learn that you can’t make this shit up and get away with it.

The CCA’s sharpest critique was aimed at the Town Council’s decision to fund this year’s budget increase from the town’s bloated unrestricted fund balance.

During the CCA’s reign, increasing the size of the town’s fund balance became an obsession to the point where it seemed as if no amount of “rainy day” reserves was enough. The old Budget Commission Chair and controversial former town administrator Richard Sartor continually pushed to put more cash into reserves. Among other things, Sartor pushed for Charlestown to pay cash for capital projects, as if using bonds to fund capital projects was a mortal sin. Maybe Sartor never had a mortgage.

The CCA concedes that even after taking out this year’s budget increases, the unrestricted fund balance still meets the minimum levels (23-33%) they themselves forced on the town. Their complaint: if the town continues to tap the fund balance in the future, this might reduce the fund balance below their comfort level.

They also think the current Town Council doesn’t have adequate plans for future capital projects.

Deputy Dan Slattery

Again with the irony. Since at least 2012, the town Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) has been a CCA obsession, especially when their former President Deputy Dan Slattery served on the Town Council. I wrote about that obsession in detail HERE.

If you don’t want to read it, here are the Cliff Notes: State law and the Town Charter both mandate municipalities to have five-year capital improvement plans. For some reason in 2012, Deputy Dan wasn’t satisfied with the result and tried to make this a big deal even though CCA leader and Planning Commissar Ruth Platner denied the Planning Commission had no role to play. Her Planning posse only dealt with birds and bushes, not buildings and bridges.

After Deputy Dan left, the CCA seemed to lose all interest in the capital improvement plan. If anything, they seemed to see it as an impediment to spending money on shady land deals or any of a number of other crackpot schemes they came up with, often on the spur of the moment.

Prime among them is the 2019 CCA-controlled Council decision to spend a $3 million surplus on a a “community center” in Ninigret Park. This scheme came out of the blue with no plan, design or actual budget for a new building that no one either asked for or wanted. It wasn’t in the approved Ninigret Park Master Plan nor the existing town Capital Improvement Plan. For good reason, taxpayers voted it down.

The CCA makes no mention of the September 2024 Rhode Island Auditor General’s report that shows in hard numbers that the new CRU controlled Town Council has cleaned up the fiscal mess left behind by the CCA.

The contradictions and hypocritical comments from the CCA are par for the course, but I still wonder why they chose to make them. They had to know they would be fact-checked.

One thing did surprise me in the CCA’s remarks on the budget. This year’s town budget reflects a 2% drop in Charlestown’s share of the cost to run the Chariho School District. That’s a savings of ~$287,000.

The saving is entirely due to a drop in the number of students going to Chariho from Charlestown. Why doesn’t the CCA take credit for this? After all, the drop in students is due to the relentless 15-year campaign by the CCA and its founder and leader Ruth Platner to drive families with kids out of Charlestown while ensuring that new families don’t come in.

State funds awarded to expand Charlestown's Ninigret Park troll trail and add others in Suth County

More trolls!

By Will Collette

Jessica Sloan

It looks like the Charlestown's two acclaimed upcycled wood trolls, created by artist Thomas Dambo and installed in Ninigret Park, may be getting a little brother or sister soon..

In a new round of state grants from RI Commerce, two grants will help fund more trolls, in Ninigret and elsewhere in South County:

South County Tourism, Inc. | $107,500 | To support expanding the South County Troll Trail by constructing and installing a third Thomas Dambo troll sculpture in South County. 

Town of North Kingstown | $107,500 | To support constructing and installing a Thomas Dambo troll sculpture in North Kingstown. 

These grants are part of a $2 million package of grants RI Commerce has dubbed "Placemaking Initiative Awards to Support Statewide Outdoor and Public Space Capital Improvement Projects & Events" or you can just call them PIASSOPSCIPE grants. 

While some might consider government funding for public art displays a waste of money for any variety of reasons, public art, in my opinion, is a worthy investment for enriching the soul. Civil societies have understood this for millennia leaving behind monuments that still inspire awe and wonder today.

Here is the full list of grants:

CCA tries to distract Charlestown voters with shiny things

Don’t fall for this old trick

By Will Collette

To hear the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) tell it, if not for them, Charlestown would be lit up like a car dealership in Cranston. Unless they are returned to power, Charlestown will be lit up like convicts caught in the prison yard attempting a jail break. Without them in charge, Charlestown will look like the Las Vegas strip.

If you read their literature, this election is all about Charlestown’s dark sky. It’s not about the CCA’s financial screw-ups and mismanagement. Or about continuous tax increases during their ten years of power. Or their succession of shady land deals – over-priced properties, bogus appraisals, insider deals. It’s not about their decision to cover up their conduct by denying access to public records and denying non-CCA members to speak at Council meetings.

No, none of those issues matter at all. Just look at the shiny objects that the CCA wants you to think are a menace to you and all that you love.

My oh my, I am so sick of these people.

To learn more about the CCA's sleezy land deals, read The Politics of Charlestown Open Space.

Look, I grew up wanting to be an astronomer, at least until I found out it required a math aptitude I just don’t have. But I love sky-watching and appreciate the rare ability we have in Charlestown to see so much more of the night sky than our urban neighbors. We've run more than 400 articles in Progressive Charlestown on astronomy.

According to the CCA's campaign filing reports, these slick,
3-page flyers cost $3000+ to print and mail on a phony issue

But if you were to ask me to rank dark skies among the needs of residents, it would be on the list but not in first place by a long shot. As a voter, I’d put a higher ranking on good town management, clean water, affordable housing for seniors and workers, transportation alternatives, sound land management and honesty.

But apparently CCA leader and Town Council candidate Ruth Platner (possibly former Planning Commissar) wants this election to be all about dark skies. It sure beats talking about CCA financial foul-ups. Oh, look at the not-shiny thing!

For detail on just how badly the CCA messed up on finances and taxes, read Charlestown finances and taxes – Your choice on November 5 then read RI Auditor General finds new CRU leadership in Charlestown improved town finances to see how our current CRU Council leadership has turned things around. It also explains why the CCA is so eager to distract you with a bogus issue.

It’s worth revisiting how we got to this point. When Tom Ferrio and I started Progressive Charlestown, we found the CCA gave us lots to write about. In addition to shady land deals, Platner’s dark sky obsession figured prominently in the early years of the CCA’s rule.

For several years, Platner kept trying to figure out how to write a town ordinance to ban outside lighting, especially for sports and recreation, or at least force people to comply with using only shielded, downward facing outdoor lights.

In her early attempts, she tried to make it retroactive to cover every light in town but was told that wasn’t legal. She tried to make it compulsory on everyone, but that sparked a huge backlash.

She tried to regulate lighting as minutely as she has in such things as Charlestown’s anti-wind power ordinance or their newly released “Design Standards” that dictate down to the smallest detail what can or can’t be done with buildings in Charlestown. At one point, she went for a plan that would require you to install new dark sky-friendly light fixtures anytime you changed a lightbulb. 

Some CCA Planning Commission members had even more radical ideas, such as blacking out the town, noting that we get the best dark skies during extended power outages.

It was everyone’s worst nightmare of regulatory overreach.

Watching it was sad, but also funny. It was a battle that never needed to be fought and that’s still true today.

At the time, I suggested a better approach would be to conduct public education to pursue assisted voluntary compliance. The town could help promote dark sky lighting through property tax credits to offset the cost of retrofitting. It could also arrange a bulk purchasing plan to make it easier and cheaper to buy such things as hoods for outdoor floodlights.

But no, the CCA and Ruth don’t trust you to make good decisions.

After long and arduous failed attempts and endless public hearings, Ruthie finally got a watered down, unenforceable dark sky ordinance passed. In my opinion, she got less than she would have through the voluntary approach I recommended.

But that’s not all. It wouldn’t be a CCA campaign without an imaginary crisis, in this case “The Battle for Ninigret Park.” Like today’s phony CCA dark sky panic, it involved an approaching Armageddon sparked by the idea of after-dark activities in Ninigret Park.

To read more about the CCA’s habit of creating phony threats, read Fear and Loathing in Charlestown Politics.

This crisis featured a phony dossier – referred to as "Document #2" - held but never revealed by former CCA President and Town Council member Dan Slattery. According to Slattery, any attempt to install lights in Ninigret Park would trigger the federal government to take back the Park. And he had the proof right there in Document #2.

The town was in an uproar for months and it took an appearance by regional US Interior Department office Elyse LaForest to establish that (a) Charlestown owns Ninigret Park, (b) no, the Interior Department had no plans to take back the Park and (c) under the federal program that transferred decommissioned military land to local governments, there were almost no instances of land reverting back to the feds.

In those rare instances, it was usually because the local government asked the feds to take the land back.

After an investigation by the RI Attorney General, Dan Slattery admitted that there wasn’t actually anything in “Document #2, his Ninigret dossier.

There were casualties in the Battle for Ninigret Park, of course, since the CCA needed blood. Town Administrator Bill DiLibero and Parks and Rec Director Jay Primiano lost their jobs.

So here we go again, another election and another bizarre CCA conspiracy theory.

Like I said, I am so sick of these people and the way they behave. After all this, how dare they ask for your vote.