New CCA temper tantrum

Failed March 13 attempt to “flood the zone” sparks slander from CCA leadership

By Will Collette

The Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) was soundly rejected by voters in the 2022 election. But, not surprisingly, they still have some tricks up their sleeves to take back power.

One such attempt was made – and failed – at the March 13 Town Council meeting where the CCA attempted to “flood the zone” with a large number of their stalwarts trying to get onto key town commissions and committees.

Such long-time CCA hardcore players as Bonnita Van Slyke, Mikey Chambers, Ron Areglado, Pete Mahoney and Dick Sartor made bids for seats on the Charter Revision Committee, Ordinance Revision Ad Hoc Committee, Town Administrator Search Ad Hoc Committee and Parks & Recreation Commission.

None were approved although several applicants with CCA ties, such as veterinarian Dr. Lew Johnson did win appointment.

Fortunately, there was a large field of experienced and thoughtful non-CCA candidates to fill the ranks of these important town bodies. You can see the full list of people who applied, who was chosen and who was not by CLICKING HERE.

I also encourage you to read their applications and career highlights by CLICKING HERE.

You really should take a close look because the CCA has decided to use their failed blitz as “evidence” that the “Town Council Puts Developers In Charge,” according to the headline in their blog.

Only one appointee, Tim Stasiunas, is an active developer. Evelyn Smith, who was appointed to the Charter Revision Committee, was a developer decades ago. However, Evelyn has put in more than 20 years on the town’s Affordable Housing Commission. Evelyn does own an inactive sand pit.

According to the CCA, any person who owns a business is suspect, as are all attorneys (except the CCA’s last remaining Council member Susan Cooper of course). By the way, contrary to CCA's claim, Cooper voted to approve Evelyn Smith's appointment.

For some inscrutable reason, about half of the CCA’s screed rehashes their own tragic handling of the COPAR Quarry crisis, re-writing history by casting themselves as the heroes rather than chumps. 

Charlestown Chunks #12

Abortion win, cannabis vote, Flip on drugs, Kalus gets tax cut YOU can’t have, drought and pandemic still here.

By Will Collette

Benson V. Raimondo case turned down by US Supreme Court on October 11.

Source: Wikipedia

It may not seem like much after the Supremes overturned Roev. Wade, denying women’s reproductive rights. But the court’s decision not to hear an appeal from the Catholic Church in the three-year old case is worthy of celebration. Catholics for Life had tried to establish that human rights begin at the moment of conception but lost at every level in the state and federal courts.

Trump’s Supreme Court appointees turned the court far to the right, evidenced by the Dodd decision that overturned Roe, so it was a surprise that they turned down a case where they could stake out an even more radical position. The Boston Globe published an excellent analysis of the history of the case and its impact.

You get to vote on cannabis for Charlestown.

I'm voting YES

Now that Rhode Island has legalized the purchase and use of cannabis for personal recreational use, the next question is where you can legally buy it. The state law provides for local marijuana stores to be established IF voters approve a local referendum to the right👉 

If Charlestown voters approve the referendum, then Charlestown may allow a cannabis business to set up in Charlestown under “reasonable” terms and conditions. In Charlestown, that is in the eye of the beholder.

The Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) has been distinctly hostile to any retail establishment, no matter what they sell. 

They’ve used every tool at their disposal – zoning restrictions on parking, lighting, signage, shrubbery, materials, etc. to break down most businesses that try to make a go of it in Charlestown. All the closed and vacant businesses, especially on Route One, make Charlestown the “Boulevard of Broken Dreams (thank you, Green Day).”

The CCA claims, in its infinite wisdom and kindness, that it is giving voters “the option to decide for themselves” whether to allow cannabis businesses into town. 

They don’t have much choice, since failure to put the question to the voters means that Charlestown cedes the authority to the new State Commission overseeing the marijuana program.

On the upside, if we welcome in new cannabis businesses, the town will receive 3% of the gross. I’d love to see the Tribe get a license – they already have the Smoke Shop and wouldn’t even need to change the sign. A friend suggested another venue could be the Old Umbrella Factory which certainly has a whiff of spliff in its history. However, they’d have to improve their handicapped access (so would the Tribe).

If Charlestown tight asses vote the referendum down, Charlestown cannot restrict residents from buying for personal use in Westerly or South Kingstown and bringing it home. Plus, you can grow your own – up to six including three mature plants, though not a weed ranch.

Flip must be good on this.

Our out-going state Representative Blake “Flip” Filippi seems to be going all in on legalizing drugs. I reported his recent public campaign to legalized magic mushrooms/psilocybin for use on veterans with mental disorders based on one study by Johns Hopkins where even the authors say much more research needs to be done.

Flip has since expanded the scope of his campaign saying:

Sure, the use of psychedelics like magic mushrooms and peyote (which has similar effects but from an entirely different chemical agent) have long been used for religious purposes in many indigenous cultures around the world. And yes, there have been scientific studies on the use of hallucinogens to treat certain types of mental illness.

However, Flip is not a shaman, nor is he qualified to give medical advice on the merits of consuming powerful, mind-altering drugs.

Anyway, I expect Flip will hit the campaign trail to support a “YES” vote in Charlestown to allow a pot store to set up in town. Also, I’ve heard he has been campaigning for the re-election of his radical insurrectionist colleague, Rep. Justin Price. 

Report details housing costs in South County.

Yeah, housing in South County is as unaffordable as ever, according to a new report cited in Patch.

Here is the data summary:

• Population: 129,839
• Total housing units: 65,694
• Q3 2022 median home price: $588,000
• Year-over-year median home price growth: 12 percent
• Annualized weekly wages: $57,460
• Year-over-year wage growth: 2.8 percent
• Q3 2022 Affordability Index: 75.29

Read the full report HERE.

Ashley Kalus’s crazy, mixed-up life.

In the 1870s, the South was exploited by
"carpetbaggers" from the North, looking to
profit from the post-war devastation. Now comes
Ashley Kalus from Florida, or maybe Illinois,
to wreak havoc here. (Wikipedia)

Carpetbagger Ashley Kalus (R) is running against incumbent Dan McKee for Governor. One of the minimum requirements to run for this office is to actually live in Rhode Island. She barely does.

Based on property records from Florida and Illinois, it’s hard to tell where she actually lives. We know she bought a house in Newport last year and registered to vote earlier this year. 

But property records in Illinois show that she and her husband are collecting a Homestead property tax exemption on their home in the tony northern suburbs of Chicago. You can’t get a Homestead tax break unless the property is your permanent residence.

She also owns a home in the Florida Keys and may be getting a Homestead credit there, too – even though those records show her as declaring the Illinois house as her residence. Published reports show that Kalus voted in Florida in 2020 (and calls Ron DeSantis, Florida’s fascist Governor, her role model).

To top it off, the mortgage application she filed for her Newport house lists the Newport house as a “second residence.”

She has given a variety of convoluted reasons for how she can live in three places at once and still be as dedicated a Rhode Islander as Roger Williams. But, in my opinion, none of them pass the smell test.

McKee hit Kalus with a charge that the only reason she’s running is as a grudge over the state Health Department’s decision to terminate a lucrative COVID testing and vaccination project. That seemed to take Kalus by surprise, but not really when you look at the documentation HERE and HERE.

What I do want to flag is how often we find that candidates for public office in Rhode Island are collecting a Homestead deduction on their property tax. 

Failed House District 2 candidate Sarah Morgenthau was getting a Homestead credit on her home in DC and on her new house in North Kingstown. 

Kerry King (R) collected a $50,000 Homestead tax credit in Florida at the same time he was running for Lieutenant Governor. In every jurisdiction, you must be a permanent resident to get a Homestead credit.

In Charlestown, the CCA went nuts when we suggested a Homestead Credit here. Increasingly, we’re becoming an outlier. Our neighbors in Narragansett and North Kingstown and many of the people who move to Charlestown or live her part-time receive Homestead benefits where they come from. 

But the CCA and its now-deceased parent, the RI Statewide Coalition, stormed the Council meeting where it was discussed, condemning it as communistic and grossly unfair to all those nice rich people who come here every summer.

By the way, the town is sponsoring a clean-up day on Saturday for volunteers drawn from the permanent residents are encouraged to go out and clean-up the summer people’s roadside trash. Am I the only one who sees the irony in this?

Our summer hordes cost taxpayers who live here year-round a lot of money for infrastructure that the summer people need but go unused the rest of the year. Plus, we're supposed to go out and clean up after them.

That’s why Homestead credits are so popular and widespread. Let the CCA show that it is loyal to those of us who live and vote here, and not just to those summer visitors who send the CCA big campaign checks.

Drought is still here and so is the pandemic.

Despite all the rain we’ve received in the past month – almost 8 inches since September 1 - South County, especially along the coast, is still in “moderate” drought. That’s certainly far better than the “extreme” and “exceptional” levels we were at in July. However, it came too late to save our already fragile trees from more damage and to prevent damage to crops, impacting apples and of all things, Christmas trees.

It is still prudent to save water since the climate crisis will almost certainly find more ways to challenge us.

In my last “Chunks,” I noted the phenomenon that most of the public and certainly most of elected officials have decided by fiat that the pandemic is over, despite the statistics showing our rate of infection remains at pandemic levels even though most new COVID cases never get reported since the widespread use of home testing kits.

Even one of my doctors caught it…twice, getting the second hit after taking the recommended round of Paxlovid.

The State Health Department no longer gives daily statistics, just weekly, but we are still running an average of 145-160 cases per 100,000 not counting cases caught by home testing. As a reminder, our rate on the 4^th of July last year was a dozen per 100,000.

Every day, approximately 500 Americans die unnecessarily from COVID. Get all your boosters, please, including the new bivalent COVID vaccine that works on the new variants. And your flu shots.

Re-elect Deb Carney

She is an exemplary public servant who has served Charlestown well

By Catherine O’Reilly Collette, Chair of the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee

I am proud to endorse and support Democrat Deb Carney on the November 8 ballot for re-election to the Charlestown Town Council.

Deb brings experience and talent that will continue to serve the people of Charlestown well.

I have known Deb Carney for 20 years, watched her chair the Council when we first moved to Charlestown, then admired her outstanding work on the Chariho School Committee. 

I consider her to be one of the most talented and hard-working public servants I have ever met. She currently serves as Council President and seeks re-election.

For the past decade, Charlestown has been controlled by a single party: the Charlestown Citizens Alliance that was spawned by the Rhode Island Shoreline Coalition with its focus on the interests of wealthy absentee land-owners. 

They have raised our taxes just about every year since they’ve been in control, engaged in shady land deals, driven out small businesses and purged town commissions of anyone not a CCA loyalist.

Each election year, absentee property owners flood the CCA treasury with out of state cash. The CCA tries to sell Charlestown voters the same overblown story that we are under threat of unspeakable horrors to our rural way of life and only the CCA can keep us safe. You’ll see that message in the CCA flyers that will be filling your mailboxes.

It’s time to stop being driven by fear. We need to focus on positive ways to move forward on fair taxation, sensible land use, choosing qualified people for town boards and commissions and using town resources to help our community cope with real problems.

I know Deb Carney is the best qualified person on the ballot to get the job done. I urge you to vote for her when you cast your ballot by mail or in person in the November 8 election.

YES on Question 1

Fight institutional racism in Rhode Island and Charlestown

By Will Collette

Image credit: RI State Archives, "A Heritage discovered: Blacks in Rhode Island" (1976).

There is only one statewide ballot question for voters to decide in 2020. It is aptly named State Question  1. This question asks you to approve or reject the elimination of “Providence Plantations” from the state’s official name, “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.”

This question was put before voters in 2010, without success. A decade later, I hope Rhode Islanders will vote APPROVE. Here’s why.

The word “Plantations” has connotations of slavery and in this year of struggle over America’s legacy of racism, it is the right time to stop memorializing the vile institution of slavery.

Few Rhode Islanders know the extensive history of Rhode Island and slavery. The Speaker of the House Nick Mattiello actually said he didn’t know slavery ever existed in Rhode Island.

Some of the state’s most prominent founding families – the Browns of Brown University fame among others – were main players in the transport of Africans to the Americas, and to Rhode Island in particular where African slaves worked in prominent Providence and Newport households and South County plantations.

Even though Rhode Island officially banned the slave trade in 1652, it persisted in practice for more than 100 years more. You can see slave graves in the old cemetery at the Episcopal Diocese in Providence. In 1755, one out of three residents in “Narragansett Country” (which includes Charlestown) were slaves.

But much of our local slave labor, especially in South County, did not come from Africa. Instead, they were mostly Narragansett Indians who were captured after the Great Swamp Massacre in 1675. With permission from Roger Williams, our local founding families ran Charlestown’s plantations with Narragansett slave labor.

Our misdeeds toward the Narragansetts did not end when the last slaves were freed. In 1880, the state decided to declare the Narragansett Indian Tribe no longer existed. Unspoken but understood was the belief that Rhode Island had succeeded in its genocidal efforts. What is crystal clear is that the state tried to erase the Tribe from history for land and profit.

From 1882-1884, whites grabbed virtually all of the Tribe’s land, leaving only two acres in Charlestown as the nub of a homeland.

For the next hundred years, the Tribe fought to regain its land, achieving some success, first with the 1978 settlement agreement that returned 1800 acres to the Tribe and 1983 when the Tribe won official federal recognition. At every stage, they faced unceasing white resistance.

We cannot erase this history. Personally, I think we need to learn and talk more about it, because these events still affect how Charlestown operates today. But I truly believe it is a step in the right direction to strike the odious term “Providence Plantations” from our state’s official title. So please vote APPROVE.

There’s a statewide group pushing for approval of this measure. You can CLICK HERE to get their reasons for why we need to change our name.

Let’s move on to how Charlestown remains locked into a system of institutional racism.

NOTE: you can find more historical detail and numerous links to historical sources in my June 30 article End institutional racism in Charlestown.

At least since the 1978 settlement and 1983 federal recognition, old Charlestown has fought to prevent any further advances by the Narragansett Indian Tribe. Our town’s official position is that we hold dominion over the Tribe in all land use matters.

Larisa's most recent bill show he spent 1 hour of work for which we
are paying him more than $2000.

We hire attorney Joe Larisa as the town’s Special Counsel for Indian Affairs and pay him a baseline retainer of $24,000 a year. 

His job is to watch the Tribe as well as any legislative, judicial or regulatory matters that affect the Tribe and to stop any self-advancement efforts by the Tribe. 

Larisa raises the town's conviction that it has dominion over the Tribe at every opportunity.

This is raw, flagrant institutional racism. If Charlestown wants to remedy institutional racism, it can start by cancelling Larisa’s retainer agreement.

A second step could be to reach out to the Tribe to seek a process of reconciliation perhaps adapting Nelson Mandela’s reconciliation formula that worked in South Africa. It won’t be easy given we’ve had our knee on the Tribe’s neck for 345 years.

But far from reconciliation, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) that has controlled Charlestown for the past decade, has instead doubled down. 

The recurring theme of the CCA Party’s re-election bid is to make the Trumpian claim that they – and only they – can protect Charlestown from dire threats (real or imagined) to the town’s “rural character.”

Set their “rural character” rhetoric next to Donald Trump’s white supremacy dog whistles about protecting the suburbs and marvel at the similarity.

Charlestown does not have a definition of “rural character” even though the term is used endlessly. It's all over this year's CCA Party campaign propaganda.

In 2016, I formally asked the town under the state’s Access to Public Records Act to provide any document used by the town to define “rural character.” Not surprisingly, no such document exists.

Nonetheless, the CCA Party knows what they mean by “rural character” and so do a growing number of Charlestown residents.

Meanwhile, on July 21, the Chariho School Committee approved formation of a task force to examine “policies, practices and curriculum through the lens of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice” in the school district. That’s a commendable step – I hope it will lead to concrete findings and meaningful change.

Charlestown needs to address its own festering institutional racism problems. They are not going to go away by ignoring them. The Town is currently in federal court facing two civil rights lawsuits from elders in the Narragansett Indian Tribe. Read HERE and HERE.

We need new town leadership and an end to dog whistles. We need to make a good faith effort to reconcile with our Tribal neighbors.

Charlestown Voters asked to support Council Candidates

Please support these Charlestown Democrats

By Catherine O’Reilly Collette, Chair of the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee

On behalf of the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee, I am proud to endorse and support the three fine Democrats on the November 3 ballot for Charlestown Town Council: Deb Carney, Jodi Frank and Scott Keeley.

Each of these individuals bring experience and talent that will serve the people of Charlestown well.

I have known Deb Carney for nearly 20 years, watched her chair the Council when we first moved to Charlestown, then admired her outstanding work on the Chariho School Committee. I consider her to be one of the most talented and hard-working public servants I have ever met. She currently serves as Council Vice-President and seeks re-election.

Jodi Frank served the town for six years as a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission, putting her Ph.D. in Kinesiology to good use by working on improvements in Ninigret Park and Charlestown’s public lands. She is currently finishing up her B.S. in Nursing and will be an RN early in 2021.  

I met Scott Keeley 15 years ago and have always loved his humor and breadth of knowledge. I admire the way he has taken on the issue of the people’s right to use the beach despite efforts by non-resident beachfront property owners to deny access.

For the past decade, Charlestown has been controlled by a single party: the Charlestown Citizens Alliance that was spawned by the Rhode Island Shoreline Coalition with its focus on the interests of absentee land-owners. They have raised our taxes just about every year since they’ve been in control, engaged in shady land deals, driven out small businesses and purged town commissions of anyone not a CCA loyalist.

Each election year, absentee property owners flood the CCA treasury with cash to try to sell Charlestown voters the same overblown story that we are under threat of unspeakable horrors to our rural way of life and only the CCA can keep us safe. You’ll see that message in the CCA flyers that will be filling your mailboxes.

It’s time to stop being driven by fear. We need to focus on positive ways to move forward: fair taxes, sensible land use, choosing qualified people for town boards and commissions and using town resources to help our community cope with the problems caused by the pandemic and a badly damaged economy.

I know Deb Carney, Jodi Frank and Scott Keeley are the best qualified people on the ballot to get the job done. I urge you to vote for them when you cast your ballot – by mail or in person - in this year’s election.

EXCLUSIVE: Outside money pours into the CCA Party

UPDATED: 2016 Edition of “Who owns the CCA?”

By Will Collette

On the campaign trail with the CCA

UPDATED WITH A FIXED BROKEN LINK. The original link posted sent you to the wrong article. Corrected link is below. Sorry for the error. - WC

I haven’t written much about town elections here in Charlestown. What’s the point? The Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) is guaranteed to emerge from the November election as the continued master of Charlestown municipal government, winning their 5^th election in a row.

Currently, the CCA Party controls every elected seat in Charlestown. Eleven of those seats will be on the ballot on November 8: five Town Council seats, four for Planning Commission, one for Chariho School Committee and the Town Moderator.

Every candidate but one (corrected link: CLICK HERE) is running on the CCA Party ticket. Unless some miraculous and improbable write-in campaign occurs, the only question is whether the CCA Party will control all five Town Council seats or “just” a 4 to 1 majority.

That means a guarantee that decisions on town policy will continue to be made in secret, in the private monthly meetings of the CCA Party Steering Committee which includes key members of the Town Council, Planning Commission, Budget Commission and Zoning Board of Review. Here is an internet tool to help you find out where those meetings are held. (Ok, that was just for fun; the monthly meetings actually rotate among the homes of the respective steering committee members.)

The town election was basically OVER when candidates filed their declarations last June.

Nonetheless, the CCA Party is raising an amazing amount of money for a small town election as if it faced a serious challenge.

They have always been good at that. They generally don’t raise money until the last six months before a general election and then mostly in October. That’s when they count on big checks from the non-resident property owners who have pretty much set the CCA Party’s agenda since 2008.

More than half of the CCA Party’s funding comes from non-residents. That has been the case in the past (click HERE for 2012 and HERE for 2014) and it continues to be the case this year.

Carrying a balance of almost $5000 into this election year, the CCA Party started raising money at mid-year, bringing in $7,169. Of that, $3,450 was in the form of checks of $100 or more written to the CCA Party by people who DO NOT call Charlestown home.

Check for yourself by going to the Rhode Island Board of Elections website where you can read the CCA Party’s campaign finance reports written by none other than Deputy Dan Slattery (right) who is now CCA Party Treasurer. CLICK HERE for July and CLICK HERE for the October 7 report.

Some additional portion of the money that came in unattributed amounts less than $100 had to have also come from non-residents.

The CCA Party’s fund-raising report for October, the month where they usually bring in the greatest amount of money, is not due to be filed until November 1. Expect the non-resident totals to climb.

And for what? The CCA Party is pretty much guaranteed continued control of town government.

But there is a reason.

VIDEO: Rhody Righties go nuts over "Be Nice"

Right-wingers are complaining about this video from the Rhode Island Foundation. Big surprise.
By Will Collette 

To watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9kIPpaAwJs

This video was produced by the privately funded Rhode Island Foundation as part of a campaign to focus Rhode Islanders' attention on how to handle the challenges that face us.

This video uses actual tweets by Rhode Islanders complaining about this or that - yeah, we Rhode Islanders do that a lot - read by kids who then deliver a pretty clear message: instead of just complaining, do something.

GoLocalProv, a conservative-leaning website, devoted a full article to airing out the gripes by our Rhode Island right-wing intelligentsia against this anti-griping video.

They quote Mike Stenhouse, CEO of the RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity (and Free Clamcakes):

When is Charlestown’s turn? NEVER, while the CCA is in power

General Assembly paves the way for tax break for Narragansett residents

Charlestown Democrats proposed a similar measure to give a tax break to year-round Charlestown residents. The Charlestown Citizens Alliance and the RI Stateside Coalition organized “The Riot of the Rich” which brought in non-resident beach property owners and their CCA supporters to the Council chambers to denounce the tax break as an affront to the American way of life. Of course, the CCA-controlled Town Council would not even consider the proposal that would have saved the average working family in Charlestown hundreds of dollars off their property tax bill. Those bills, by the way, will be arriving in your mail box soon.

The General Assembly has passed legislation introduced by Sen. James C. Sheehan (D-Dist. 36, Narragansett, North Kingstown) and Rep. Carol Hagan McEntee (D-Dist. 33, Narragansett, South Kingstown) that would allow a homestead tax exemption in the town of Narragansett.

“Some 10 cities and towns have been permitted to implement a homestead exemption in their communities,” said Senator Sheehan. 

“When implemented, it is anticipated that homestead exemption will provide very modest property tax relief for homeowners, while slightly increasing the property tax rate on rental properties.  However, the commercial property tax rate is expected to be significantly reduced.  This should help local businesses and provide a much-needed economic boost to the community.”   

The exemption would apply to home-owning taxpayers who actually reside at the taxable property. The bill would cap any exemption adopted by the town council at 10 percent. The council would be responsible for enacting any rules and regulations to govern the exemption.

What's NOT in the Charlestown budget

Full time residents in Narragansett will get a tax break but not in Charlestown

By Will Collette

"I just love Charlestown where us summer people are treated like kings"

In 2011, Charlestown Democrats optimistically proposed a property tax reform that is pretty common in Rhode Island and elsewhere in the US, especially in municipalities with large percentages of part-time owners: the Homestead Tax Credit.

Charlestown, like other towns, already gives tax credits to veterans, the blind and disabled, low-income senior citizens, private owners of farms, woodland and open space, and to religious and non-profit groups.

So why not give a tax credit to those of us who make Charlestown our home? Well, that proposal for tax relief for Charlestown residents went down to crashing defeat in an event often referred to as “The Riot of the Rich.”

Scores of non-residents and supporters organized by the RI Statewide Coalition and its spawn the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party), stormed the Town Council chambers. They condemned the idea of making our summer beach front property owners pay a little more to give Charlestown working families a break as the worst thing since the Russian Revolution.

Soon to be $10.22 under the proposed budget up for a vote on Monday

All this despite the carefully researched presentation by the Charlestown Democrats showing that the concept was well-tested, compatible with Charlestown’s existing system of tax exemptions and actually very modest in cost.

The fact that most of the campaign funding for the Charlestown Citizens Alliance comes from non-residents may have had something to do with the CCA Party's violent reaction.

I started thinking about that awful experience as I looked carefully at Charlestown’s new budget which is coming up for a vote on Monday. 

It contains the eighth consecutive property tax rate hike, one in each year the CCA Party has controlled town government.

I also received the following news release that reported how the town of Narragansett, with demographics similar to Charlestown, is about to give its citizens a Homestead tax break. Enabling legislation by their state Representative Carol Hagan McEntee has passed the House and is heading for likely Senate approval.

Read this:

RI Taxpayers – the old RI Statewide Coalition – goes out of business

Conservative activist group RI Taxpayers ceases operation

By Steve Ahlquist in Rhode Island’s Future with added notes from Will Collette

In an email to members, RI Taxpayers, one of the key conservative organizations in the state, announced that they are ceasing operations due to the death of their founder Harry Staley and budget shortfalls.

NOTE: RI Taxpayers started out as the RI Shoreline Coalition and was based in Shelter Harbor. It was founded to defend the privileges of wealthy non-resident property owners. It later added open hostility to the Narragansett Indian Tribe. 

For years, they were headquartered here in Charlestown.

It changed its name to the RI Statewide Coalition and, while retaining a special interest in non-residents’ “rights” and animus toward the Tribe, it began pushing for election of right-wing candidates, attacked state expenditures, hated unions in general and public employees in particular and fought against any and all taxes.  – Will Collette

Justin Katz, writing on the conservative Ocean State Current, lamented the passing of RI Taxpayers but said, “While it’s discouraging to watch one of the key players on our side fall off the board, time may prove that resources and talent can be salvaged and won’t be lost.”

The memo, copied below, was signed by President Larry Girouard and Chairman Larry Fitzmorris.

Addresses of convenience

There’s a persistent belief that you can pick and choose where you vote or run for office

By Will Collette

Flip isn't the only one who is
flexible about where he lives

A similar version of this article appeared in Rhode Island’s Future (click here)

One of the nice things about owning several properties is that when it comes to politics, you have lots of choices about where you can say you live. I’m not talking about the formal definition of legal residence, but “addresses of convenience.”

Having an address of convenience gives you the choice of where to vote or where to run for office. You can shop around to find the most advantageous choice. Not necessarily a legal choice, but one that is rarely ever challenged.

Indeed, all along the Rhode Island coast, we see towns where the total number of registered voters exceeds the total number of adults over the age of 18. As of last election day, Charlestown had 6,401 registered voters even though the 2010 Census listed only 6,278 adults over 18[1] – and in the years following the Census, Charlestown lost population.

We have lots of examples among candidates too, such as Republican Kernan “Kerry” King who ran against Gina Raimondo for General Treasurer in 2010 even though King[2] was actually a legal resident of Florida and was even collecting a $50,000 a year homestead property tax exemption on his Sarasota County home. He was claiming his Saunderstown house as his legal residence on his campaign declaration.

In my state Representative District (36), we now have a carpetbagger state Representative, a Tea Party Libertarian named Blake Filippi. 

Filippi claims he lives in his mother’s house on Block Island even though he has listed his mother’s house in Lincoln as his legal address on dozens of legal documents including his Massachusetts lawyer’s license. 

Filippi told Bob Plain, the editor of Rhode Island’s Future, that he is currently living in a Providence apartment.

However, Filippi fits right into the Block Island electoral landscape. The island has almost twice as many people registered to vote as the number of adults over 18 listed by the census. When the island took its annual resident head-count on February 2, the tally was 930. The Providence Journal reported on November 3 that Block Island has the highest percentage of voters who list an out-of-state mailing address. If they included people like Flip who live in another part of the state, that percentage would be a lot higher.

Addresses of convenience. It’s nice to be able to pick and choose. It’s not just Republicans and Libertarians that do it; Democrats also do it.

Charlestown taxpayers pay more to fight the Narragansett Indian Tribe

New bills from town’s Indian fighter shows cost spike

By Will Collette

"Circle the wagonss!!!!"

For years, even before there was a Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party), Charlestown’s landed gentry have dragged the town into seemingly endless conflict with the Narragansett Indian Tribe. 

They’ve never gotten over the Tribe’s 1975 effort to gain back the land that was stolen from the Tribe by some of the old-name families in Charlestown and the settlement agreement that gave the Tribe the core of the lands they own in Charlestown.

Since the settlement, town leaders have taken every action they can to prevent the Tribe from doing anything that might bring some measure of prosperity to tribal members. Though their total war against the Tribe is cloaked as opposition to a casino in Charlestown, the town actually worked to block the Tribe from getting a casino elsewhere which would have been in their self-interest, as well as Charlestown’s. But if the Tribe had built the casino they proposed in West Warwick or bought Twin River in Lincoln, they would have gained economic power that some here in Charlestown find intolerable.

The RI Shoreline Coalition (now called RI Taxpayers) and the nascent CCA Party have turned their animus toward the Tribe into a science as well as an obsession.

This is how the town initially "complied" with my open
records act request for copies of Larisa's bills

And we, as taxpayers, get to pay for it. The town retains a special counsel for such matters, “Injun Joe” Larisa, who receives a base retainer of $24,000 a year plus expenses, plus additional charges if he has to do more than just read articles on-line.

I had to fight the Town and Larisa just to get the town to reveal Larisa’s bills. At first, the Town sought to meet its obligations under the state’s open records act by sending me bills with everything blacked out (see sample, right). But on appeal, the town (and Larisa) realized that while they may think they are simply protecting state secrets, the Attorney General was going to give them a spanking.

It used to be that Larisa turned in his bills every two months like clock-work, but that changed when I would actually publicize what was in those bills. The interval changed and just now, the Town has turned over six months’ worth of Larisa bills that cover July through December 2014. Click here to see those bills.

The CCA Plan for Prosperity – for some

Let them do odd jobs for the summer people!

Even the kids can help bring in family income by doing yard work for
the folks down in Quonnie

By Neniu Sciu

I’ve long since forgotten most of what the late, great Harry Staley, godfather of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party), said that night back in December of 2011 when he drove here in his Lexus[1] to orchestrate the Riot of the Rich to drive a stake into the heart of the Democrats’ proposed homestead exemption. 

But I do distinctly recall how he bellowed threats against the town if we dared to enact such a proposal, including withdrawing donations to local nonprofits[2] and refusing to hire locals[3] for home-repair and improvement jobs on the oceanfront mansions. If you were there that night and heard a “thud” at that point, it was my jaw landing on the floor. I never expected rich people would ever do their own dirty work like that, frankly.

But I’ve since learned that in Plantation Charlestown, the rich folk aren’t like normal rich folk.

Fast-forward to this week and the arrival in my mailbox of the six-page glossy[4] campaign mailer from the CCA Party, the official mouthpiece of the beachfront property owners. On first glance, much of it appeared to be boilerplate from 2012, the usual Pablum®. And I completely understand if most of you didn’t actually read it all; as the kids say, tl;dr[5]. But one tidbit immediately sent me time-traveling back to that painful night in 2011:

Seasonal homes provide the largest income stream to the town in the form of property taxes paid against low demand for services.[6] Those same summer homes that subsidize our tax base[7] also provide jobs to skilled workers for maintenance and remodeling. It is an economic model that other towns in Rhode Island envy.

Holy crap, I thought to myself. The CCA Party has finally come out of the closet about their endorsement of the Staley employment plan. Harry must be smiling down on them from up in heaven.[8]

Charlestown Taxes and the Election

Middle-class homeowners deserve a break

By Will Collette

Since the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) took control of Charlestown town government in 2008, we have had six straight property tax hikes, despite healthy surpluses. If the CCA Party is returned to power in November, expect tax increases #7 and #8 over the next two years.

However, the one time the CCA Party’s constituents raised a ruckus about taxes was in December 2011 when they grabbed their pitchforks and torches to support the town’s beachfront absentee property owners in opposing a Homestead Tax Credit proposal by town Democrats.

From the Charlestown Tax Assessor website

The Homestead Credit would have lowered taxes for most town residents, especially middle-class permanent residents, at the cost of a slight increase on million dollar properties owned largely by non-residents[*].

But not a Peep® out of them as the CCA Party took the town’s tax rate from $7.16 per $1000 of home value to $9.46. That’s a rate increase of 32%!

And contrary to what the CCA Party says, Charlestown DOES NOT have one of the state’s lowest tax rates (despite offering almost zero municipal services, as they even admit in their latest campaign mailing) – GoLocalProv’s research ranked Charlestown as #20 out of RI’s 39 cities and towns.

Screenshot from GoLocal. Note the footnote that levies for local fire
districts are not included. If they were, our ranking would be much
worse. Bottom line: the CCA claim about low taxes is false.

The reasons for the tax hikes – despite regular surpluses far in excess of what are needed to protect our credit rating – is the CCA Party choice to spend down the surpluses by (a) paying cash for capital projects that could have been financed with long-term, low-interest bonds; (b) paying off some bonds before they were due and (c) buying property, such as the $2.1 million expenditure for the land where developer Larry LeBlanc had proposed to build a wind turbine project or affordable housing.

So why no ruckus?