Monday: Town Hall with Charlestown legislators Sen. Victoria Gu and Rep. Tina Spears

The Bills, the Buzz, and the Big Decisions: RI’s Legislative Year in Review

Join State Senator Victoria Gu and Representative Tina Spears for a lively discussion on what bills passed in the State House, what stalled, how the new laws could impact our community, and give your feedback on priorities for next year. 

Topics include: environment & shoreline access, healthcare, housing, education & technology

 Date: Monday July 7th

 Time: 6-7:30pm

 Location: Quonochontaug Grange Hall, 5662 Post Road, Charlestown, RI, 02813

Chasing the wind energy boogeyman

General Assembly to Study Marine Impacts of Turbines

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

In case you were interested, Charlestown's Tina Jackson (left) thinks
wind turbines are bad

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article marks the apparent return of one of Charlestown's strangest political figures - Tina Jackson, whose 2012 failed attempt to defeat Charlestown's much respected former state Representative Donna Walsh is the stuff of legends. 

Despite multiple arrests and convictions for drugs, bad checks and assault, Jackson claims she was just the right person to represent Charlestown. Voters didn't agree.

The legacy of Jackson's campaign lives on in the form of $50,088 in unpaid fines for violations of Rhode Island's campaign finance law. Click here to read my wrap-up article on Jackson's 2012 escapades that included losing the corporate charter for the fishermen's group that she headed - presumably the base of expertise she draws on for her comments in this article. - Will Collette

The House of Representative is set to authorize a study to determine if offshore wind facilities are killing whales and other sea life.

The sponsor of the proposed legislative commission, Rep. Sherry Roberts, R-West Greenwich, sought the study after a juvenile humpback whale washed ashore in Jamestown in June 2017.

The story received international attention after conservative media websites publicized speculation that the Block Island Wind Farm was to blame for the whale’s death.

Former commercial fisherman and Republican political candidate Tina Jackson of Charlestown is convinced the five turbines are to blame for killing the whale. She said she warned the community that Deepwater Wind's Block Island Wind Farm would hurt the environment. She has offered no proof.

“And look what happened. Sure enough within five months of Deepwater (Wind) going on-line there were seven whale deaths and two turtle fatalities. There hasn’t been seven dead whales in a decade, let alone in five months’ time. So it’s clear that the turbines are a problem. It’s the only logical reason for the tragedy.”

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]

Ethics, Morality and the CCA Party

Avoiding the appearance of conflict of interest…by not disclosing it.

CCA Party Town Council candidate owns an OIL WELL? Read on.

By Will Collette

In an earlier article by my colleague Bob Yarnall, we covered the significant differences between what the two Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) candidates for Chariho School Committee said on their CCA Party biographies compared to what they reported to the RI Ethics Commission.

Click here to read Bob’s entire article, but in a nutshell, both candidates, Donna Chambers and Ron Areglado, have some explaining to do about these blatant inconsistencies—especially given that Areglado calls himself the president of something called the Center for Ethical and Moral Leadership (which may or may not exist - sort of like Blake Filippi's RI Liberty Coalition).

But the CCA Party slate’s problems with the RI Ethics Commission are broader than resume inflation.

Three additional members of the CCA Party ticket for 2014 appear to be in violation of the state’s ethics laws by failing to disclose what they need to disclose.

Full disclosure is important to open and transparent government. Disclosures tell us a lot about potential conflicts of interest. And the CCA Party trumpets their high ethical standards and their devotion to open and transparent government every chance they get.

For example, before the CCA Town Council majority had launched its attack on the state Water Resources Board for their effort to buy undeveloped land owned by the Glista Family to protect the water below it, it would have been nice to know that Town Council Boss Tom Gentz has invested in the American Water Works Company, one of the nation’s largest private water system developers.

That may explain why Gentz and his CCA Party colleagues tried so hard to characterize the state Water Resources Board land purchase as a precursor to a public water supply.

Campaign fund raising chess match

CCA Party fat cat donors laying low

Here they come!

By Will Collette

The Charlestown Citizens Alliance emerged on Charlestown’s political landscape in 2006. They seized control of town government in 2008. All that time, the CCA Party has had two keys to victory – spreading fear across the community of some boogeyman that only the CCA can defeat, and big bucks mostly from its non-resident supporters.

The new campaign finance reports are in and they show the CCA Party with little money in the bank – only $2,228.18 after spending $882.06 on “Directors & Officers” insurance to cover their leaders, presumably their steering committee, from liability for their actions. 

That insurance, by the way, is a smart move since the CCA’s main method of spreading fear is to tell lies. Sooner or later, those lies are going to come back and bite them in the ass.

In the past two election cycles, the CCA Party has violated their own sacred oaths about transparency and honesty when it came to reporting their campaign finances.

In 2010, the CCA Party hid most of their income and expenses by having CCA Party leaders fund campaign activities out of their own pockets. They spent more than $10,000, many times more than all their opponents combined, but reported hardly any income or expenses under after the election. 

Then, on Election Day, the CCA Party leaders turned in their expenses and got reimbursement checks.

The Charlestown Democratic Town Committee filed a complaint with the Board of Elections, which upheld the Democrats’ complaint, ruling that the CCA Party did indeed illegally cover up their income and expenses.

In 2012, the CCA Party tried a new wrinkle. This time they reported their income and expenses in a timely fashion, but listed their non-resident donors’ addresses not by their actual residence, but by their Charlestown vacation home.

How are property values determined at Charlestown’s “fake” Fire Districts?

Why they taxed so much lower than you

A conversation with Charlestown Tax Assessor Ken Swain

By Will Collette

Tennis courts owned by the Quonochontaug Central Fire District.
A total of 12.72 prime acres assessed at only $89,800

Now that we’ve all gotten our new Charlestown property tax bills and now must figure out how to pay them, it’s time to revisit some baffling questions about how the property assessments that drive your tax bills get formulated. 

By the way, even though you just got your tax bill and it says it is due on August 1 - this Friday - note that you are not delinquent until September 1. You've got 30 days grace to make the payment.

A few weeks ago, I reported on the local phenomenon of fake Fire Districts. These are shoreline neighborhoods that have managed to get chartered as fire districts even though they have no fire houses, fire equipment or fire fighters. Two of them are in Charlestown - the Quonochontaug Central Fire District and the Shady Harbor Fire District.

Instead of fire services, these two Fire Districts have accumulated a lot of prime shore property that now contain a couple of well-heads so they can supply their neighborhoods with public drinking water, beaches, docks and moorings, tennis courts and recreational areas. The Fire Districts also contract with Dunn’s Corner Fire District to actually provide fire protection. They also collect trash, maintain and plow roads and would probably walk your dog or give you a mani-pedi if you asked them. They roll all of these services and amenities up into the Fire District Tax they charge residents.

That makes those fire district taxes higher than, for example, those households covered by the Charlestown Fire District. But those fire district fees - and all they include - are treated like property tax and are deductible from state and federal income tax – other Charlestown citizens can’t deduct their trash fees, snow-plowing, costs of maintaining their wells, road maintenance, club memberships, mooring fees, etc. from their income taxes.

Adding to the deal, the properties owned by Shady Harbor and Quonochontaug Central are barely being taxed at all by the town of Charlestown. All of Shady Harbor’s holdings are exempt from Charlestown property tax. While Quonochontaug Central does pay some Charlestown property taxes, the assessments on its prime properties is, at least to me, shocking.

Money and Charlestown politics

The calm before the storm

By Will Collette

In Charlestown, campaign season starts for real when candidates must declare their intentions in late June. But between each general election and that declaration, Charlestown political groups position themselves by trying to raise money, with varying degrees of success.

There are only five active campaign committees in Charlestown among the dozens listed on the Board of Elections website: the Committee to Elect Rep. Donna Walsh (D), Tina Jackson (R) for State Representative, the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) and the Charlestown Republican Town Committee.

Four of these five active campaign groups filed campaign finance disclosure reports with the Board of Elections for the first quarter of 2014. Only Republican Tina Jackson failed to file, earning her yet another BOE violation, her eighth such violation in a row. According to the Board of Election’s list of delinquencies for March, Jackson owed the BOE fines totaling $4,031. The fines accumulate daily and Jackson is moving up the list (she’s now on page 2 of 5 pages).

The RISC-PAC of the RI Statewide Coalition, long based in Charlestown but now in West Warwick under the name Rhode Island Taxpayers, owes $4,319 in fines as of March.

Charlestown Tapas

Ten Tasty news nuggets for Progressive Charlestown readers

By Will Collette

Red light cameras slow in coming, but coming

When Tom and I first started Progressive Charlestown, we did so just in time to cover two big summer issues in 2011. One was the proposal to build new beach facilities at Charlestown’s two town beaches to replace the dilapidated facilities we had. 

The other was the proposal by now retired Police Chief Jack Shippee to find a vendor who would install red light cameras at Charlestown’s Route One intersections.

Both efforts were vehemently opposed by the Charlestown Citizens Alliance and its legion on anonymous commenters in its “Voices of Greed” screed. Voters didn’t listen and approved the money for the beach facilities which look great and are an asset to Charlestown’s tourist economy.

In May 2012, the Town Council approved a contract with Sensys, a company they picked because they thought it was Rhode Island-based, but is actually a Swedish company with its US headquarters in Florida. You gotta love Town Council Boss Tom Gentz’s due diligence skills.

Anyway, the deal was inked and has since overcome a series of obstacles. Among them was getting RI Transportation Department approval since all of the sites are on Route One, a state road. After another year passed, finally, RIDOT gave its go-ahead.

Final campaign finance reports for 2013 filed with the Board of Elections

Here’s how Charlestown money and politics shapes up so far

By Will Collette

As much as we like it to be otherwise, money is an essential part of our political process. It costs money to reach voters and while “retail” politics of going door-to-door is critical, so is advertising.

The 2013 election in Charlestown was won by the Charlestown Citizens Alliance through their ability to raise almost $20,000 during the cycle, 60% of it from non-residents. While the Charlestown Democrats raised a respectable $11,000-plus, almost all from Charlestown residents, the CCA’s ability to get rich shoreline property owners to write big checks made the difference.

That’s the way it has been in the past three election cycles, each won by the CCA Party with its out of state backers.

The deadline for filing end-of-year 2013 reports was January 31^st. I have reviewed the filings by candidates and political groups who either represent Charlestown or are based here. I have also provided links to their official filings with the Board of Elections so you can review those reports for yourself.

Charlestown Tapas

• Good news - No bloodshed at Chariho meeting
• New neighbor – Manda Panda?
• Frank Maher as a campaign manager?
• NRA-RI takes another hit
• “Got Smarties®?
• How the other side lives

By Will Collette

Chariho omnibus meeting ends without arrests or serious injury

Representatives from Charlestown, Richmond and Hopkinton managed to get together in one room on January 15 to discuss their “differences” about the funding and operations ofthe Chariho School District without shots being fired. 

Charlestown Town Councilor Dan Slattery (CCA Party) managed to restrain himself to simply making snarling remarks about Richmond Town Council President Joe Reddish’s effort to get the towns to discuss changes to the Chariho Act. 

I had heard some rumors about minor injuries to people sitting near Slattery when bristles flew off his brush-cut during some of the more heated exchanges.

Progressive Charlestown predictions for 2014

Some of this stuff could really happen. Seriously.

New director of the Charlestown's Department of Mulch and
Shrubbery Enforcement. Read on to find out who it is.

By Ann Nonimus

It’s time once again for Progressive Charlestown’s annual forecast of things to come. Though we try our best to come up with accurate predictions, an objective review of the record shows that we haven’t done all that well.

For example, of our 31 predictions for 2013, only a few actually happened. Like, for instance, the town did hire as new Town Administrator a Furby programed to say “Yes, Tom, whatever you want.” 

Peter Herstein (CCA Party) did get appointed to the Planning Commission, but no, a bald eagle did not carry him off before he could be sworn in.

CCA Town Councilor George Tremblay did not get the Nobel Prize for Economics. No, Councilor Lisa DiBello did not settle her lawsuit and is still suing Charlestown in the hope of a $1.5 million settlement. First term Planning Commissioner Connie Baker did not get the Planning Commission to shorten meetings or extend breaks to accommodate her sleep schedule.

Charlestown’s Comprehensive Plan is still not done so our prediction that they would get it done but then not let anyone else see it hasn’t happened. Yet. Charlestown did not secede from the rest of Rhode Island. Charlestown voting rights are still not apportioned according to the value of the property you own (yet).

So our 2013 predictions really sucked, although we did way better than Rev. Harold Camping. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to quit trying. With a spirit of optimism, we predict that in 2014….

Tina Jackson admits ethics violation

Another fine added to the others arising from her 2012 campaign

Also: Jackson stiffs Charlestown Fire District on taxes - Dec. 10 tax auction

Tina Jackson: admits she violated Ethics law

By Will Collette

In the 2012 campaign, Republican Tina Jackson of Charlestown ran against incumbent Democratic state Representative Donna Walsh for the right to represent all of Charlestown and Block Island, plus portions of Westerly and South Kingstown.

Jackson got thumped. Voters chose Donna Walsh’s proven record of long and faithful service to the community over Tina Jackson’s long and impressive record of arrests and convictions for drugs, bad checks and assault that was revealed in the Westerly Sun and GoLocalProv.

Jackson later was picked by the outgoing Republican state Party Chair to pull a coup d’etat over the existing Republican Town Committee. Jackson’s attempted takeover of the Charlestown Republicans was based on a claim they were not duly registered, even though they were, and that they were inactive, which they weren’t.

VIDEO: The campaign so far, Part 1

Like it or not, the 2014 election campaign has already begun

By Will Collette

Although so many Americans decry our state of perpetual political warfare, it’s a reality that the next campaign season began the night the election results from the last election were announced.

Even in our sleepy little burg, the town’s two main parties, the controlling Charlestown Citizens Alliance Party (CCA) and its nemesis, the Charlestown Democrats began preparing for the next election as soon as the 2010 votes were counted. 

Now, we face the calendar reality that we are one year away, almost to the day, from going to the polls again.

This is the first of a two-part series on where Campaign 2014 stands one year away from Election Day.

Charlestown short takes

• Gov notes
• Mulch from above?
• Kittens doing well
• Fight, fight!
• Energy Note – winter heating prices; green energy; Tina Jackson fail; greasy energy
• Hats for birds

By Will Collette

Town Gov: The November Town Council meeting will be on Tuesday, November 12, bumped one day because of the Veterans’ Day holiday….The town now offers you a way to get e-mails notifying you of proposed changes to the town’s ordinances that affect zoning and businesses. Click here to sign up for notices. 

This new e-mail message system is in partial atonement for the Council and Planning Commission getting publicly hammered for trying – again – to slip two more ordinances through that will hurt local businesses. One regulates mulch and shrubs. The other regulates parking. Click here and here to read about these two terrible ordinances…Incidentally, these two ordinances have been postponed for consideration until the December Town Council meeting. Planning Commissar Ruth Platner is counting on town residents’ notoriously short attention spans.

Can you apply mulch from a helicopter?

Our CCA Party dominated town government and has spent a lot of time over the past five years figuring out how to regulate almost every tiny detail of life in Charlestown.

RI Ethics Commission rules Tina Jackson violated state ethics law

GOP candidate for state Representative racks up more violations

By Will Collette

When you've been arrested and convicted for as many crimes as 2012 Republican House candidate and Charlestown Republican activist Tina Jackson has, obeying civil regulations and government rules seems to hold little meaning.

I recently reported that Jackson has now failed to file the last five campaign finance disclosure reports and now owes fines of just under $1600 to the state Board of Elections.

I just received a letter from the RI Ethics Commission notifying me that they have upheld my complaint against Jackson for failing to file the required annual financial disclosure form that all candidates for public office must file. Though that complaint took a while to reach that point, this one was a slam dunk since (a) Tina Jackson was a candidate for public office (and her campaign committee is still active, according to the Board of Elections); (b) candidates must file financial disclosure reports and (c) she didn’t.

Charlestown chunks

• Whalerock finale approaches
• NK Green – no complaints
• Tina Jackson racks up the fines
• RISC silent on six straight years of Charlestown tax increases
• Charlestown unemployment jets up
• Bogus Obamacare phone calls

Last chapter in Charlestown’s Moby Dick tale?

TONIGHT, Thursday, August 22 at 7:00 at the Charlestown Elementary School, the Town Council will conduct its long-awaited hearing on the question of buying the site of the proposed Whalerock wind farm. 

For three years, the town has been in turmoil over this project. For many years before that, various plans for the land by developer Larry LeBlanc have stirred up high emotion.

At this point, Charlestown seems to be close to a consensus that buying that land for open space – proposed price: $2,114,400 – is the best way to go. Unsettled: whether the Town Council majority will honor past precedent and their own promises by giving Charlestown voters the last word through a special referendum. And now the Planning Commission has added a new wrinkle that could unravel the emerging consensus.

Charlestown political news briefs

• Congratulations, Mike!
• New campaign finance reports are filed, except for Tina Jackson’s
• CCA Party doubles down on its campaign against children
• Good news, bad news: Uptick in property values, but global warming will wipe out beach properties
• Charlestown unemployment rate drops
• Charlestown rep takes over as Chariho chair
• Check’s in the mail for Westerly, South County Hospitals

Mike Dowdell (photo by Ivan Sieckowski, Coventry CT)

By Will Collette

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of Charlestown politics, congrats to local surfer dude Mike Dowdell for winning the third leg of the North East Skim Tour Contest in Seabrook, NH. 

The tour had its second annual outing in Charlestown on June 30. 

Campaign finance reports show little local fund-raising 

The July 31 campaign disclosure filings with the RI Board of Elections show that the three major parties in Charlestown – the dominant Charlestown Citizens Alliance Party, the Democrats and the Republicans – had a slow quarter.

Election 2014 launched with big campaign donation from Gentz

New York money manager also adds to the CCA Party’s coffers.

By Will Collette

Even though the next election is more than a year and a half away, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance is already starting its major fund-raising.

In the 2012 election cycle, more than 60% of the CCA Party’s funding came from out-of-state donors who were misleadingly listed on the CCA’s campaign finance reports as Charlestown residents. The CCA Party used the addresses of their "summer cottages" as their home addresses.

Most of the balance of the CCA Party budget came from major donations from its well-heeled supporters, most of whom live south of Route One. I documented this in detail in “Who Owns the CCA?”

The new quarterly campaign finance reports have been filed and they show this pattern is continuing.

The CCA Party report, filed on April 13, shows the CCA has a cash balance of $4,439.70. The CCA collected $1,000 from Tom and Mary Lou Gentz. Gentz, a former health insurance executive, is also Town Council president and a steering committee member for the CCA Party. The Gentzs own two residences off West Beach Road assessed at a combined total of $1,249,200.

Tina Jackson learns there ARE consequences to ignoring the law

Thrown out of Deepwater proceedings

Tina Jackson - Above the law?

By Will Collette

Occasional Progressive Charlestown contributor Tracey O’Neill now has a major gig reporting for GoLocalProv.com and already she’s cranking out some impressive articles.

Her recent article on the long, long saga of Deepwater Wind’s efforts to set up an experimental off-shore wind farm near Block Island caught the attention of both Tom Ferrio and me. It’s a good article (click here to read), but it was a short tidbit it contains that has the most local interest.

In that article, Tracey notes that the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) had recently denied “intervenor” status to several groups for lack of standing.

One group, the American Alliance for Fishermen and their Communities (AAFC), not only lacked standing, but also no longer had the right to operate in the state of Rhode Island. The AAFC is the lobbying organization run by Tina Jackson who ran and lost against Rep. Donna Walsh in the election for House District 36.

Was there voter fraud at the RIGOP Convention?

Did Charlestown GOP votes make the difference?

By Will Collette

The successor to State Republican Chair Mark Zaccaria was supposed to have been picked at the GOP State Convention on March 21^st, but Zaccaria declared the convention vote was nullified.

It seems that Mark Smiley beat Zaccaria’s hand-picked successor Dan Harrop by one vote.

However, when all the votes were counted, according to ABC6 and WPRO, there were 187 votes cast, but only 186 delegates who were registered to vote. WRNI reports the vote was a 94 to 93 vote, also in favor of Smiley over Harrop, and says the whole scene was “chaos.”

Based on the closeness of the count and this disparity, Zaccaria said that the parliamentarian recommended voiding the vote. 

Smiley declared winner after "investigation"

Compounding the chaos - and the bad media coverage that came from it - apparently Zaccaria decided to switch gears over the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, he announced in an e-mail that upon further "investigation," Smiley was the winner after all.

This closely fought battle to become the next captain of the RIGOP Titanic is rumored to be one of the reasons why Mark Zaccaria stuck his beak into Charlestown’s Republican politics. As I reported, Zaccaria recruited defeated state Representative candidate Tina Jackson to “re-organize” the town Republican Committee without consulting with the duly elected members of that Committee to find out if they wanted to be re-organized.