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?

Van Slyke ignores more than a decade of CCA’s corrupt and unethical political appointments

Slyke of Hand returns with another fact-challenged gripe from Bonnie Van Slyke

By Will Collette

The CCA's 2024 campaign slogan

Sometimes I feel sorry for the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA). For the first time since 2008 when the CCA won every Charlestown Town Council seat, they have NO CCA-endorsed candidates on the Council. Last November, Charlestown voters elected all five candidates endorsed by Charlestown Residents United (CRU) and rejected all five CCA candidates.

Even though I admit to being biased for CRU and against the CCA, I think the record shows that the Council under Deb Carney’s and Rippy Serra’s leadership has been doing a good job. A major example: the most recent report from the Rhode Island Auditor General shows huge improvements in Charlestown’s finances and fiscal management under the CRU’s leadership.

So I feel sorry the CCA has to twist facts and history like pretzels to come up with some issue that will help them recover their lost political mojo.

The latest is CCA mouthpiece Bonnie Van Slyke’s effort to turn a routine appointment to fill a vacancy on the Planning Commission into a crime against humanity. I've covered a number of previous Van Slyke tomes in the on-going "Slyke of Hand" series.

According to Van Slyke, the Council violated all that is sacred by appointing Laura Rom to fill Lisa St. Godard’s seat after St. Godard resigned just days after winning re-election.  Van Slyke said the appointment was the “reverse the will of the voters.”

Here is the CRU’s crime as presented by Van Slyke:

“For at least 30 years, and likely for the entire existence of the Planning Commission since 1982, resignations have been filled by moving up the elected members and then creating an empty spot at the bottom, in the position of the 2nd alternate. The 2nd-Alternate position is where all previous unelected appointments have been made.”

That's Ruth Platner on the left and her BFF
Bonnita Van Slyke on the right

Except this isn't true. We need to look back no further than 2018, when Van Slyke’s boss and soulmate Charlestown Planning Commissar Ruth Platner finished dead last in her re-election bid and by some miracle, she jumped the line from 2^nd alternate to retaining her position as Commission chair.

Van slyke says appointing Laura Rom to fill the vacancy violated the “will of the voters” especially because she finished last. So, Bonnie, please explain in non-weasel terms, Platner’s rise in 2018 from her last place finish at the polls to being given the top leadership spot.

Also false is Van Slyke’s claim that the CRU “Town Council ignored over 30 years of precedent in how to fill such a vacancy, ignored other language in the Charter that makes clear the intent for such appointments, and chose to reverse the will of the voters…”

In fact, there is no such provision in the Charter. When the Charlestown Charter Review Commission was working on proposals for changes to the Charter, they ASKED the Planning Commission and other town commissions what Charter changes they wanted on the 2024 ballot. Here was the opportunity for Platner and the Planning Commission to codify this sacred order of succession in the Charter. Instead, Platner and her minions responded with crickets.

Why did Platner take a pass? Simple: if this principle was in the Charter in 2018, Platner’s last-place finish at the polls would have cost her the Chair because she would be legally prohibited from jumping the line.

In fairness to Bonnie, just about all of the crazy stuff she claims originated in Ruth Platner’s letter to the Town Council (which was appended to Van Slyke’s article). As usual, Van Slyke did no fact-checking of her own and just went with Boss Platner’s polemic. 

Do as we say, not as we do: a history of CCA political patronage

Patronage has been a hallmark of the CCA since its inception. They enthusiastically apply the spoils system of awarding positions based on political loyalty instead of merit while purging and punishing anyone – even their own people – for insufficient fealty to the CCA’s core principle of doing whatever Ruth Platner tells them.

2008-2010

At the top of this article, I noted that the newborn CCA swept the 2008 Council election and installed the first all-CCA Council.

By 2010, the CCA decided they needed to purge their own Council and ran a true-blue CCA slate to take them out. They succeeded in knocking out three of their own 2008 nominees and gave us the dynastic and spectacularly incompetent leadership of Boss Tom Gentz and his Deputy Dan Slattery.

Here's Deputy Dan Slattery out hustling the
secret anti-wind deal

Why did the CCA purge its own 2008 Council? Because the 2008 all-CCA Council failed to keep up with the CCA’s 180-degree flip-flop on the issue of wind energy. They thought the CCA was pro-wind, based on a November 2009 Council presentation by none other than Tom Gentz showing popular support for wind energy.

Gentz was also an enthusiastic supporter of a test facility called the “Met Tower that operated in Ninigret Park to explore the efficacy of land-based wind energy in Charlestown.

Little did the CCA Council know that CCA leaders Gentz and Deputy Dan had been secretly schmoozing the Sachem Passage Association to line up their financial and political support in return for the CCA declaring its unabashed opposition to the proposed Whalerock industrial wind project. The 2008 Council didn’t know about the secret deal-making and paid the price.

2013-2014

The next big purge also involved the Whalerock wind project and was done as a political favor to the Sachem Passage Association. The CCA targets were Zoning Board of Review members who were insufficiently willing to ignore zoning law to block Whalerock. So in 2014, in an incredible display of nastiness, the CCA dumped ZBR members Dick Frank and William Myers.

They were replaced with CCA stalwarts Cliff Vanover (Ruth Platner’s husband) and Mikey Chambers in a process that violated the Town Charter as well as the CCA’s own policy on appointments. Shortly after that, the CCA made another patronage appointment, naming the Sachem Passage Treasurer Joe Quadrato to the ZBR.

Having the Treasurers of both the CCA and Sachem Passage serving together on the Zoning board looks a lot like an aligning of political and financial interests.

These zoning board maneuvers followed the blatantly political patronage appointment in 2013 of Mikey’s wife Donna Chambers to represent the Chariho School Committee, a position she still holds.

2017-2019

Life-long Charlestown public servant
Frank Glista

Frank Glista wrote a letter to the Westerly Sun in July 2017, describing in detail how the CCA Town Council passed over eminently qualified candidates to bring in a group of CCA loyalists without proper qualifications.

They also blatantly ignored proper procedure. As Frank described it, Council member Steve Williams set the stage:

“He stated, and I quote, "Somebody's going to yell out, real quick, a name to be nominated and that will be the nomination.... I'd like to do a ballot."  Of course, at the council meeting, a name was yelled out, seconded and nominated.... done.  Douglas Randall IV was the new Parks and Recreation Commission appointee without any discussion or debate, no ballot and not one breath of consideration toward any of the other applicants.”

Frank continued, describing the unethical conduct of none other than Bonnie Van Slyke:

“We also learned that Town Council Member Bonnie Van Slyke had a conversation with Mr. Randall, a privilege that was provided only to him.  Again, in fairness all applicants should have been "interviewed" for a position, especially if you are not going to debate their application in public.”

He offered another example the CCA spoils system:

“Th[e] council had a past two term Town Council President apply for a position on the Parks and Recreation Commission and waited 5 months only to have that position filled by a CCA founding member who had applied one week before the appointment was made.”

Finally, Frank described how he himself had been blacklisted by the CCA.

In January 2018, Councilor Steve Williams, noted above, resigned from the Town Council. The all-CCA Town Council did not follow the sacred principle of succession. Instead of appointing the next highest 2016 vote getter, the late Robert Malin (D), to fill the vacancy, they installed CCA personality George Tremblay even though Tremblay didn’t even run in 2016.

2021

Freud knew what was going on

In 2021, the CCA gave us a reprise of their patronage abuse of the Zoning Board of Review, putting CCA loyalist Jim Abbott on the ZBR to fill a vacancy instead of moving up alternate Steve Stokes (now a Town Council member) who was next in line. Abbott was not on the ZBR. 

Bonnie Van Slyke also sought to purge Stokes by replacing him with Joe Pangborn even though Pangborn was not a ZBR member while Steve was. On a 3-2 vote, the Council kept Stokes in place.

I could go on and on to discuss how non-CCA commission members were purged on Parks & Recreation, Economic Improvement, Budget, Affordable Housing, and Conservation and replaced with often unqualified CCA loyalists.

Suffice to say that as usual, Van Slyke, Ruth Platner and the CCA are trying to win political capital by accusing others of offenses they themselves blatantly commit. Sigmund Freud called this “projection.”

Why raise issues that only spotlight your own malfeasance?

I don’t understand why Van Slyke brings up issues that call for a review of the CCA’s own conduct (including her's), other than she was told to by Platner. I understand the CCA needs something to kvetch about, but please quit making stuff up, especially when the facts are so overwhelming.

There’s a reason why Charlestown voters rejected Van Slyke’s 2024 bid to return to the Town Council, giving her a last-place finish – tenth in a field of ten. Platner scarcely did better, failing in her attempt to transition from Planning to the Town Council, finishing in ninth place. Take the hint, ladies.

You can do great things, Part 2

Take up important issues the CCA ignored

By Will Collette

Remember this guy? That's Phil Armeta who did
federal jail time for organized crime, owner of the
infamous Copar quarries in Westerly and Charlestown.
Even knowing Copar's background, ex-Town Administrator
Mark Stankiewicz issued Copar a business license.

Last night, I ran Part 1 of this series that focused on taxes and finances, issues of paramount concern to Charlestown voters and prime motivators for the town's rejection of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) and the election of a Town Council comprised totally of members endorsed by Charlestown Residents United (CRU).

CCA control was also diminished on the powerful Charlestown Planning Commission, the only planning body in Rhode Island that is still elected, not appointed.

In Part 2, there are some recommendations to the new Council for further changes that they can make to enrich the lives of Charlestown residents. 

The first addresses the rhetorical question of "Why do business with criminals?" The answer is that we shouldn't so let's look at our options.

Bad Actor Policy.

The town of Charlestown does business with a lot of businesses. We buy things, hire contractors, and issue permits and licenses. When it comes to contracts and purchases, Rhode Island courts have held that municipalities are not required to strictly take the lowest bid, but rather the lowest responsible bid.

The courts have left it to the municipalities to define what “responsible” means, granting wide discretion so long as the definition is fair and reasonable, not arbitrary and capricious.

I spent much of my working life doing background research on companies and gave this subject a lot of thought. In 2022, I wrote this article: Charlestown needs a “Bad Actor” ordinance. It details the various ways “bad actors” can be defined and stopped.

For starters, I suggest the Council initiates a policy committing Charlestown to only buying from responsible vendors and contractors while developing a more comprehensive approach that can also be applied to permits and licenses.

If we had a town Bad Actor prohibition, we could have quickly blocked the Dollar Store proposal over their health and safety as well as wage and hour violations and the Copar Quarry expansion into Charlestown over its environmental violations and ties to organized crime.

Residential Wind Power.

$225 on Amazon. That's not an endorsement but
a fact that there's a big market for small wind generators.

Despite an avowed conviction to fighting climate change through lessened use of fossil fuels, Charlestown effectively bans all wind energy of any size or type.

In 2011, Charlestown overreacted to developer Larry LeBlanc’s proposal to build two industrial sized wind turbines on what is now the Charlestown Moraine Preserve. In addition to spending $2.1 million to buy the land, Charlestown also enacted a draconian anti-wind power ordinance that creates so many town regulatory hurdles as to make it impossible for homeowners and small businesses to install small wind-to-energy devices.

Read HERE to see the details.

There is no rational scientific reason to treat small home or business wind installation any differently than the town treats residential solar panels or heat pumps where the town inspector checks to make sure the work done properly.

Arrowhead's wind turbine as art

Wind power tech has advanced to the point where many residential wind installations are not only silent and efficient but even beautiful. My favorite style are the vertical axis turbines that replace the spinning blades with what looks like a top spinning on a spindle.

Some models look a lot like the art installation Dr. Bruce Gouins installed on the grounds of Arrowhead Dental. When I first saw them, I loved the design but was disappointed that they didn’t generate electricity – a missed opportunity, in my opinion. However, if they were rigged for power, they’d be illegal under Charlestown’s existing law.

The part of the ordinance on small residential or small business wind power generators needs to be repealed posthaste.

RIPTA connection.  

Charlestown is the only RI municipality (except Block Island) that isn’t on a RIPTA bus route. Buses run regularly from Providence to Westerly, South Kingstown, Narragansett and URI and loop back. 

Why not change some of those bus routes to cross over through Charlestown? For example, the South Kingstown bus could go down Route One where we could have a bus stop anywhere along the state’s highway easement, continue to Westerly and then return to Providence.

The CRU majority already made a forward step by approving $30,000 in APRA funds, supplemented by $120,000 in state funds, for senior citizen transportation. 

The main reason Charlestown doesn’t have a bus stop is that the CCA didn’t want one. Ruth Platner explicitly said so in her Charlestown Comprehensive Plan and suggested that residents without cars can just call Uber. I’m not making this up.

How can we claim we care about the dangers posed to Charlestown by climate change and fail to make it easier for residents to use public transportation? It makes no more sense than Charlestown's ban on residential wind power.

The Town Council could simply pass a resolution calling on town staff to open up discussions with RIPTA or ask Senator Gu or Representative Spears to do so on our behalf.

Dark skies campaign.

Preserving Charlestown’s dark sky was the centerpiece of the CCA’s 2024 campaign. Obviously, the voters didn’t get it although, as a lifelong amateur star gazer, I appreciate our tiny patch of sky that is relatively free of the worst light pollution.

Even though our dark skies are popular, the Charlestown public has long resisted the CCA’s approach. In 2010, Planning Commissar Ruth Platner started out wanting to swing a heavy hammer by crafting a town ordinance that would micro-regulate all Charlestown outdoor lighting. Under her early versions, if you needed to change a lightbulb in an outside fixture, you would need to replace the fixture with a new, town-approved model.

Time and again, Ruth would come back with slightly modified versions, but still unacceptable versions. She finally ended up with an ordinance that was very narrowly focused yet still unenforceable.

Cheap and easy way to
retrofit outdoor flood lights

At the time, Charlestown’s well-respected zoning officer Joe Warner said the ordinance was strictly “complaint-driven” and that he refused to go out at night and into dark back yards to see if a light violated the town ordinance.

I offered some advice at the time – unheeded by the CCA – that Charlestown would get a better result by putting together some discount deals to abate the cost of retrofitting or set up a cooperative plan like Solarize Charlestown. One-time tax credits to offset the cost of major replacement or refitting would help.

Though our dark skies will never generate the lucrative “astro-tourism” failed CCA Council candidate Sarah Fletcher promises, nonetheless, I think it’s worth protecting just for our own enjoyment. But let’s try a different approach.

Fire Joe Larisa.

Once and for all, let’s end the town’s Indian Affairs lawyer Joe Larisa’s retainer. It’s an embarrassment and a major obstacle to healing the wounds between the town and the Narragansett Indian Tribe. Read HERE for more detail on why Charlestown should end his contract. 

Besides, Larisa has one foot out the door already. According to the Providence Journal, he is one of several Republicans well known in Charlestown vying for a job with the Trump Administration in DC. Maybe as head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs?

UPDATED: Follow the money, Charlestown campaign 2022

As usual, the CCA counts on money from out of state as well as its old supporters

By Will Collette

UPDATE: I added an excerpt of the financial disclosure for Trumplican candidate Westin Place who is running for state Senate District 38. He admits he is in debt to the IRS for unpaid federal taxes. See below. - W. Collette

In case you were wondering where Uncle Fluffy Tom Gentz ended up, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance campaign finance reports tell us. Our former Town Council Boss sent the CCA $500 from his retirement home in Sunset City, Arizona. 

Another CCA regular, Peter Hernstein is now in Fountain Hills, AZ and he sent in his check for $100. Former CCA leader and co-founder Kate Waterman sent in her $500 from Connecticut. Nothing from Deputy Dan Slattery wherever he may be (maybe he’s on undercover assignment for the CIA).

As I read through the CCA’s report for the quarter going from July 1 to October, aside from the out-of-state money, I was amazed at how much the CCA took in from its candidates, past and present, various ward-heelers as well as prominent players in many of the CCA’s controversial land deals. Very little money came from newcomers.

People who stood to gain from the aborted Y-Gate Scandal are still giving, including Joanne D’Alcomo of Boston ($300) and Russ Ricci ($250). 

So are Sachem Passage Association folks who benefited from the town’s $2.1 million bailout of their botched resistance to the Whalerock wind turbine project (we bought the land where the turbines were to be built). 

Later on, the SPA tried it again, attempting to get Charlestown to take a bug-infested parcel off their hands for many times its assessed value – we dubbed that one “SPA-Gate.”   

In addition to Peter Hernstein, listed above, the CCA received $100 donations from SPA members Donna Chambers (seeking another term on the Chariho School Committee), Town Councilor Susan Cooper (SPA Trustee for the duration of Spa-Gate), and first-time donor John Kaptinski (SPA founding father), presumably holding out hope that Attorney Cooper can somehow engineer one last CCA bailout for the SPA should she be re-elected.         

Conspicuously absent is SPA El Presidente Ron Areglado, who “managed” the campaign against Whalerock and the bait-and-switch SPA-Gate scam, although his moneyman in both scams, Joseph Quadrato, coughed up $150 to reserve a slot in future CCA cash & carry do-overs.

Arnolda is well represented with donors but oddly, Councilor Bonnita Van Slyke donated nothing. She is not running for re-election, as she is trying to sell her Arnolda estate on the pond for $2.4 million to someone who will develop the land into “your own palatial coastal retreat.” 

Not only did Van Slyke stiff the CCA party, but she actually took $535.72 reimbursement for mailing expenses rather than make it an in-kind donation. 

In past years, the CCA attempted to hide the high level of out-of-state donations by reporting their absentee donors not at their actual addresses, but at their Charlestown vacation homes. 

They only did that once in this election cycle (so far), listing $1000 donor Robert Thavenius at 10 Dudley Lane when his mailing address is listed on the Charlestown Tax Assessor database as Avon, Connecticut. His family owns two properties in Charlestown assessed at $5,071,700.

In sum, the CCA began the campaign season with $7,911.24 and raised another $8,750 for a total campaign war chest of $16,701. Of that, they have spent $9,790 so far, most of it to produce and mail those laughable 6-page, trifold, fine-print graphic novels they’ve mailed to everyone – twice.

Though the CCA seems to be incapable of competently managing Charlestown’s money, they seem to have a good handle on their own cash. 

You can look up campaign finance reports for any candidate on the Board of Elections website HERE. If you enter “Charlestown,” you can see the files for anyone who has run for office from Charlestown going back to when the BOE set up the database. You can also enter a person’s name. 

I think campaign finance reports tell you more about a candidate than any other piece of information. For example, Trumplican Westin Place of Westerly is running for Senate 38 against Charlestown’s Victoria Gu (D) and former Republican Caswell Cooke of Westerly. 

Westin Place started out as a joke candidate, but his prospects came alive when the state GOP did some fund-raisers for him. In last quarter’s financial report, Place says he took in $2,100 from people he can’t identify. He also took major donations from big GOP donors statewide. In his last filing before the election, the only named donor is Gunowners PAC who gave him $200. 

One reason I didn't take Place seriously is that he was late in filing his organization report with the BOE and thus missed the cut-off to file a quarterly report. However, he did file his ethics disclosure statement with the Ethics Commission where he made this disclosure:

It's not a very good look for a candidate for state Senate to start campaigning while showing unpaid federal taxes.

A remarkable amount of money gets spent on political campaigns. It’s only loosely regulated and only occasionally do offenses get caught, like Charlestown’s Sen. Elaine Morgan who ripped off her campaign account to pay for personal expenses. Though she admitted the offenses, she threw her recently deceased husband under the bus by blaming him for her misdeeds. 

She got off with a fine, but I hope the voters will take this into account when they decide whether to re-elect her or replace her with her fine challenger, Charlestown’s Jennifer Douglas (D).

ICYMI: There are no independents in the Charlestown Citizens Alliance

CCA-sponsored town officials must obey or die

By Will Collette

This article originally ran on October 6 and is being posted again as the days tick off before Election Day.

The CCA’s magic word for these 2022 elections has to be “independent.” It appears in all their letters to the Westerly Sun and their blog posts. They claim – contrary to the evidence of the past 12 years – that all their elected or appointed officials make their own decisions and follow their own consciences.

Take, for example, freshmen Council members Susan Cooper and Cody Clarkin. Cooper is running for re-election. Clarkin is not since he has already moved to Westerly – and lied about it.

Their first big test was whether to re-appoint attorney Joe Larisa to his $25,000+ gig as Charlestown’s Indian fighter. That’s his whole job: watch the Narragansett Tribe and block anything that might improve their quality of life. Tribal leaders have been pretty clear they consider him to bea racist.

In their first vote in December 2020, Susan Cooper broke with the CCA and voted against renewing Larisa’s contract. Clarkin, a former Eagle Scout, voted for renewal, despite the Boy Scouts stated position against institutional racism. I guess you could say that young Cody declared he's an "independent" when it comes to his scout's honor.

Cooper had clearly been taken to the woodshed behind the CCA’s secret headquarters for her unfortunate vote of conscience because she decided to lead the push to reverse the outcome of her own vote. Roberts Rules of Order lets you do that, to bring a motion to reconsider, provided you voted with the majority. But you can only do that once.

She failed on the first attempt because her CCA colleague Bonnita Van Slyke was absent, leading to a 2-2 deadlock, meaning Larisa’s contract was not renewed.

But, contrary to Roberts Rules, Cooper pushed for a second vote to reconsider. This time Van Slyke showed up, no doubt under threat by CCA Central, and the vote was 3-2 to renew the contract of the odious Mr. Larisa.

Since then, the current CCA-3 council majority followed their instructions from CCA Party Central. Except once.

Cody Clarkin surprised everyone by recusing himself from voting on the notorious Richard Property land scam that has Planning Commissar Ruth Platner and her Platnoids underwear in a twist. Clarkin noted a family member is an abutter to the property.

Because that meant another 2-2 deadlock, the CCA did not push a vote on the Richard Property rather than lose. But they decided to blame Council President Deb Carney and Councilor Grace Klinger rather than young Cody.

Clarkin is now beyond the reach of the CCA’s wrath, having moved to Westerly and is not running for re-election. He did split the difference with his Party masters though by concocting the story that he’sliving with his parents and thus eligible to keep his seat until the election. He had been told by Ruth Platner a year ago to say nothing about his move.

I’ll repeat my observation about the depths of the CCA’s depravity and demand for total obedience: they can even corrupt an Eagle Scout.

These are only the most recent examples. In fact, the CCA has operated like Charlestown’s version of the Politburo almost since its inception, the main difference being Charlestown’s lack of tall buildings they can use to stage their opponents’ suicides.

Let’s take a look back and continue with article I wrote last July called “What is the CCA?”

The CCA came into being officially in 2008 with the expressed purpose of ousting then Town Council President Jim Mageau. They succeeded by crushing Mageau in the 2008 election and installed their own slate.

This slate, like every other CCA slate, swore allegiance to the CCA platform. Thinking that this is what they were doing, they supported the development of the controversial Whalerock industrial wind turbine project that had been proposed for the crest of the Charlestown Moraine.

After all, the CCA had just done a survey showing overwhelming support for wind energy for Charlestown and CCA leader Tom Gentz made a lengthy power point presentation to the Council supporting wind energy and even backed a town-owned turbine in Ninigret Park.

But neither the CCA-sponsored Council members nor most of Charlestown except the highest ranking CCA insiders, knew that Gentz and then CCA President Dan Slattery were secretly instigating resistance to the Whalerock project in return for political support from the Sachem Passage Association.

The 2008 CCA Council slate was effectively thrown under the bus and purged in the 2010 election. It was a stunning bit of treachery. That plus the Y-Gate land scam actually inspired Tom Ferrio and I to start Progressive Charlestown, if only to keep track of all the jaw-dropping bullshit spewing from the CCA.

The Whalerock controversy was ultimately settled when a near consensus emerged for purchase of the property by the town for $2.1 million. It was one of the only times when Ruth Platner and I ever agreed on a major issue.

Naturally, the CCA was not satisfied with providing their new bought-and-paid-for constituency with a $2.1 million taxpayer funded bailout. They decided to shore up support with another CCA constituency, the Charlestown Land Trust, by gifting the land to them.

That was too much for Charlestown voters who resoundingly defeated the proposal to give away the land. This groundswell of opposition nearly took down another ballot question to react a $2 million open space bond fund – it passed by only 11 votes.

Over the next several election cycles, the Town Council was ruled by CCA leaders Boss Tom Gentz and Deputy Dan Slattery who brooked no deviations from the CCA party line from any of the junior CCA councilors.

The CCA also systematically purged non-CCA volunteers from every town commission that had any power: Budget, the Zoning Board of Review, Charter Review Advisory Commission (CRAC), Parks and Recreation, Economic Improvement, etc. Talented and experienced members were replaced with CCA cronies, many of whom turned out to be incompetent embarrassments. The only real criterion was total loyalty to the CCA party line.

I often myself marveling at the extraordinary demands of being a CCA loyalist. The CCA has very little driving policy beyond buying land and protecting absentee landowners. That in itself is not enough to win elections so the CCA routinely uses one of the most effective political motivators of all: FEAR.

This has often meant creating boogeymen and telling lies to get people all upset so they then look to the CCA to save them. The Great Charlestown Choo-choo Hoax is the best current example, a totally concocted issue that pushes a lot of buttons through sheer terror. Platner has shown disgraceful conduct and owes Charlestown residents an apology.

Among the scary things the CCA has used: fear of the Narragansett Tribe; fear that the National Park Service will take back Ninigret Park if we don’t stop having public events there; fear of affordable housing that might be occupied by families with children or (shudder) people from Providence.

The CCA started out promoting fear of Jim Mageau, but since then, they have stoked fear against developers, AMTRAK, poachers, lower taxes for full-time residents, chain stores, the state Water Resource Board, asphalt, RIPTA, lights, signs, and of course Democrats whom they inextricably tie – without evidence – to developers.

I can’t deny fear has worked for them. Fear is a powerful force especially when you have no hesitation about making up lies to spin people up.

This year, the CCA seems to be trying to sell voters on the fear that, unless the CCA retains power, our “rural character” and ecosystem will collapse. Only by holding onto power will our Planning Commissar Ruth Platner be able to buy the remaining vacant land left in town before the evil developers get it.

"Dear Westerly Sun..."

All the CCA-bots running for office will nod in agreement, independently of course, while other CCA-bots will write their letters to the Sun singing the CCA anthem and waving their Little Green Books.

The Curious Case of Councilor Cooper

Caught in Sachem Passage!

By Robert Yarnall                       

Councilor Cooper’s thumbnail portraits above
were added as a visual aid for our readers. The original
image sans thumbnails, from the CCA Elections page,
are presumably attributed to Cliff Vanover.

Over the next fortnight plus, Charlestown voters need to be very curious about the candidacy of incumbent CCA Councilor Susan Cooper. 

Susan was the Town Council Liaison to the Budget Commission, chaired by former Town Administrator Dick Sartor, when $3 million flew the coop. CCA Mother Hen Ruth Platner tried to bail out the Budget Commission, comparing the situation to a car parked in a garage. (So, the money was locked safely away in the trunk then? Ooops…)

Councilor/Attorney Cooper must have gagged as she heard Ruth go all-in Freudian: a perfect 4K High-Def image of the proverbial Bonnie & Clyde Getaway Car, hubby Cliff Vanover behind the wheel, sidekick wifey Ruth packing heat, careening through the woods to the secret CCA clubhouse with yet another trunkful of taxpayer cash to subsidize the CCA Spot Zoning Master Plan, deftly cloaked in faux environmentalism.

It certainly wasn’t the first time Susan Cooper Esq. had a front row seat during a clownish soliloquy. Exhibit A would be my email to her at the top of this story. At the Sachem Passage Association’s 2021 Annual Meeting, Joseph “Fredo” Quadrato let everyone know the extent of the CCA’s corruptive influence on the lives of town employees.

Attorney Susan Cooper is the only CCA Town Council member running for re-election. If she gets the most votes, she will be the next president of the Charlestown Town Council. Ruth Platner’s thoughts and prayers will have been answered. 

At this point in the political campaign cycle, voters have been inundated with multiple mailings of the CCA’s oversized, high-gloss trifold campaign brochures, paid for largely by a trifecta of wealthy people: retired baby boomers who have relocated here; out-of-state property owners who maintain vacation homes in Charlestown; the uberwealthy who maintain multiple homes in other states, likely even in other countries.    

For the past decade, CCA candidates have lip-synched the same Platnoidian-mode three verse chorus: low taxes, rural environment, groundwater protection (as if the rest of don’t care about those things) which illustrates the simplistic soul of their collective personas. 

CCA Councilor/Attorney Susan Cooper, however, has proven herself a much more sophisticated candidate since she became active in the CCA’s proxy neighborhood, Sachem Passage, in 2018.  It’s no coincidence a lot started happening in the Sachem Passage Association that year. 

In mid-October, 2021, while researching the Progressive Charlestown miniseries  Muddy Genesis detailing the Sachem Passage Association’s aborted attempt to abscond with over $400,000 in taxpayers’ money to bail itself out of financial turmoil, I downloaded Charlestown Town Councilor Susan Cooper’s Rhode Island Ethics Commission Financial Disclosure Report for years 2019 and 2020, respectively. 

Councilor Cooper self-identified as a Trustee of the Sachem Passage Association. A digital image of the pertinent pages of Susan Cooper’s RIEC Financial Disclosure Reports appears at the top of this story.  

I have been a member of the Sachem Passage Association since its incorporation as a non-profit business entity, June 15, 2000, and never knew my homeowners’ association had a trustee. I spoke to a handful of long-time neighbors, none of whom recalled the SPA ever having a trustee. 

During the SPA Annual Meeting on June 9, 2022, I told SPA President Ronald J. Areglado that I had come across paperwork which indicated the SPA had a trustee.  I further stated that neither I, nor anyone else I asked, had ever heard anything about a SPA Trustee.   

Mr. Areglado replied that the SPA does not have, nor ever had, a trustee. He asked SPA Treasurer Thomas Gilligan, SPA Director Joseph Quadrato, and SPA Archivist John Kaptinski the same question. None of them indicated the SPA has, or ever had, a trustee. 

Councilor Cooper, a member of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance, did not list herself as a SPA Trustee on her 2021 RIEC Financial Disclosure Report. It was filed on April 28, 2022, less than twelve weeks after the final installment of Muddy Genesis, which chronicled the decade-long symbiotic relationship between the Sachem Passage Association and the Charlestown Citizens Alliance, circa 2012-2022.  

Councilor Cooper’s resume’, posted on the CCA website, includes a BA (Psychology) from Johns Hopkins University (Maryland) and a JD (Doctor of Law) from Washington University (Missouri), both top tier institutions.  Her legal experience is comprehensive, ranging from State Public Defender (Missouri) to Law Clerk/Staff Attorney, United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri. 

Councilor Cooper was also an Attorney and Director for BJC HealthCare, a fifteen-member health care collaborative employing 32,597 people in adult and pediatric academic medical centers in eastern Missouri. 

The gist of my “nod and a wink” acknowledgement of Susan Cooper’s laudable educational background and professional experience is to establish beyond any doubt that she knows exactly what a trustee does and exactly why she listed herself as the SPA Trustee. 

I was unable to ask Ms. Cooper about her SPA Trustee status at the June 9, 2022, SPA Annual Meeting because she was predictably in absentia, having been given a “heads up” by a sympathetic neighborly CCA devotee.  

Councilor Susan Cooper signed her 2019 and 2020 RIEC Financial Disclosure Reports filings under penalty of perjury. Those filings are definitive: she was the SPA’s Trustee during those years. 

During 2019 and 2020, SPA property owner Susan Cooper was also a member of the Charlestown Zoning Board of Review. She was appointed by the CCA-majority Town Council and joined SPA/CCA colleague Joseph Quadrato, CCA Treasurer Clifford Vanover, and SPA/CCA “professional author” (website propogandist) Michael James Chambers 

Besides being ZBR BFF’s, Quadrato and Vanover are also members of the CCA Steering Committee. Quadrato enjoys top billing on the CCA website, an acknowledgement of his fundraising prowess, a natural extension of his professional sales career selling office supply products from his home-based “Mom & Pop” business, Quad Products.

From 2012 through 2020, CCA Treasurer Cliff the Cash Guy Vanover “steered” six checks totaling $4,515.32 to Quad Products under the label “Campaign Expenditure.”

Quadrato resigned from the Zoning Board in May 2021 in conjunction with his appointment as SPA Finance and Real Estate Resource Person. “Fredo” holds no financial services certifications, no real estate credentials, no real estate licenses. 

Nonetheless, Quadrato was tapped by the SPA Board of Directors to craft a property sales proposal to be presented by SPA President Ronald Areglado to the Town Council. 

On November 8, 2021, the Charlestown Town Council deferred action on the  Sachem Passage Association 2021 Bait-and-Switch Property Sale Proposal.  

Although Cooper had recused herself from the SPA property proposal discussions, Ruth Platner would have certainly asked something like, “Susan, WTF was that all about?!” 

It would be disingenuous to suggest Susan was a party to Quadrato’s Bait & Switch scheme at any stage of the game. It’s not surprising Councilor Cooper opted out of her previously designated SPA Trustee position on her 2021 RIEC Financial Disclosure filing, was a no-show at the 20121 SPA Annual Meeting, and ignored my email request for clarification of her 2019/2020 RIEC filings. 

I want to believe Susan Cooper defaulted to her instincts as an experienced public defender, by simply not responding to my email regarding her “client,” Joseph Quadrato, the SPA’s thoroughly non-credentialed real estate expert and CCA’s lead fundraiser/ Steering Committee member. 

Nonetheless, Attorney Cooper has pitched her tent definitively in the shadow of the Platner Pyramid (low taxes, rural environment, groundwater) which, to rival the longevity of the Great Pyramid of Giza, requires the unfettered acquisition of open space to eliminate affordable housing opportunities for families with children, the singular, primordial threat to undermining the CCA’s symbolic essence. 

As Town Council President, and with a CCA majority town council, Attorney Susan Cooper is more than capable of setting agendas, steering discussions, and deflecting distractions like the $3 million “oopsie” to make Ruth Platner’s dream come true. Only Charlestown voters stand in the way.