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.

PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU VOTE: What you need to know about Charlestown politics

What is the Charlestown Citizens Alliance?

By Will Collette

Over the past 12 years, I have written and updated versions of this review of Charlestown's ruling party, the CCA - the Charlestown Citizens Alliance. It's a very different version of events than what you will get from the graphic novel the CCA has been sending to your mailbox.

This edition was written last July but if ever there was a time to read (or re-read it), that time is now as they once again, ask voters to renew their rule over the town.  

Tom Ferrio and I launched Progressive Charlestown in December 2010, a month where we drew 106 readers. 

After 12 years and 5.64 million pageviews (an average of 35,000 a month), I sometimes forget that our local readers might not closely follow Charlestown’s political adventures or know the history. This article is the first of a series aimed at giving readers more context in this important election year.

Let’s start with the town's long-time rulers, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) who seek to continue their reign by winning the November election.

In March 2008, the CCA officially formed as a political action committee (PAC) with Dan Slattery as President. Their purpose was Jim Mageau’s ouster from the Town Council (more on Jim, below), painting themselves as the epitome of civility, even though they started out by running a smear campaign against then Council President John Craig that actually drove him out of town.

The CCA achieved the goal of ousting Mageau with a powerful showing in the 2008 election. Mageau ended up as the lowest vote-getter with only 102 votes (4.3%).

However, the CCA became dissatisfied with its own elected Council members because they failed to follow orders from the CCA’s secret and mysterious Steering Committee. The Steering Committee list has not been updated in several years and includes at least one member who is dead. You cannot join the CCA nor are its meetings posted or public even though that’s where every important town decision is made.

So in 2010, the CCA purged their own Council members and replaced them with two of their most doctrinaire leaders, Tom Gentz and Dan Slattery.

With Ruth Platner commanding the Planning Commission (the only elected planning commission in the state, arguably illegal in composition), their conquest was complete. The CCA has controlled all the levers of power in Charlestown for the past 12 years.

Thank you, Jim, for launching the CCA

James Mageau (Jim) 👉has been a fixture in Charlestown politics since the world was young. Irascible, obnoxious, and litigious. Often called a bully, Jim has probably pissed off more people in Charlestown that I could ever dream of doing. At least, I think so.

Mageau made his reputation through filing tons of lawsuits, complaints and rumors about conspiracies and corruption by everyone else in town but himself. He also liked to get in people’s faces to scream and curse them out. Mageau, for no particular reason, cursed out my wife Cathy when they first met.

Years ago, Jim told me he was a “Scoop Jackson” Democrat, i.e. a DINO who is conservative on just about all issues.

By an odd sequence of events, he not only got himself elected in 2006 to the Town Council but through a string of resignations (including John Craig, noted above) landed in the Council President’s Chair. That was simply too much for most Charlestown residents (myself included). Local Democrats couldn’t stand him and resigned en masse rather than serve on the Democratic Town Committee with him.

Mageau lost his 2010 bid for re-election with the lowest vote total of any candidate and CCA-endorsed candidates won a majority on the Council.

Mageau tried for a comeback a couple of times after his defeat, but clearly had lost his voter appeal. After many years of absence from the ballot, Mageau filed a Declaration of Candidacy for Town Council this year and has qualified for this year’s General Election as an “independent.” 

Though Mageau was once nominally a Democrat, he became Donald Trump’s most vocal supporter in Charlestown. However, even though he's a Trumplican, local Republicans didn’t want him either.

Looking back at history

Though Jim Mageau was the Charlestown Citizens Alliance's causus belli, the CCA’s true roots are in the old founding families of Charlestown. They ran large plantations on land stolen from the Narragansett Indian Tribe using slave labor, mostly African but also some Narragansett who were captured after the Great Swamp Massacre in 1675.

Over time, especially after World War II, rich transplants seeking cheap land for big houses on the ocean joined Charlestown’s “high society.”

In nearby Shelter Harbor, a group of wealthy men formed the RI Shoreline Coalition (RISC) in 2003 to protect their fake fire district and guarantee the ability of non-residents to vote in fire district elections. They actually wanted voting rights to be based on property ownership, not residence.

For most of its life, the Coalition was headquartered in Charlestown. The Shoreline Coalition morphed into the Statewide Coalition and then into “Rhode Island Taxpayers.” But in 2016, it died, largely due to the 2014 death of its founder Harry Staley.

However, you can find lots of DNA traces showing the kinship between the CCA and the Shoreline Coalition.

Besides DNA, the CCA also carries on its parent’s values: favoritism toward rich absentee landowners, hatred of the Narragansetts and a general desire to block families and people of color from moving in.

Yes, the CCA will do anything to preserve Charlestown’s “rural character” though that term has never been defined. In practice, rural character is code for the CCA's effort to wall off Charlestown against “outsiders” most especially “People from Providence.”

Money, money, money

Photo by Steve Ahlquist

Charlestown is no different than the rest of America where money generally determines election results. Out-going state Rep. Blake “Flip” Filippi 👉beat much respected Rep. Donna Walsh (D) in 2014 because he is a wealthy man. His wealth scared off opponents for eight years.

Despite a complete lack of achievements, bizarre policy positions and questionable honesty, Flip was unopposed until this year and remained beloved by the CCA until he decided to quit.

This year, a credible candidate, Democrat Tina Spears, rose to challenge him so Flip pulled a Josh Hawley and flipped out of the race.

The CCA historically has always out-raised all competitors, holding on to power by using its paid propaganda to win over voters who normally don’t pay much attention to local politics. That's been going on again this year - WC.

Over the years, most of the CCA’s funding has come either from out of state or from neighborhoods that have become CCA territory. Ditto this year- WC.

Case in point: the Sachem Passage Association (SPA). Current CCA Town Council member Susan Cooper had claimed she was a “trustee” for the Sachem Passage Association on her filings with the RI Ethics Commission but has dropped that claim this year.

Other CCA donor bases include Quonnie and Arnolda.

In recent years, the CCA has used open space purchases to expand its political donor base. Buying land at the behest of a neighborhood filled with potential donors has paid off for the CCA, starting with the 2011 “Y-Gate scandal,” the first CCA land scam after they took control of the town.

The CCA locked in the devoted support of many Sachem Passage Association residents by spending $2.1 million in taxpayer money to block the Whalerock wind turbine proposal by buying the land out from under it.

The CCA rarely does fund-raising except in the last half of each election year. That’s when the money comes pouring in. I expect to see the first influx of big campaign bucks to show on the campaign finance report due to be filed on August 1.

Susan Cooper, a retired lawyer, is the only CCA Councilor seeking re-election. The rest of the CCA slate are primarily active or retired businesspeople with little experience in government but lots of experience making money.

What does the CCA really stand for?

You can read the CCA’s platform even though it’s largely a work of fiction due to glaring omissions but it’s a good place to start.

My quick take is the CCA stands for controlling the land, protecting the wealthy, fighting the Narragansett Indian Tribe, and turning Charlestown into a sparsely populated gated community for people like themselves.

You should also read the town’s recently adopted Comprehensive Plan that was largely written by CCA leader and Planning Commissar Ruth Platner 👉.

In it, you will see that the CCA opposes affordable housing, public transportation, Narragansett sovereign rights, business development except for tourism and services, and most green energy development while wanting everyone to ride a bike, plant shrubbery and support Platner’s goal of buying every acre she can to be set aside as open space. You can read this for yourselves in the CCA's 6-page mailers.

The CCA also has enacted numerous ordinances that attempt to micro-manage every business and residence in town. We have ordinances governing trees and shrubbery, light, the color of switch plates on electrical outlets, signs, mulch, etc. 

Most ordinances are “complaint-driven” meaning nothing happens without a complaint. That often feeds neighbor vs. neighbor feuds. Many town ordinances are unenforceable or enforced selectively, often ignoring some of the most obnoxious offenses.

Couple of examples: loud motorcycles and large illegal fireworks. Both are illegal and a public health and safety hazard, yet where is the enforcement?

Above all, the CCA stands for “rural character” as if all Charlestown residents have pick-ups with rifle racks, fly rebel flags and count on free care at Arrowhead Dental to save the last few teeth in their heads.

What you won’t find in their own self-description are these key parts of the CCA philosophy:

Larisa dismisses tribal sovereignty

Institutional racism. 

The CCA supports a perpetual war with the Narragansett Indian Tribe paying a $25,000 retainer to attorney Joe Larisa to monitor the Tribe and block any action the Tribe might take to better itself. It is the CCA’s position that the Tribe may do nothing on their own land without the town’s approval.

The CCA is also committed to “rural character” which, in practice, means no new housing that might attract “People from Providence,” working class families with children or any establishment that doesn’t meet the CCA’s undefined idea of “rural character,” although I think they might be using the antebellum South as their role model.

Reducing the town population. 

The CCA has an allergy to any housing that might increase the population.

To that end, the CCA seeks to buy up all the private land it can, regardless of the price. If you take the pattern the CCA has set over the past 10 years and extend it into the future, Charlestown north of one will consist primarily of government-owned open space and landowners with large tracts of land. South of One will be dominated by large and expensive waterfront homes occupied by wealthy retirees or owned by wealthy summer people.

Their latest ploy, their proposed “conservation development” ordinance, aims to give the Planning Commission more power to block new housing. How? By creating conditions that are so onerous and difficult that no one will seek to apply for a permit.

The CCA would be comfortable with a return to the 1700s version of “rural character” with large farms worked by compliant labor and large manor houses for the landed gentry.

Closed government, shady deals, rampant secrecy and rigged rules.

Charlestown has made it a struggle to gain access to public records. Our Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz seemed more devoted to finding loopholes in the law to deny access to information under the Access to Public Records Act, drawing a rebuke from the Attorney’s General’s Office.

The CCA-Three, their Council majority, have bent and twisted the rules of procedure and common courtesy to the point where getting an item on the agenda is a struggle unless you are a CCA member. The three are: Bonnita Van Slyke, Cody Clarkin, and Susan Cooper. Only Cooper is running for re-election. Clarkin doesn’t even reside in Charlestown anymore, making him ineligible to serve.👇

Last July the CCA-3 voted down a resolution that affirmed the right of all Council members to be able to place items on the Council agenda, a key part of their responsibilities as Council members.

Here's what they voted down: 

The CCA-3 also ramrodded approval for filing a $400,000 open space grant application with the state without revealing where the land is, what it comprised, the asking price and who owned it. A normal piece of business for an out-of-control CCA.

Part of the CCA creed is to follow the dictates of Trump mentor Roy Cohn to “Never admit, never apologize, always attack.” Even when caught in a lie, such as Ruth Platner’s recent Charlestown Choo-Choo Hoax, they will profess their good intentions and innocence. Or say nothing at all.

The Prime Directive

Ever since the CCA’s 2010 internal purge of CCA-endorsed Council members who were not following orders, the CCA has made it clear that anyone running for office under their auspices MUST obey all the CCA decrees. 

It doesn’t matter if it’s their published platform, or the values expressed in their actions, spoken at secret Steering Committee meetings, or whispered in their ears by Ruth Platner

It doesn’t matter if it’s unconstitutional or illegal or simply doesn’t make sense. 

Conform or die as the 2008-10 CCA Council majority learned. The 2010 purge occurred when several CCA Councilors supported construction of the Whalerock wind farm. 

To them, it had merit and besides, CCA leader Tom Gentz had made a big presentation to the Council in support of wind energy, citing a CCA-conducted poll showing overwhelming public support for wind power. That poll was purged from the CCA website, but not before I reproduced the results HERE). Gentz was a big backer of a test turbine called “the Met Tower” in Ninigret Park, the precursor of a large municipal turbine in the Park that never happened.

Here's Dan Slattery delivering anonymous
anti-wind power leaflets in Sachem Passage

What these hapless CCA Councilors didn’t know was that Tom Gentz and Deputy Dan Slattery were canvassing the Sachem Passage neighborhood AGAINST the wind project. 

As my colleague Robert Yarnall documented, this effort by two CCA top leaders to subvert the CCA’s public support for wind power was done largely to win the support – financial and electoral - from the Sachem Passage neighborhood for the CCA.

It was like a page out of 1984 as the CCA did a 180 degree turn from loving wind power to absolutely hating it. Now, our current wind power ordinance makes it impossible for any Charlestown resident to install even the smallest residential wind energy device. Pure Doublespeak!

Those Councilors the CCA elected in 2008 were effectively excommunicated. This sent a message to all future CCA candidates: Obey or we will kill you.

The CCA also purged each town Board and Commission of people they deemed unfriendly to the CCA’s spoken and unspoken goals. 

They systematically placed their own loyalists onto these commissions, whether they were qualified or not, often passing over far more qualified volunteers whose only fault was a lack of professed homage to the CCA.

The CCA purged Charlestown’s Town Administrator Bill DiLibero over an astounding fake issue over who actually controls Ninigret Park. 

DiLibero and his Parks and Recreation director Jay Primiano (who was also purged) favored more active recreation in the Park, while the CCA won the undying support of the wealthy Arnolda neighborhood by fighting against anything other than passive (and quiet) use of the park.

One of them actually argued that children playing in the park kill birds. How? Citing an imaginary study, when children make noise, migratory birds fly away never to return, preferring to die at sea rather than tolerate the kids. I tried to find this so-called science and failed. If you have better luck, let me know.

The one exception to the CCA's aversion to active recreation was the construction of Faith’s Folly, an asphalt path in the Park for bikes and walking that no one uses.

CCA founding member Faith Labossiere really wanted this pathway and told the Council it would only cost $7,000 and would be very nice. Except the final cost was $266,927, a 4,000% overrun and used tons of asphalt, a material Planning Commission Ruth Platner has virtually banned for any other use.

But the land deals, the favoritism, the “pay-to-play” have been the CCA’s primary accomplishments since 2010. Personally, I believe the CCA may be just one more shady land deal away from a grand jury.

Charlestown goes to the polls

Large number of early votes

By Will Collette 

Note Charlestown's blue voting pattern. (Ted Nesi's blog)

I’m not going to bury the lede so here’s the really important stuff:

• VOTE! In my 71 years of life, this is the most important election I have ever witnessed.
• VOTE for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. We must end Donald Trump’s Reign of Terror.
• VOTE for the Charlestown Residents United (CRU) slate and end the CCA Party’s decade long Reign of Error.
• VOTE for Rep. Jim Langevin and Sen. Jack Reed.
• VOTE for Jennifer Douglas for state senator if you live in the northern end of Charlestown so we can end the embarrassment of right-wing nut Elaine Morgan. 
• VOTE Approve on State Question 1 to take “Providence Plantations” out of our state’s official name. It’s a pain-free gesture against institutional racism. 

A plurality of Charlestown voters are unaffiliated (44%). 35% are registered Democrats and 21% are registered Republicans.

We have 6,115 voters in Charlestown deemed “active,” with another 711 deemed “inactive” because election mail has been returned marked “undeliverable.” 

As of noon October 22, 29% of Charlestown voters have already cast their ballots either by early voting – at Town Hall only – or by mail-in (via US Postal Service or placed in the well-marked, secure drop-box on the right side of the main entrance to Town Hall). Lots more mail ballots are in the pipeline

Charlestown voters are out-pacing the rest of the state for early voting – we have nearly 30% who have voted compared to 20% for Rhode Island as a whole. 

In 2016, 4,443 Charlestown residents cast votes for President with a 10-point margin for Hillary. 

If the current pace of early and mail-in voting continues, we may exceed 2016’s turnout days ahead of Election Day. 

Progressive Charlestown has published a large quantity of material on the actions and failings of Donald Trump and his band of grifters. 

If you are still undecided about Trump or are one of the 1,906 Charlestown residents who voted for him in 2016 and plan to do it again, despite all, I really can’t help you. Just drink some more Kool-Aid.

Our municipal election strikes me as the most competitive thing on the ballot, along with Jennifer Douglas' bid to unseat Elaine Morgan for Senate District 34.

Charlestown will almost certainly vote for Biden/Harris and Jim Langevin and Jack Reed will be re-elected. But how our municipal races will turn out is an open question.

For over a decade, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) has held an iron grip on town government. 

This year, they face strong opposition from a full bi-partisan slate fielded by Charlestown Residents United. 

Under the banner of “rural character” – a term the CCA Party has never defined – the CCA Party has worked to: 

Keep people out. Housing, especially affordable housing, is in short supply. The CCA Party has openly stated its intent to prevent families with children from moving into town. As a result, our population has aged and shrunk, as even the children of long-time residents find they must move out of Charlestown for lack of housing for new families. Rural character does not apply to children. 

These three CRU candidates for Town Council have also been endorsed
by the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee. CRU candidates
Grace Klinger and Stephen Stokes have been endorsed
the the Republican State Committee

Keep residents in line. Progressive Charlestown has chronicled an endless array of CCA Party-driven ordinances have been enacted to govern everything from whether your home or business can have wind power, lights, shrubbery, building materials, etc. No detail is too small for the CCA to regulare.

In good times and bad, the CCA Party has worked relentlessly to drive businesses and jobs out of Charlestown. Rural character does not apply to business, unless you are a blacksmith. 

Keep the Tribe down. The CCA Party keeps a lawyer on the town payroll for the sole purpose of thwarting any effort by the Narragansett Indian Tribe to do anything that does not have the town’s advance, expressed permission. This is a shameful display of institutional racism toward the original residents of our rural paradise. 

Along with these three main reasons to vote the CCA Party out, you can add the sneaky and underhanded way they run town government. 

They purge qualified people from volunteer town commissions and boards. They hide vital public information. 

They operate a “pay to play” system where their friends, allies and donors get deals and favored treatment. The most blatant current example is SPA-Gate (CLICK HERE for more information on SPA-Gate). 

To be honest, I like “rural character,” too. But I suspect my vision of rural character is different than that of the CCA Party. For example, my vision does not include Charlestown being turned into a retirement enclave for rich New Yorkers. Nor does it include endless war with the Tribe. 

Each time the “rural character” issue comes up, I call out the CCA Party to define what they mean. It is not sufficient for it to mean whatever Planning Commissar Ruth Platner says it is. 

By the way, the Planning Commission is also up for a vote. In the 2018 election, Platner was denied her usual high vote count, even though only CCA Party candidates appeared on the ballot. 

Her last-place finish meant that she stayed on the Commission only as an “alternate” and subject to having to run again two years later – this year. Also despite her last-place finish, her CCA Party colleagues nonetheless elected her Planning Commission chair.

Charlestown Residents United has two candidates running for the Planning Commission - Patricia Stamps and Howard Stephens.

The CCA Party has its full slate running for the four open seats. That’s 6 candidates. If Platner does not make the top four, she’s out! 

She can then spend her time out of office coming up with a definition for “rural character.”

Finally, please support Charlie Beck, well-known owner of the Mini-Super, who is running for re-election as as Town Moderator on the CRU ticket.

His CCA Party opponent is Ron Areglado, the central figure in the SPA-Gate scam and the failed leader of the botched opposition to the Whalerock project that caused the town to have to spend $2.1 million. 

The honeymoon is over (with bonus video)

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

By Will Collette

The orders are still coming from the CCA Party's
secret clubhouse

Fool that I am, I really thought the new leadership of the Charlestown Town Council might be open to ideas other than those emanating from the secret clubhouse of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) or their non-resident financial backers.

I even made a number of suggestions where there might be ways to build a broad base of support for initiatives to make life better for all of us who call Charlestown our home.

Silly me.

But the first major barb that burst the bubble did not come from me. Instead, it came from the most unlikely of sources – a January 13 Westerly Sun editorial entitled “Hypocrisy back on the agenda for Charlestown.”

Here’s how the Sun editorial started:

The club atmosphere that has become Charlestown government in recent years got a little more blatant last week when the Town Council — in a Trumpian move — named one of its own to fill a vacancy on the Parks and Recreation Board after the board had vetted other candidates and made a recommendation for appointment.

The Sun followed up by putting the Charlestown Town Council meeting at the top of its weekly “Highs and Lows” editorial on January 15:

What a show in Charlestown last week. The Town Council picked a new member to serve on the Parks and Recreation Commission without the standard practice of letting the Parks and Recreation Commission first interview the candidate. Another candidate, who had been vetted by the commission and who has attended meetings as an interested member of the public and happens to be familiar with the workings of town government as a former town councilor, was ignored by the council. The new member selected is also a member of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance, a political action committee to which all five council members also belong. The council claimed it knew better and that its choice was the superior choice. That sounds like rule by decree, not democracy.

This is not the first time the Sun has written an editorial critical of Charlestown’s CCA-controlled government, but such editorials have been rare and generally far more temperate.

This editorial (and its follow-up) was remarkable not just for its cutting language, but also because it may be the first time a new town council in the Sun’s reading area was so excoriated so early in its term.

So what was this all about?

Voter fraud in South County by non-residents?

Charlestown, Block Island have lots more registered voters than residents over age 18

By Will Collette

Yesterday and Monday, we talked about House District 36 candidate  Blake Filippi voting and running from Block Island when he actually lives in Lincoln.

He's not the only one who apparently doesn't follow the law about voting where you really live.

The Providence Journal recently compared municipal voter lists to US Census Bureau data on the number of residents of those municipalities who were over the age of 18[1]. They found that in a number of communities, especially those along the coast[2], there were far more registered voters than people eligible to vote.

Out of Charlestown’s total population of 7,781, there are 6,278 who are over 18. However, when the ProJo did its report, they found 6,375 Charlestown registered voters, or 101.55% of the maximum possible number of those actually eligible. In recent data supplied to me by Town Clerk Amy Weinreich, the number of Charlestown registrations has actually increased to 6,401, which works out to 123 more voters than residents of voting age.

On Block Island, the numbers are far worse. According to the ProJo, Block Island has registered almost twice as many people (196.61%) as it has residents eligible to vote. Among those many people who are voting on Block Island but who live somewhere else is none other than Blake Filippi, candidate for House District 36. You may have recently received his mailing that starts out with his claim that he is “a lifelong resident of the District” when there are a couple dozen documents that establish his actual residence as Lincoln.

That’s probably just fine with the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) which has all but endorsed Filippi, despite his radical secessionist views—or perhaps because of it, given their stance on Charlestown exceptionalism and the Slattery doctrine of noninterference from agents of the state government[3].

Political Cronyism rules under the Charlestown Citizens Alliance

Why does Donna Chambers want to revisit her humiliating performance?

By Robert Yarnall

ZBR Chair Mike Rzewuski tries to explain how the Zoning Board works.
Donna Chambers isn't interested.

This is a reprint of Bob’s Letter to the Westerly Sun which was published in their September 5 print edition, but not the Sun’s public website. It addresses an attack letter by CCA Party appointee and current candidate to the Chariho School Committee Donna Chambers. Chambers’ letter was also published only in the print edition, not the Sun’s public website. Bob Yarnall gave his permission for Progressive Charlestown to publish his original letter.

Clarification is in order with respect to the August 28 Letter to the Sun by Charlestown School Committeeperson Donna Chambers, wife of current Charlestown Zoning Board member Michael Chambers.

Mrs. Chambers identifies me as a member of the Charlestown Charter Review Commission, a supporter of the Democratic Town Committee, and the sole member of the charter review group to “target” exclusively the Zoning Board for term limit restrictions, while ignoring similar considerations for other boards and commissions.

Three years ago I served on the Charlestown Charter Revision Commission with five of my neighbors, including Mrs. Chambers.

We volunteered for the commission in the aftermath of the Whalerock LLC Industrial Wind Turbine Proposal, spurred by our collective concern about zoning decisions that appeared to compromise the quality of life for ordinary citizens living in residential neighborhoods abutting such projects.

We were operating under the premise, later proven false, that a given town’s zoning board rulings were subservient to that town’s Comprehensive Plan.