Facebook users: TODAY, help the Jonnycake Center win a car to help area needy

Free, on-line voting “competition” – Toyota Highlander hybrid awarded to charity that gets the most votes

By Will Collette

Toyota is running an on-line competition on Facebook where it is giving away one brand-new hybrid SUV to whichever of five charities gets the most click votes each day for 100 days.

The Jonnycake Center of Westerly is up against four other charities on TODAY, Wednesday only, June 6. Click on Toyota’s “100 Cars for Good” site on Facebook TODAY ONLY. You will then see the Jonnycake Center lined up with its four competitors, like the illustration to the left.


Simply put - if the Jonnycake Center generates the largest number of Facebook votes on Wednesday, they win the car. So let's help them out.

Sosnowski wants CRMC action on coastal erosion

Senate passes Sosnowski resolution urging state to create beach-erosion defense plan for Matunuck

Photo by Tracey O'Neill

From the LegislativePress and Public Information Bureau 

STATE HOUSE – The Senate has passed a resolution, sponsored by Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski (D-Dist. 37, South Kingstown, New Shoreham), urging the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) to implement a plan to protect a section of shoreline in South Kingstown.

Tax farms as farms, not houselots

Rhode Island needs to help preserve the family farm

Op-ed by State Representatives Larry Valencia and Donna Walsh

Part of what makes South County special is that despite the pressures of modern society, we have not only managed to hold on to our agricultural heritage, but have even expanded on it.

Preserving South County agriculture, particularly our family farms, is not simply an exercise in nostalgic sentimentality but a practical boost to our local economy.

Charlie Vandemoer: Dupe or Duplicitous, Part 2

The Battle for Ninigret Park begins

By Will Collette

Read: "Searching for a Home for the 'Ninigret Bomb'" by clicking here.
Read Part 1 by clicking here.

Part 1 was published Monday morning just after midnight. Later that same day, through one of those coincidences you just can't plan, a letter to the editor by none other than Charlie Vandemoer ran in the Westerly Sun. That letter is a remarkable example of Charlie Vandemoer's choice to inject himself into Charlestown politics, to the detriment of Charlestown. Read it yourself by clicking here, then please read Part 2 of this series.

In Part 1, I used records received from the US Department of Interior to show how our local federal overseer, Ninigret Wildlife Refuge manager Charlie Vandemoer of the US Fish and Wildlife Service was at the heart of one of Charlestown’s most divisive political battles of the past year.

He triggered the series of events by writing a letter to the state Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) to block sports lighting funds the Parks and Recreation Commission had been seeking.

Droning on and on

Coming to a street near you

By Matt Bors


For the entire cartoon, click here.

Budgeting for Disaster

 Budgeting for Disaster: Like What We’ve Got? Good

By Tom Sgouros in RIFuture.org

As has been amply reported by other writers here and in other places, the state budget has emerged from the mists of the Finance Committee, and will likely be voted on and passed this week.

It contains no broad-based tax changes, though there are small increases in cigarette taxes, and small expansions of the sales tax, and tolls, to cover restoring 40% of the money cut from care to the developmentally disabled, and to fund the state’s education funding formula — the one that the legislature’s own study shows is inadequate.

Due to more encouraging revenue projections than were the case last fall, some money has been restored to important places, but it’s just a bit here and there.

Charlestown voters approve town budget 59% to 41%

Only 204 people vote

By Will Collette

Charlestown’s operational budget for the fiscal year that starts on July 1 was approved yesterday by 120 versus 84 no votes. As a result of this vote, property taxes will increase by almost 3%.

Turn-out, to put it mildly, was light. When I cast my vote at 2:30, I was voter #101.

By contrast, last year’s budget vote drew almost three times as many voters – 576 – largely because there was a hot issue on the ballot. That was the question of whether to approve the bonding to build the two new beach sanitary facilities that are now ready to serve beach goers at the two town beaches.

Push continues for tax justice

Progressives May Still Push for Tax Equity in Budget

By Bob Plain in RIFuture.org

Progressives had mixed reactions to the budget bill passed by the House Judiciary Committee late Thursday night, expressing disappointment with the lack of focus on the revenue side of the ledger. 

While there are few new cuts in this year’s spending proposal, and a few restorations, it didn’t include tax-the-rich revenue enhancers that organized labor and community activists lobbied for all session long.

“If this budget is passed as is, the wealthiest Rhode Islanders will skate by again while lower and middle-income Rhode Islanders get stuck with the bill,” said George Nee, president of the AFL-CIO who took an active role with Working RI, a group that led the charge for taxing the rich.

Field Guide to the Charlestown Citizens Alliance, PART 2

More answers to questions you’ve always wanted to ask

By Will Collette

Planning Commissar Ruth Platner: the most
powerful person in Charlestown

CLICK HERE to read Part 1

If you live in Charlestown, whether you are aware of it or not, you are governed by a secret society, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) whose endorsed candidates control the majority on the Town Council and all of the members of the Planning Commission.

From those two platforms, the CCA controls Town Hall and all of the levers of power that matter in Charlestown.

In Part 1, I described how this secret group is structured and did my best to describe how they make decisions – something that can only be done by indirect observation, since their meetings, indeed all their internal processes, are secret and closed.

In this installment, I’ll cover other important questions about the CCA, starting off with one pretty obvious one….

Bigger, better recycling program is HERE!

R.I.'s New Recycling System at a Curb Near You

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI.org News staff

The wait is over. The new statewide recycling program called "Recycle Together RI" is up and running. 

The single-stream system means that all recyclables — plastic, paper, cardboard and glass — can be mixed in the same bin. The color of the bin doesn't matter.

Most Rhode Island households were recently mailed a magnet and information card from the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation explaining the new recycling "Dos" and "Don'ts."

The most significant change is that more plastic items can now be recycled. Previously, only No. 1 and No. 2 bottles with narrower tops were recycled. Now, nearly plastic containers can be recycled.

Here are the changes:

Getting the Facts Right about Government Spending

Better Government, or Just Cheaper Government?

By Tom Sgouros in RIFuture.org

One of the great things about sophistry is that in any argument there is always enough dust around to throw in people’s eyes. Whatever the argument, the dirt at your feet is always at hand.

One of the great things about intellectual honesty is that you don’t take positions without multiple sources of support. It helps you see through the dust, too.

A week ago I wrote about how spending under Obama has not been nearly as profligate as is widely thought.

Donna Walsh launches re-election campaign, new website

Rep. Donna Walsh announces bid for re-election

 News release from Rep. Donna Walsh

With the greatest respect to the voters of the 36^th District, today I am announcing my candidacy for re-election to the Rhode Island House of Representatives.

I am asking the voters of Charlestown, Block Island, South Kingstown and Westerly to re-elect me based on my past record of achievement and my vision for the future well-being of the citizens of South County.

I pledge to continue to fight for economic growth, small business development and thriving family farms. I will continue to lead the battle to make our roadways safer. I will continue to fight to protect our environment.

Don't forget to vote today

Charlestown operating budget on the ballot

Vote at Town Hall - polls open till 8 PM


Come on out and do your duty. Read details here.

Builders' Bill is a bad bill

Builders Association’s ‘Dry Lands Act’ is All Wet

Frank Carini

By Frank Carini, ecoRI.org

Editor's Note: the General Assembly intends to adjourn on Friday. The Builders' Bill is still stuck in the House committee where there apparently is some difficulty scheduling a vote. If the committee votes it out, it must pass on the House floor and then go through the same process in the Senate, all before next Friday.

There’s no shortage of vacant buildings and mills in Rhode Island, especially in Greater Providence, but the Rhode Island Builders Association wants permission to pour foundations on hills and in wetlands, and on Matunuck Beach if it could — all in the name of putting people back to work.

Our Federal Overseer Charlie Vandemoer: Dupe or Duplicitous?

PART 1: Why did the manager of the National Wildlife Refuge become such a powerful political player in Charlestown?

By Will Collette

The federal government’s “face” in Charlestown is that of Charlie Vandemoer, the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s manager of the national wildlife refuges in southern Rhode Island and Block Island, including the Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge.

Though he has been in that position for years, just in the past three years, Vandemoer has brought the weight of the federal government into an increasing number of hot Charlestown political issues. 

These include the current fight over the town’s management of Ninigret Park as well as wind turbines, the dark-sky ordinance, Y-Gate, the “Kill Bill” campaign, Larry LeBlanc’s 81-acre site for either a wind farm or large housing complex, sports lights, Mud Cove, the Ninigret Dog Park, deer, bunnies and trees.

The final installment in Frank Glista’s series on Charlestown’s role in World War II featured Vandemoer’s dubious decisions that thwarted the installation of a display memorializing the Ninigret Naval Auxiliary Air Field.