November 7 Town Council Meeting Update
Tri-Town Council Subcommittee Budget Letter
- Town Council Vice President Dan Slattery spoke about his suggestion to the Tri-Town Sub-Committee asking the Chariho school district to provide total transparency in the school budget. This suggestion has already been approved by the Hopkinton and Richmond Town Councils. It calls for a line by line detail and summary spending plans for major budget categories in the Chariho budget-what is currently missing if taxpayers want to see where their tax money is being spent. Unfortunately, both Town Council members Gregg Avedesian and Marge Frank were adamantly opposed to taxpayers asking for this information through the Town Council request. So, the budget letter was not approved.
Wind Ordinance
- Thanks to the votes of Town Council President Tom Gentz, Town Council member Lisa Delbello and Dan Slattery, a residential wind ordinance was passed. This ordinance allows residents to install their own wind turbines. The ordinance protects homeowners from large utility scale wind turbines on neighboring properties, but allows a resident to install a turbine that will produce as much power as they will use for their home or farm. Residents can install a turbine that is 35 to 45 feet tall with a building permit. For larger turbines, up to 125 feet, it requires that a homeowner get a special use permit and notify neighbors of their plans. Marge Frank abstained from the vote without explaining her reason to abstain and Gregg Avedesian voted against the wind ordinance.
Appointments to the Affordable Housing Commission
- Congratulations to Kim Zito, Sean White and Faith Labassiere who were named to the Affordable Housing Commission. This has been a commission with very few members for many years and we applaud these volunteers for stepping up to give their time to such a worthy commission.
A request from one of our emailers: “Would you know of any volunteering opportunities for preparing community Thanksgiving meal preferably in south county? Or suggestions on any leads.”
If you know of any opportunities, send CCA an email. thanks!!
So, 2 of 5 voted against the Chariho request. If my math skills are still intact, those 2 votes do not constitute a majority. So, why aren’t you providing us more transparency in what happened?
The wind ordinance was huge. Something both sides wanted. But when it came down once again to the voters, both Marjorie and Gregg buried their heads in the sand. Congrats on that!
Where does this leave Charlestown in regards to the Chariho Budget Transparency issue? Do we not participate now? Do we bring it up again? This is totally political it seems by the voting and it is only what should be done anyway. Why would Gregg and Marjorie be against that? Any business and state agency has to balance their budget, to the penny ,and show the investors/taxpayers what their money is being spent on! I for one want to see it on paper!
This is ridiculous. Not to mention the other arguments that were coming up in the meeting. When will Marjorie ever take a stance on anything? And when will Gregg wake up and join the meeting? Even when the council was discussing the appointments to the affordable housing commission, she suggested voting the members by who’s application was turned in first. The 3 appointed were turned in first, the council decided to vote and she once again abstained. Even though she suggested they do so!
And let’s not get started on the volunteer issues on town commissions!! Now a few want to “interview” candidates to see if we get the most qualified candidates on these commissions. Never have we done so and when someone volunteers, unless they have a criminal background, you take them up on it. Especially since these vacancies have been there for years!! There are many ideas that everyone can contribute to the larger pot! This idea seems to set up the opportunity for the people presently on a commission to hand select the “ones” that will take their side on the issues at hand versus candidates that can help balance the commission by conveying the other side of the coin. Good luck getting more volunteers after that meeting. The lack of respect for one another would make me think twice.
Marge Frank wrote us to give her reasons for abstaining on two of the three abstentions at the November 15 Town Council meeting:
Chariho Budget: She wanted to see all items accounted for, but she objected to the letter as written and felt it was rude. “The volunteers on our school committee work very hard and I do not want them to feel we suspect them of doing anything underhanded. What I want to see is that input and output balance”
Wind Ordinance: “I had received two copies and felt it was unfair to pass an ordinance that was different from the one published in the newspaper.”
I checked with Southern Rhode Island Volunteers (http://www.southernrivol.org) and they said most local soup kitchens require a 6 month commitment and don’t usually look for help for only one day. You can suggest people visit a website at http://www.volunteermatch.org for opportunities, but I did a search and nothing popped up for Thanksgiving except helping at the Salvation Army in New London prepare food baskets prior to that day.
The Planning Commission provided an advisory opinion to the Town Council on the residential wind ordinance. That advisory is what Mrs. Frank refers to as a second copy of the ordinance. That advisory contained 4 suggested changes to the ordinance. The Town Council could have passed the ordinance without making the amendments. Before suggesting these changes we confirmed with the town’s attorney that the suggested changes were not significantly different from what was advertised.
These are the 4 suggested changes.
Strike the following: “is used to generate more electricity than 125 percent of the average annual electricity usage of the residential or agricultural use” Current RI law limits reimbursements to homeowners from the electric company to 125% of power used. The town’s attorney had inserted this language in answer to a question the Planning Commission raised. We didn’t feel we should remove it until we had a meeting with the attorney. When we met with him he said we could remove it. State law will still limit the homeowner to the text we had previously had in the law.
Lattice towers: The advertised ordinance allowed lattice towers up to 35 feet and monopoles from 35 to 125 feet. We sent a copy of the ordinance that was advertised to Rhode Island Wind Power. The vice-president there noted that lattice towers are not as expensive as monopoles. We suggested adding language to allow lattice towers at any height if the Zoning Board found that “due to existing site features such as topography, dense year round tree cover, the existence of other structures or other unique conditions, the lattice tower will not result in an increased visual impact over that of a monopole tower at the same site.”
Lighting: We changed the suggested control on lighting from motion detectors to timers. Wind turbines are meant to be in motion and might have caused a motion detector to be always on.
Fix a typo: We added an “s” to the word regulation
Christ Episcopal Church in Westerly serves Thanksgiving dinner.
One can volunteer one’s time or make financial or food donations.
Phone number 596-0197.
Surely other churches serve Thanksgiving dinner as well, but I don’t have that information.
During the past year, the pejorative term “NIMBY” has been directed by Charlestown Democrats at those residents that abut the land on Rte. 1 proposed for wind turbines. These people who the Democrats identify as members of the Ill Wind coalition have quietly gone about their business and didn’t take the bait that Mr. Will Collette laid out. Also, anyone who opposed those turbines was referred to as a Nimby at town council meetings, again by the Democrats of this town.
Now that Charlestown has a residential wind ordinance, and judging by the lack of applications for wind turbines submitted to the Building Official, we can safely call just about all the residents of Charlestown Nimbies, especially the Democrats. They were the people who insulted their neighbors. As Pogo said, and I paraphrase, we have met the enemy and he is us.
NIMBY is also used more generally to describe people who advocate some proposal (for example, austerity measures including budget cuts, tax increases, downsizing), but oppose implementing it in a way that would require sacrifice on their part (Wikipedia). Does anyone recall the “Homestead Tax Exemption? “ The town Democrats tried to pickpocket seasonal residents to help the “poor”, but made sure their pockets were well protected.
These are two major issues during the past year that the people of Charlestown have had to address and the town’s Democratic Committee became its own insult, its own caricature, and its own joke.