Roy Jacobsen: Laying Down Facts About Charlestown’s Politics

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The following letter appeared in local newspapers and is shared with us here by the author Roy Jabobsen. Roy has lived in Charlestown for more than 20 years.


Someone once said that local election campaigns are called the “Silly Season.” Now it’s the “Lying Season.” I was shocked to read in The Westerly Sun’s Letters to the Editor on Tuesday, October 11, the fabrications and deliberate lies of Catherine O’Reilly Collette. As chairwoman of the Charlestown Democratic Party, Ms. Collette needs to be held accountable to the truth. She asserts as fact that the Charlestown Citizens Alliance was spawned by the Rhode Island Shoreline Committee. Not true! Not only does she insult the memory of Harry Staley, founder of RISC, she feeds into class war rhetoric and then buttresses her statement with further lies.

Fact: the CCA was started because of the incompetence of and chaos caused by persons now and in the past associated with the same Charlestown Democratic Party. Those with long memories will remember our town was called “Joketown.”

Fact: How many of us have ever lived in a town where taxes were lowered two years in a row? Charlestown has one of the lowest tax rates in Rhode Island.

Fact: Deb Carney who is again running for Town Council, from the same Charlestown Democratic Party, was a major proponent of the tax-the-rich plan penalizing part-time residents that she brought for a vote by the Town Council.

Fact: Part-time residents pay, without being able to vote, the majority of taxes in Charlestown. Talk about “biting the hand that feeds us.” Most importantly, part-time residents are no burden to the town’s taxpayers. In fact, part-time residents are the major economic engine in our town.

Let’s not go back to those chaotic days again. The CCA has given us competent and consistent leadership, and they deserve our vote on Election Day, November 8.

Roy E. Jacobsen


Banner image is a photograph of West Beach by Cliff Vanover.