Adventures in Town Government
Simply because it represented an unanticipated expenditure during a time of extremely tight budgets — indeed, when the town council is pondering a “token” reduction in its own pay totaling $2,520 — I made note of the Tiverton Town Council’s decision to make $900 available to municipal officials to attend a Grow Smart RI workshop…
With taxpayers — especially business taxpayers — beginning to get uppity, one often hears the invocation of Rhode Island’s Political Knot. Nothing objectionable is anybody’s fault; it’s all a natural construct that can’t be changed… at least by the person to whom one would turn for relief. Take the “tangible tax.” I know of at…
With the new year and the new dynamic in the town council, I thought I’d best resume the habit of attending all meetings — exuding my apparently intimidating presence. At the moment, there’s one of those typical town-level debates about development issues. Somebody wants to develop and needs some sort of concession from the town…
The school committee in West Warwick appears mainly to be doing the bare minimum to support a Caruolo suit for more money from the town, but it may be headed down the road behind East Providence soon: The performance audit, commissioned by the town as a part of the Caruolo lawsuit proceedings from the last…
Apparently powerful players on local school committees can’t just subvert the will of voters without providing the public any warning that they intend to do so: Superior Court Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson has ordered the Chariho Regional School Committee to reinstate William Felkner until it properly votes on whether to allow him to serve on…
The vicious insinuations that Tiverton Citizens for Change faced for turning in some campaign finance reports late gives me a whole new perspective on this sort of thing: The former Tiverton Town Council violated the state’s Open Meetings Act last summer, an assistant attorney general has ruled, but the matter is moot, because a proposed…
My response to Richard Joslin made it into this week’s print edition of the Sakonnet Times (as did TCC President David Nelson’s), and I’m sure it’ll spark an angry response or two from unionists. Who knows but that ringleader Crowley will pen a guest letter from across the state. Given the extent of his so-called…
The tentative deal between Southern Union and residents of Tiverton concerning contaminated soil has fallen through. It’s a travesty that those who live in the Bay Street area should spend so long in limbo, as the article puts it, but this is particularly disconcerting: In the end, Southern Union could not strike a deal with…
About his brother’s bad $75,000 check, Mayor David Cicilline said this yesterday to the I-Team’s Jim Taricani: But what is absolutely not possible is that it was ever brought to my attention that a check had been issued, had been dishonored by bank or bounced in the amount of $75,000 by my brother. I would…
I’ve been arguing that change has to come to Rhode Island from the municipality up. If we begin at the local level identifying and placing worthy candidates and generating a grassroots comprehension of the state’s problems, we’ll be positioned to grow upward and begin to crowd out the entrenched interests. Although I haven’t followed the…