Wow! Deb Pallasch.  Shame on you for claiming your litany of unsupported assumptions, opinions, and erroneous facts serve as a “path to recall.”

You claim by clairvoyance to know how TTA members are feeling, and the motivations of all the signers of the recall petition.

You assert that the actions of the two town council members who are the subject of this recall “failed to discharge the duties of their office” but you fail to list any of these actions.

You assert they didn’t listen to people who wanted them to go out to bid for a new solicitor who has municipal and land use experience.  Be advised, per the Tiverton Town Charter and State Law, there is no obligation for the town council to go out for bid for a town solicitor, and the solicitor who was hired does have municipal and land use experience.

Your claim they didn’t deal with critical issues like rescue vehicles and land fill is strange given that rescue vehicles have been replaced, and this town council has addressed the land fill closure issue – unanimously. 

You speak about Katz meeting with the superintendent.  So what!  You assume once again to know Katz’s intentions and that they are bad.   You are on the School Board, so stop assuming and go find out what went on at the Katz / Superintendent meeting.

As to Rom’s appointment to the Library Board of Directors, a board of trustees benefits from members with diverse backgrounds and priorities.  Rom was selected for that very reason, and to provide a taxpayer perspective on the library’s requested future funds from the town. 

For your information, it was the Carpionato group who asked to be on the town council agenda to present their development ideas.  When that meeting had to be continued because of too many attendee’s, the Carpionato group decided, the day of the re-scheduled public comment agenda item, not to come.  Further, there is nothing wrong, in fact everything helpful, in an entity considering a huge development that is going to call for a zoning change to want to inform the public and local government.

Recall petitions are serious and should be reserved for major misdeeds – like actual crimes.  If the erroneous and unsubstantiated actions you cite constitute a path to recall, then going forward any elected official will be fair game.  Is this the precedent you seek to establish?  

However, you did succeed in demonstrating the sham of this recall petition for which I thank you, and I urge all voters not to participate.  Reject the recall.  Don’t vote. A non-vote is a no vote.

It’s hard to believe that people would just lie.  And when people spread lies about you, it can be like a trap.  You can’t prove that a conversation never happened, and you definitely can’t prove that you’re not going to do something you haven’t done, yet.

That’s the position that the TTA majority of the Town Council is in right now.  People who want to get themselves or their friends back in control of the town are saying we have some plan to force through a major development on Souza Rd.  We don’t.

In fact, the Carpionato development would require a change in zoning, and I for one and Council President Robert Coulter for two have no intention of voting to do that.  The last proposal from the company caused months of stress in the community, and with no planner, new zoning and building officials, and multiple vacancies on our planning board, the town isn’t in a position to revisit that decision for a project that’s very similar.

Why would people be saying we’re somehow trying to push the development through?  That’s an easier question to answer.  One of them, William McLaughlin, is the man who pulled petitions to recall Rob and me.  He’s got no real justification for that campaign, so he’s trying to invent one.

Whoever has control of the “Don’t Mall Tiverton” group is obviously doing the same thing by constantly linking the development with the recall.  Not one person from the organization asked us our position on “the mall” before they started telling people they had to recall us to stop it.  Even after we made clear that neither of us supports the development, they continued with the lie.  If they were really about stopping “the mall,” they wouldn’t be trying to get rid of two council members who plan to do exactly what they want.

Here are the facts: Developers have a right to propose plans to the town.  This Town Council has an open-agenda policy that allows anybody to request time to make a presentation.  (That’s another thing that McLaughlin is spreading falsehoods about.)  Carpionato requested some time, and we have no justification for treating them differently than anybody else.

To my knowledge, nobody on the council had seen the development plans until we received our backup materials to prepare for our last meeting.  The presentation couldn’t go forward because too many people attended, so it is rescheduled for Wednesday, September 4, in the high school auditorium at 7:00 p.m.

At that meeting, the developer will present the plan, and then people will be able to offer their opinions on it.  My opinion, and Rob’s, is that the town should not change its zoning regulations in that part of town.  Anybody who says differently is saying something that isn’t true.