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.

There seems to be a lot of one-sided rhetoric in Tiverton these days, against the town council particularly those on the right (as you look from the gallery).

Pure and simple they are TTA members.  They are interested in controlling taxes in Tiverton as their first mission.  They are very interested in transparent government and town welfare.  There are many of us who feel this a noble mission.  

The squabbles in council chambers always seems be an “us against them” situation with one side dissing the other.  Everyone is interested in a better Tiverton.  Many good ideas abound and much good work has been done.  I had a grandfather that always said “there is more than one way to skin a cat”.  Because you don’t get your way doesn’t mean the other party is wrong.  Just a different way of doing things.

It’s time the people of Tiverton realize we are all fighting for the same thing, a better Tiverton.  And petty quarrels are just an interruption and distraction. 

A recent article in your newspaper described the CEO from Patriot Solar Energy wishing to lease unused acreage in the town industrial park suggesting the town could benefit by $250,000 to $400,000 per year by (Patriot Solar) installing a solar array at no cost to the town. Zero!  What the paper didn’t mention is it was a TTA member that did the background and introduced him.  

The TTA is looking out for the welfare of the town.  In this situation seeing both sides of the cash flows benefits the citizens of Tiverton.  And they look typically at both sides of issues thoughtfully.  Let them do their job.   Just because they are “skinning the cat” differently doesn’t mean they are doing the wrong thing.

McLaughlin’s allegation that this town council is not representing the will of the voters is a tall tale divorced from reality.

There were 18 candidates who ran for the Town Council in November 2018 and the “will of the people” elected as the majority Tiverton Taxpayers Association (TTA)-endorsed candidates: Donna Cook, Robert Coulter, Nancy Driggs, and Justin Katz. (Donna Cook, Justin Katz, and Nancy Driggs – in that order – being the highest vote getters.) Yet the lowest vote getter, William McLaughlin, joined by town council minority members, former president Denise DeMedeiros and Patricia Hilton, now claim to represent the will of the people in their down-is up and up-is-down topsy-turvy world.

But, if the majority who voted for this town council feel it was misled and its will is not being represented, where are its voices, where is its outrage? If the actions of this town council are so egregious, then why was third lowest vote-getter David Paull’s ethics complaint against Coulter, Driggs and Katz dismissed? And why were the DeMedeiros and Hilton Open Meetings Act charges dismissed? How come McLaughlin’s (the lowest vote getter) and two council minority members’ strident voices are all we hear?

Speculation about why this recall scheme was begun and has the support of DeMedeiros and Hilton includes McLaughlin wanting to change the town council majority to ensure settlement of his $4 million lawsuit against the town, and DeMedeiros and Hilton itching to be in control of the town council again.

What is not speculation is this town council’s accomplishments to date and its future plans: Contrary to McLaughlin’s allegations, it has expanded civil debate by allowing public comment on agenda items, and access to the agenda itself; Katz and Cook, the town council liaisons in the firefighters’ union contract negotiation, successively, and creatively, negotiated a contract and forestalled the anticipated need for arbitration which saved the town between $50,000 and up to $100,000 in legal fees; It scrapped a solar ordinance poorly conceived by the prior DeMedeiros town council and tasked the Planning Board for its input on future solar energy projects. (Unfortunately, for legal reasons some solar projects which had been approved when the solar ordinance was in effect can proceed); And, among other items, it is working on a long-term financial plan, ordinances such as an employee code of conduct to govern the right to receive certain benefits upon termination, and increasing openness and transparency in its actions (which too often in the past were shielded from public scrutiny in executive sessions).

You can defeat McLaughlin’s political stunt fostered and supported by sore losers, by not voting in the election. Because the recall charter provision requires a certain number of people to vote in the election, by not voting and keeping that number low you are helping to reject the recall petition power grab of McLaughlin and his cohorts which is so clearly against the will of the people.

This letter is to correct misinformation regarding hijacking and destruction of the Tiverton Republican Town Committee (TRTC), mostly stated by William McLaughlin and endorsed by a vocal group that is on a quest to recall two TRTC endorsed and duly elected members of the Town Council.

In May of 2016, we were asked by TRTC Chair DeEtta Moran, to become involved and help revitalize the committee that was in desperate need of new and active members as well as funds. At that time, there were 9 members, 5 of whom were active. We took on the challenge as newly elected Chair and Secretary.

As a committee, we reviewed and made changes to very old by-laws, adopted a beautiful logo and Mission Statement, recruited new members, helped organized a multi-town, very successful fundraiser, distributed newsletters to the community that generated additional members and generous donations. And our most important mission…to recruit and support conservative candidates (registered Republicans or Unaffiliated candidates) for the 2017 Charter Review Commission (9 endorsed, 9 elected), 2018 candidates for Town Council (7 endorsed, 4 elected) and Budget Committee (6 endorsed, 5 elected), a very successful accomplishment thanks to the voters of Tiverton.

So, no Mr. McLaughlin, you are totally wrong, you are spreading false information about something that you have no knowledge, as you have never been involved with the TRTC. The Tiverton Taxpayers Association (TTA) did not “hijack” nor did they destroy the TRTC, members of the TTA became new members of the better and stronger Tiverton RepublicanTown Committee.