Letter: ’Smoke and mirrors’ Tiverton mailer full of hypocrisy

Posted 4/17/19

To the editor, 

The recent letter of attack on Republican William McLaughlin by the “Tiverton Town Republican Committee” (TRTC) is nothing more than a bad chess move. TRTC Chairman Richard …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Letter: ’Smoke and mirrors’ Tiverton mailer full of hypocrisy

Posted

To the editor, 

The recent letter of attack on Republican William McLaughlin by the “Tiverton Town Republican Committee” (TRTC) is nothing more than a bad chess move. TRTC Chairman Richard Rom, an endorsed Tiverton Taxpayers Association (TTA) member, allowed four sitting TTA Town Council members to send out a “rebuttal” letter on the recall that is full of hypocrisy and lacking on transparency.

The letter should be pretty telling for Republicans in Tiverton who have yet to shun the TTA Tea Party as on the bottom right it clearly states “Paid for by TTA PAC”. Interesting! So Mr. Rom simply allows the TTA to put out a smoke and mirrors mailer by the TRTC but paid for by the TTA PAC? Or is the TRTC fully endorsing the TTA now? Furthermore, the signers (Coulter, Katz, Driggs and Cook) claim the letter is their own free speech and not town business yet they have no problem identifying themselves with their town titles. 

The TRTC, I mean TTA, wastes no time in their letter calling out a lawsuit Mr. McLaughlin had against Tiverton. Yet the letter fails to mention that members of the TTA have sued Tiverton no less than five times. That does not include the many frivolous charter complaints they have filed with a stellar record of zero wins! Add to that a lawsuit they forced the School Committee to file when a previous TTA controlled Town Council withheld money due to the schools. They lost that one too.

The TTA is not Republican. They are not Democrat. They are their own party. They have flattened town finances by petitioner budgets or TTA-controlled Budget Committees, under the guise of lowering the tax rate. 

What is not known by the general public is that the only reason the town has not sunk yet is due to refinancing of debt service by the treasurer (pushing debt down the road) and by taking away from line items that the voters approved to fund other line items.

In addition the TTA has continuously looted the general fund to pad the revenue side of the budget. They argue that the charter (they had several hands in) says we should have 3% of our budget in reserve and that anything over that can be freely used. Considering that 3% will fund the town for only few weeks in the event of a disaster and that many major economic thresholds are indicating a looming recession, having more in savings is the smarter financial move.

With a constantly underfunded budget, the only saving grace in an emergency is that Councilor Katz claims the Town Council can spend up to $500,000 from the general fund without voter approval. Crazy theory from a guy who has chastised prior Town Councils by claiming they want control of money without voter approval! Remember when the TTA ran on a platform of letting the “voters” decide how gaming revenue gets spent? Don’t worry, I must have missed the invitation also.

I truly don’t believe anyone in Tiverton will disagree with tighter government and fiscal responsibility. The fact of the matter is that government in Tiverton is not fat and the per capita spending is near the bottom of all the now famous towns that the TTA compares our tax rate to. I surmise this is more about punishing the majority of Tiverton for the mistakes of past management; or a personal vendetta?

David J Paull

Tiverton

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.