Kathy Baker's letter to the Newport Daily News
In my blogging of the recent Portsmouth Town Council Charter workshop, I mentioned Kathy Baker, who got up and lambasted the PCC for opposing all-day voting. "I haven't missed an election since I was 18," she said, speaking to the unfairness of the Tent process. Kathy had a kick-butt letter to the editor in the Newport Daily News last night, and I'm posting for anyone who missed it (don't get me started on their train-wreck of a web site. I couldn't even find a link...)
I attended the Portsmouth Town Council workshop to discuss modifications to the "Tent Meeting" format. I felt like I had entered the Twilight Zone.
The PCC acknowledges that the budget passed at the tent meeting left the schools with insufficient funds to operate legally. This doesn’t faze them one bit. One PCC woman went to the mike and said repeatedly, "You threw away our votes." PCC members in the workshop audience were nodding their heads in agreement. If the tent meeting voters opted to abolish the school system I sense that they would still be suing the town saying it was the will of the people. Another man said that if people wanted a high quality school system then they should send their kids to private school. Again, the nodding heads.
Larry Fitzmorris, the PCC president, stated that the problem was the size of the requested budget increase not a flaw in the tent meeting format. No mention of the fact that from 2002-2004, when the PCC "set" the budget, the average tax rate increase was 0.66% per year which caused the school’s structural deficit. No mention of the use of Little Compton money to pay Portsmouth’s budget rather than increasing the school budget to educate the additional students. No mention of the fact that Portsmouth has one of the lowest effective tax rates and one of the poorest funded school systems in Rhode Island.
PCC president, Larry Fitzmorris, stated that the town council didn’t like the results of the tent meeting and was now trying to "truncate the tent meeting." During my own turn at the podium, I questioned that reasoning. The proposal being discussed as a modification to the current tent format opens polling places for the day and allows absentee and emergency ballots. How does that "truncate the tent meeting" when it enables more people to vote and makes it easier to vote? I stated that I had been a registered voter since I was 18 and had voted in every single election since but had not been able to attend the tent meeting. I was deprived of my right to vote and was not alone in wanting to amend the format to make it fairer. Having fared so poorly in the last 2 general elections; I think the PCC realizes that the current tent meeting is now the only way to get what they want.
Dealing with the PCC is like dealing with arrogant, irrational children who want what they want no matter what the cost to others. The PCC may have started out as a well-intentioned watch-dog group, but what currently exists is a group of public interest pretenders who campaign only for their own interests. They have fanatical energy to fight their cause. It is a dangerous combination.