Almost since the new Tiverton Town Council was sworn in, one has gotten the sense that the word has gone out among local activists:  Everything must be a scandal.

The prior council pushed too hard — refusing to compromise and going too aggressively for political kill shots — and consequently lost not only their attempts to change the Home Rule Charter, not only the total control of gambling revenue they were seeking, but also control of the council itself.  So, their allies reasoned, they must make the next two years seem like a nonstop scandal so Tiverton voters would change course again in 2020.  (Some of them are clearly still hoping for a political kill shot in the form of a recall election.)

Not even two months into the new council’s term, and the phony double-standard cannot be denied.  Following a vote of the council to appoint a new Town Solicitor, Council President Robert Coulter signed the related contract, and the three continuing members of the prior council, led by former President Denise DeMedeiros, objected that the contract requires a ratifying vote.  A resolution that the council will consider on Tuesday, January 22, makes clear that no such requirement exists, but one detail is especially important to emphasize.

Rewinding back to the time when the prior solicitor, Anthony DeSisto, was hired, the minutes of the March 18, 2015, Town Council meeting reveal the following:

Council President deMedeiros announced the Town Administrator will meet with the firms appointed in the morning and prepare an agreement of terms.

Obviously, there was no official contract in place at the time of that vote, and the record shows that there never would be one.  DeSisto was Town Solicitor for three years and nine months with no contract other than the terms he proposed as part of his application.

True, the circumstances were different.  That appointment followed a longer search process, whereas the appointment of current Town Solicitor Giovanni Cicione was done in a more expedited fashion in order to create time for the longer process to be done with care.

The key point of this post, however, is that the supposed scandal of the ratification vote is not a scandal at all.  No ratification is required by law, and having an agreement with the town’s lawyer without a ratifying vote is also the past practice.

Featured image: A screen grab from the video for the March 23, 2015, town council meeting.

It’s been somewhat surprising to see people who clearly consider themselves to be supporters of civil rights and fairness respond as they have to the lawsuits against the town that three of us Town Council members are in the process of dropping or withdrawing from.

All of the details are available, here, so I won’t repeat them, but the upshot is that the Town Solicitor (at the suggestion of one or more members of the Town Council, we believe) led the Board of Canvassers to block ballot questions (or “resolutions”) from the 2018 financial town referendum (FTR) based not on the process of submitting them, but on the content of the questions themselves.  I’ll be generous in this summary (ignoring, for example, that the solicitor actually misstated what some of the questions would have done if they passed) and simply note that Solicitor Anthony DeSisto’s legal analysis was arguable.  Indeed, at the time that the board took its vote, the solicitor hadn’t even provided or (apparently) written his analysis, so he hadn’t made an argument so much as an assertion.

That means that, with no advanced notice of a hearing, no written analysis, and no effort to seek confirming opinions, the Board of Canvassers nullified the electors’ right to put questions on the ballot.  How can anybody, on any side of any political issue, believe that should be the way this works?

Of course, FTR resolutions and ballot questions are kind of abstract, and most electors might not have a practical sense of how they work.  But recent debate about the ethics of council members’ hiring a new solicitor puts a new light on the issue.

It’s become clear that at least some folks in town think it was unethical for us even to run for the council and that we shouldn’t have been permitted to take the seats.  Whether you agree with that or not, think of the Board of Canvassers’ FTR action in that light.

Imagine a town solicitor showing up at the Board of Canvassers meeting at which candidates for local office would be certified.  He tells the board that he thinks it might lead to charter complaints or other legal action against them if they certify three candidates who have lawsuits against the town.  In other words, he says, the candidates are “illegal.”

Obviously, this analysis would be wrong.  Otherwise, we’d be facing those official complaints right now.  But this is exactly what happened with the FTR resolutions.  With little more than an assertion, DeSisto pressured the board to make a decision within the space of their short meeting, even bending the rules of recusal to allow them to vote as he wanted.  There is no reason a solicitor couldn’t do the same thing to a candidate rather than a resolution.

And there is every reason to oppose the Board of Canvassers’ doing either.  It might even be worth a lawsuit.

Here and there around social media and other communication channels in Tiverton, folks have been speculating that Twin River Tiverton has taken a hit and isn’t going to be the revenue generator that people expected.  This talk seems to trace back to an article on GoLocalProv headlined, “Revenue Numbers at Twin River’s New Tiverton Casino Down 19 Percent.”

GoLocal’s information is typically reliable, but it tends to be sensationalist.  If you’re looking for the leading edge of tomorrow’s potential controversies, it’s a good place to look, but thorough assessment of news isn’t its forte.  In this case, the missing information is something that Tiverton residents have an advantage in knowing:  what the casino’s owners had projected for the first year of operation.

As we know from our local budget debate in April and May, the big questions were when the casino would open, what its hours would be, and what Tiverton could expect in revenue.  As projected by the state and reflected in Budget #2, the casino opened 24/7 on September 1st, with projected revenue for the 10 months of the fiscal year of $948,583, or an average of $94,858 per month.  Ultimately, supporters of higher taxes managed to convince voters at the financial town referendum (FTR) that this was too high.

In its first month of operation, Twin River Tiverton generated $163,807 for the town, which was 73% more than the monthly projection.  The question of concern to Tiverton taxpayers is whether the drop in October was more than that, and it wasn’t.  According to GoLocal, the casino took in $7,573,687 from video terminals, of which Tiverton gets 1.45%, and $1,696,431 from table games, of which Tiverton gets 1%.

There may be small differences due to the timing of payments or other adjustments, but this implies that Tiverton’s casino gambling revenue for October will be $126,783, which is still 34% more than projected.  Even if the first month benefited from enthusiasm over something brand new, if October’s revenue continues through June, Tiverton will end the fiscal year with $1.3 million (plus $100,000 from sports betting).

Starting next year, state law guarantees Tiverton $3 million minimum from the casino each year.  We’ll have to wait and see whether lawmakers will take that guarantee away in a few years if revenue doesn’t increase, but for the time being, everything continues to be on track.