The Tiverton Recaller Team damaged the integrity of our elections and abused the Charter provision to distort Democracy. During this process, they dismantled the 2018 election and stole something very valuable from you — your vote and vision — and replaced it with their vote and closed down yours. They silenced you!
How did the Recall Team accomplish this? Here’s how. Five separate mailers supporting the recall were sent to Tiverton homes. The most disturbing was from “ProgressRI,” appearing to be a political group of statewide teachers unions, with a middle school teacher’s return address.
The front picture of this large postcard depicts nine people with black tape covering their mouths, a violent picture similar to a kidnapping, hijacking, robbery, or a hostage situation. Directly under the pictures it states, “Now it’s time to silence them,” apparently meaning Robert Coulter and Justin Katz as well as seven other unknown people.
Imagine that! Teachers sending out postcards with a picture of violence to silence others in town. What kind of an example is this for children? Worse, it might be sent to a home with children who might see violence against their family. What kind of community do we live in where teachers pollute mailboxes with this sort of message?
I guess “Turn the Tide” folks support violent pictures directed against people with a different point of view. Does current Replacement President Hilton and Replacement Vice President deMedeiros support images of violence since they both signed the recall petition?
The postcard says Rob and Justin “silenced you” and claims that they “hijacked our Town Council” and “dropped the open forum public period from Council meetings.” This is easily disputed, just attend a meeting, read the minutes or watch the video.
The entire council voted to change our meeting rules to allow more public input, not less. We let everyone speak on anything that is on the agenda. We let everyone submit an agenda item request, we still have public forums, the only exception was when we had executive sessions and we had fewer of those than in the past because we did so much more out in the open.
Progress RI’s mailer wasn’t the only one to push these alleged truths. A card sent directly by the NEA teachers union said the same. So did another card sent by the AFL-CIO labor union. So did a card from the Turn the Tide group, using their new “Tiverton Independent PAC.”
Interesting how all these “independent” groups pushed the identical dishonest message. Residents and voters deserve the truth.
