At the last Charlestown Town Council meeting, Mageau accused citizen volunteers of being criminals for attempting to collect email addresses at polling places during the March 4, 2008 Primary Elections and not being aware of an obscure opinion which prohibits such activities, despite the fact that even the Director of Elections for the Rhode Island Board of Elections was unaware of the opinion. I understand the BOE is looking for the opinion now, apparently filed in some archive. But if that opinion does rule that such activities are prohibited, the regulations should be understood by all, including the BOE, and apply to all groups, not just the ones with which Mageau takes exception.

These accusations are particularly staggering coming from the “self professed” expert on open meeting regulations who has already been found guilty of four open meeting violations. On June 7, 2004, Mageau, who had filed a complaint alleging that the Conservation Commission members violated state open meetings laws when they failed to file minutes for three meetings “on-time”, was quoted in a Westerly Sun article saying “They’ve been found in violation a number of times right now and I’m going to call on the Town Council to replace the Conservation Commission.” (“Conservation Panel’s Ouster Is Being Sought”). We can only hope that Mageau follows his own advice on this issue and resigns immediately, particularly since his own violations were exceedingly more egregious than what he was alleging of the Conservation Commission’s purported violations which, in the end, were never even acted upon by the Attorney General.

Those Charlestown citizens who may be interested in obtaining the information that Mageau had worked so hard to keep from you, should send an e-mail to: mail@CharlestownCitizens.org and just ask to be added to the Charlestown Citizen Alliance e-mail distribution list. Being on the e-mail list does not make you a member of CCA, but it does entitle you to receive issue alerts, times and places of important meetings, and much, much more. As we move into a new election period where we have an opportunity to finally oust Mageau and his Democratic “cronies” from office and restore good government and civility to Charlestown, become one of the best-informed citizens in our beautiful town.

Joan Lawlor