01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, April 19, 2007

By Maria Armental

Journal Staff Writer

CHARLESTOWN — For six months, town residents have watched — everything but silently — as their elected town officials engaged in very public battles.

The three independents and two unendorsed Democrats elected last November have seemed to clash over just about everything, down to the agenda’s arrangement.

Charlestown has become the topic of discussion all over South County and beyond, inspiring some to consider recall provisions.

Now, a group of residents calling themselves the Charlestown Citizens Alliance are pushing for the Town Council to allocate money in next year’s budget for a special election to recall Councilman James M. Mageau and to cut the administrator’s salary pending an appointment consistent with the Town Charter.

They are also seeking to present to voters a proposal to build a new town pavilion at Blue Shutters Beach. The construction and related road improvements have been estimated at $1.6 million.

The group will launch a signature drive Saturday at the Quonochontaug Grange to gather the 200 signatures needed to place the warrant items before voters at the annual Financial Town Meeting on June 4. They will also start a fundraiser to gather money to fund the campaign effort.

“For the past six months, the majority of the Town Council headed by Mr. Mageau has been involved in various open-meetings violations, sought to hand pick a town manager without any competition or interviewing and is trying to push through an almost $2 million beach-construction project without voter approval,” said John Goodman, one of the organizers.

“This is simply a matter of citizens taking matters into their hands sooner rather than later,” Goodman said, “and to do so in a fair and democratic manner.”

Mageau said it’s all politics.

“There is no provision in the Home Rule Charter to provide for [a] recall,” Mageau said. Therefore, “the question is illegal and it’s one more example of how irresponsible this group of people are.”

“They are not interested in good government,” he said. “They are only interested in their own special agenda and power.”

As for the proposal to cut Town Administrator’s Edward M. Barrett’s salary to $300 a month “until such time that an open and competitive search for a qualified administrator be complete,” Mageau said: “That’s not going to happen. He is under contract, and contracts are nonnegotiable through the FTM.”

The Financial Town Meeting, Mageau said, “is not a political tool that should be abused by a bunch of political miscontents.”

Barrett’s appointment is being challenged because the majority government interviewed him shortly after the election at a private meeting and appointed him without discussion or consideration of any other candidates. The state attorney general’s office has since ruled the meeting amounted to an Open Meetings Law violation.

Barrett has also come under fire for withholding information from the two minority council members — he admitted to discarding the résumé of now Town Solicitor Robert E. Craven instead of forwarding it to the town clerk and the rest of the council knowing that the majority council was going to appoint him to the position — and for recommending a pay cut for Joseph S. Larisa Jr., the town’s counsel on Indian affairs, at a time when the Narragansett Tribe has said it will seek to revoke the so-called Chafee amendment, which requires the Narragansetts to win state and local voter approval before opening a casino or any sort of gambling hall on their land.

“A great deal of people in town feel that this is, at best, an example of incompetence,” Goodman said of Barrett.

Barrett declined comment through a secretary.

A group of residents started the Charlestown Citizen Alliance, a registered ballot advocacy association, in January following a special meeting in which the Town Council summarily changed the town’s legal representation without allowing residents to speak.

The group has since grown to 200-plus residents who keep informed mostly by word of mouth and via e-mail and regularly attend council meetings.

The group will present some 600 signatures calling for a recall provision to the Charter Review Advisory Committee at its May 1 organizational meeting, Goodman said.

But the committee, he said, isn’t expected to present its recommendations on charter amendments until next year. Too long a wait, Goodman said.

The charter, Goodman said, outlines a number of causes for an individual to be removed from office, including willful neglect of duty and willful misconduct to the injury of the public service, two of the accusations commonly raised against Mageau. Yet, there is no procedure for removal.

“Lacking a mechanism in the charter to remove an individual from office, we feel that holding a special election is the fair and right thing to do,” Goodman said.

marmenta@projo.com