Richmond Councilors Double Down with Sign - January 29th 2023

By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA
January 29th, 2023

RICHMOND –Richmond residents hoping to get a weekend break from the recent political skirmishes that have roiled their town were confronted with a large sign that went up on Saturday next to the package store in Wyoming.

The sign is a jab at Democrat Kristen Chambers, who, in a Jan. 22 letter to the editor to The Westerly Sun, described Town Council President Mark Trimmer and councilors Helen Sheehan and Michael Colasante as a “Gang of Three” for their support of conservative activist Clay Johnson over Jessica Purcell for a vacant Chariho School Committee seat.

The Richmond Home Rule Charter states that the council should choose the next highest vote-getter for the seat, but Trimmer, Sheehan and Colasante have said that the Chariho Act, as state law, supersedes the town charter – which was also ratified by the state.

Purcell and the town have both hired attorneys, Jeffrey Levy for Purcell and Joseph Larisa for the town, to argue their cases before the Rhode Island Supreme Court.  

(Please see the Jan. 24 story on the BRVCA website.)

The sign, featuring a large photograph of Trimmer, Sheehan and Colasante, reads: “’Gang of 3’ Proudly representing the TAXPAYER! Stand with us, Richmond. We told you it wasn’t going to be business as usual.” 

Reached Saturday, Trimmer said the sign had been a response to recent suggestions that the councilors should be recalled.

“There have been multiple sources within the town’s Democratic party that talked about a recall for the Gang of Three,” he said. “In many cases, we’re doing what’s best for the town, and a lot of this has been given nefarious undertones. It’s not. So, we were quoting the Democrat, Kristen Chambers, and the others that have made these statements. We were following the Chariho Act regarding the appointment. The Court should bear [that] out in the end, and I think that we’ll be validated in the end by the Rhode Island Supreme Court.”

Asked who had come up with the idea for the sign, Trimmer said,

“I don’t know. I think we just talked about it and it kind of organically came up. I didn’t like the term ‘Gang of Three,’ because I studied history and the term is a negative, Communist term.”

The sign was paid for by the three council members.

“I think each of us paid $47 apiece,” Trimmer said. “I think I had $42 left in my campaign account. Mike and Helen had a little bit more, and we’re each chipping in and we’re paying for it, because we’re expecting the recall. We can’t just disagree or not agree all the time. We have to go to extremes.”

Democratic Town Committee Chairman Joseph Reddish was seeing the sign for the first time when contacted by BRVCA on Saturday evening.

Reddish said the current situation in the town stemmed from the appointment of Johnson, which amounted to disenfranchisement.

“Taking away the voters’ rights to selection is what they’ve done,” he said. “This is not ‘business as usual’. They disenfranchised the voters, is what they did.”

Chambers said she found the new sign shocking.

“Shame on them for their lack of shame,” she said. “They used that term because I used it in a letter to the editor so my friend sent it to me and I said ‘hmm, maybe I used it the wrong way.’ But I looked up ‘gang’ and the definition of gang is an organized group of criminals, so I did use it the right way.”

Reddish said he does not believe the town is divided over the school committee issue, but he stressed that not enough moderate – leaning residents took the time to vote and express their views.

“What’s taken place is, yes, they [the Republicans] got out the vote of a select group of people,” he said. “If you look at the percentage of voters, 31% of the voters voted. That is not a representation of the opinion of the Town of Richmond.

…People can’t be passive. They have to be engaged.”

Trimmer still hopes that both sides will be able to cooperate for the good of the town.

“The two extremes, left and right, can’t coexist,” he said. “Somebody has to move a little bit. That’s how I feel. I’m hoping that I can convince the two edges of the spectrum to kind of edge towards the center and we can get some things done.”

But Chambers said she felt that the sign had exacerbated the divisions.

“It’s like a slap in the face, not just to Democrats but to Richmond residents. They’re proud of everything that they’re doing that people are getting angry about,” she said.