When I first ran for a seat on the NK Council it was to get the experience of actually contributing to policy.  I acted as Campaign Manager that year for the full ticket of five candidates fielded by the NKGOP.  As a campaign manager I did quite well that year, seeing that four out of five on our slate were elected to the board.  Of course I was the one that missed, coming in sixth in the five seat race by just 150 votes out of over 11,000 cast.

As the ‘Next Leading Vote Getter’ in the 2002 Town Council Election I was Heir Apparent in the event that an opening came up before the next election.  As 2004 unfolded that’s exactly what happened.  Robin Porter, one of the four seat Republican Majority on the 2002 – 2004 NK Town Council, decided to concentrate on the fight against casino gambling in Rhode Island.  He was the executive director of an organized coalition against casino gambling in our state and he determined to make that fight the centerpiece of his 2004 campaign for election to the RI Senate, where he had served before in the 1990’s.  Robin resigned from the Town Council in May of 2004 to do that and I was appointed to fill out his unexpired term.

Here's Mark with his Predecessor, Robin Porter, at this year's Wicklford Arts Festival

During the 2004 election I ran for the seat again, determined to win it in my own right.  With that as my goal I made sure I worked harder the second time out, both as a Campaign Manager and as a Candidate. 

In the 2004 town election I came in fifth for the Town Council, in a field of 15 candidates.  My colleague, Barbara Jackson, polled just behind me in that election but I did win the seat.  With two of my other NKGOP Colleagues polling ahead of me I joined a three member majority with Anthony Miccolis and John Patterson for the 2004 – 2006 Session.

Throughout this session I have honed my skills at keeping up with the large amount of information that’s available, and necessary if a Town Councilor is to make informed decisions.  I have worked with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, as well as with the town’s professional staff to hammer out two budgets and a thousand individual issues that each meant something to someone in town so they all meant something to me.

There was never any doubt in my mind that I would run for the seat a third time.  Now that I’ve gotten better at being a Town Councilor I have a much clearer idea of what I can and cannot do from the seat.  That makes me better able to set a realistic agenda for both myself and my supporters, so I can set realistic expectations and the voters can know in advance what they will get when they cast their vote for Mark Zaccaria.

June 27th, 2006: The NKGOP gathered for a special meeting to endorse a slate of candidates.  From the Town Council side I was very pleased that in the days leading up to this endorsement we had secured commitments from both Erin Carroll and Shelagh McGowan to join the three incumbents to fill out our ticket.  I felt that the Republican Team now offered the best of a combination of experience in office and diversity of both background and viewpoint.  Shelagh had captured the imagination of voters across party lines during the last election when she very nearly beat a five term incumbent in the majority party for a seat in the RI Senate.

In the race for School Committee endorsements, however, a fight had been brewing that came to a head when the Town Committee took its poll.  Several committed candidates for the School Committee had recently joined the NKGOP with an eye to receiving its support for their runs.  At the same time two incumbent GOP Members of the School Committee had announced that they would run again, too.  This made for a race between five would be endorsees for four places on the Town Committee’s slate.

The odd man out was Don Defedele, the current Chair of the NK School Committee.  I voted for Don and I spoke on his behalf.  I felt that he had born up under an almost unsupportable burden over the last four years trying to manage a committee that was held hostage by one or two of its members who placed their own agendas ahead of that of the town’s school system.  I have no idea whether or not I could have withstood that kind of aggressive disregard for the rules of businesslike conduct in a public forum and Don has my debt of gratitude for doing so with as much equanimity and grace as he did.

I felt that as a group the NKGOP had been short sighted when it failed to recognize that Herculean effort on its behalf and, instead, bowed to the easy call that because the School Committee’s productivity had suffered its Chair must be held responsible.

Over and over you will see in these notes that I am all about the process.  I feel that a full-service political party has to be organized and operated so that it follows a hierarchy of values that ultimately insure its members that it has a star to steer by and doesn’t just bend to transient whims.  I don’t think we achieved that in our School Committee endorsement this year.

Of course a narrow majority of those voting that night did think that the right thing had happened, so I also have to remember that I won’t be on the winning side in every vote.  Moreover, when I am not with the majority I have to bear in mind that this is still my party as much as it is everyone else’s so my play is to move forward and stay engaged.  Maybe I’ll win the next one.

I also have to remember that in Politics we frequently eat our young.

Barry Martasion (Left), Carol Hueston (Center), and Don Defedele, (Right)

The NKGOP Slate for School Committee in 2002

July 4th, 2006:  Tonight there were Fireworks in celebration of our nation’s 230th year of Independence.  Has it really been 30 Years since the last Bicentennial Minute?  The display was the culmination of a year long fund raising effort aimed at privatizing this roughly $20,000 annual cost.  As the Town Council’s Liaison to the Leisure Services Advisory Committee, I spent the year going to the meetings where this effort was spearheaded.  Helping us mightily was the North Kingstown Chamber of Commerce, with Karla Driscoll at the helm as Executive Director.

The reduction in cost to municipal government has been characterized by some as symbolic or ceremonial at best.  I disagree with that assessment insofar as the mind set of controlling costs is concerned.  I believe that not only did town government save a few taxpayer dollars on the fireworks display in 2006 but it also helped energize the community to step up and take some responsibility for one of the cultural data points that defines the curve of a typical North Kingstown year.

And Community is what I saw as I wandered the grounds of the Beechwood House that Tuesday night.  Our town was defined as a separate and unique place by much of what went on.  How many other towns have protected seashore from which to watch the pyrotechnics launch, safe on a barge moored a short way out?  How many of your friends and neighbors did you run across and greet in the hour or so of daylight that preceded the opening salvo?  Did you hear the strains of the Lafayette Band playing Stars & Stripes Forever just before the first rocket went aloft?

Each of these things and a million more I didn’t see created a web of bonds between us and made us more of a Community than we had been before.

That’s the magic of transforming a jurisdiction into a town, and that’s one of the hard to measure things that local government can do to make life better for its citizens.

July 10th, 2006: At tonight’s meeting of the NK Town Council we got into a number of thorny subjects.  It was a good example of the kinds of tough calls that have to be made from time to time.  Most difficult were the two Show Cause hearings for two of our small businesses in town that had run out of time to come into compliance with state fire safety codes.  Both are restaurants with full service liquor licenses and because both have live entertainment they each fell under the state mandated requirement to have approved sprinkler systems. That requirement came in the wake of the Station Nightclub Fire of 2003 in which 100 died, arguably because there was no fire suppression system to give them the time to escape.

Both of the businesses that came before us had had two years of notice and the opportunity to file for extensions from the state.  One was excruciatingly close to having the system installed.  Even though a week or two might have been all that was needed, the ghosts of those 100 victims were in the room with us and there was never any question that the Town Council would not enforce the statute and the North Kingstown Ordinance.  We took no joy in depriving two sets of owners of their livelihoods and we did word the suspensions in such a way that they could resume operations as soon as they passed their inspections.  It was a painful exercise, but one that the voters had hired us to perform.

Next we heard from a large number of residents of a series of small neighborhoods that are surrounded on three sides by water.  As a result there is only one main road out of the area.  For a number of years, though, the adjacent Quonset Davisville Industrial Park had kept a gate open onto its property and many of those closest to the water in these neighborhoods had been able to use it as a ‘Back Door’ to get out by another way.

The reason for the public outcry was that in late June the QDIP had closed that back gate, and the sign said Permanently.  At Monday’s meeting two things came together at once.  First, there was no published Agenda Item on the subject of the gate closing.  That meant the Rhode Island Open Meetings Law required that even if public comment were made on the topic the Town Council could not deliberate or even answer their constituents.  The intent of the law is right minded.  It seeks to insure that any citizen who is interested in a topic for Council consideration can be assured that they will know in advance exactly when it will be discussed.  In practice, though, we were forced to just sit there while impassioned pleas were made to us.  The second problem was that there were some opposed to the gate closing and some in favor of it.

The shame of it all was that the town was as surprised as the neighborhood residents were by the sudden reversal of the QDIP.  An underlying issue that went un-discussed was the lack of communication and coordination between the Quonset Davisville Corporation and the town.  QDC is the quasi public subsidiary of the state’s Economic Development Corporation that has jurisdiction over the industrial park.  To be sure the roadway onto their property was not owned by the town and was not an accepted street, or even a recorded Right-Of-Way.  There was no legal obligation on the part of QDC to inform the town or the neighborhood residents in advance of taking action.  It would have been a nice touch, though.

Naturally the residents thought that the town had made the change.  Thus the irate passions expressed during the Public Comment item on our Agenda that night.  We will have to correct the misconceptions at a meeting where we can discuss the issue.  Of more importance is the fact that we will also have to forge a better working relationship between the town and the QDC.  That is certainly the bigger of the two problems and the most pressing.  If we solve it we will forestall any number of future stumbling blocks like this one.

Quonset Davisville Industrial Park, North Kingstown, RI

July 15th, 2006: We have recently seen the calls for a Forensic Audit of North Kingstown’s School Administration grow in intensity.  Part of that can be credited to the inertia of motion, the more one hears these calls the more one believes them and joins the process.  Some of it stems from politics, as candidates gear up for the fall election and seek an issue to espouse.  Through all of this the Council has maintained that the core question has to be taken seriously, though, so no one in town is left feeling that potentially criminal acts went un-investigated.

This Town Council has already conducted three separate audits of the NK School System and we are still considering taking a further step in this process.  We have formally requested that Rhode Island's Auditor General render us an opinion on the necessity for a Forensic Audit of our School Department.  At the same time we are seeking to detail the specifications that might be applied to a Forensic Audit.  That second question is of great concern because an open ended audit would always be accused of having concluded too soon if nothing was found, and it would also represent a blank check in that there would be no estimate going in as to the impact of this activity on the town's budget.

I agree with my colleagues, Councilors Cooney and Henseler, that the expense of a Forensic Audit should not be the first consideration on whether or not to undertake it.  It must be a consideration at some point in the process, however, when you remember that to maintain the town's budget this year we had to lay off employees and severely cut services. 

I am in favor of conducting a Forensic Audit of the School Department.  Before we commence such an effort, however, I will seek to have a reliable estimate of how much it will cost at its conclusion.  That is so I can face the taxpayers afterwards and let them know that we were practicing good management with the expenditure of their public funds.

Had any of the three independent audits done so far turned up any indication of wrongdoing I could certainly not be as conservative as this on the subject of costs.  The fact remains, though, that two state certified auditing firms and one well respected education consultant have all audited the NK School System already at the request of the Town Council, and no indications of illegal activity have been cited.  Add to that the Auditor General, himself, the Attorney General, and the Rhode Island State Police, all of whom have also conducted their own investigations of wrongdoing in our Schools, none of which have turned up any crimes.  With all this as a backdrop I trust that most will agree with my caution before authorizing what could easily be a six figure Forensic Audit.

I am concerned with the low level of people skills that seem to be practiced by our School Administration.  The result is abrasive relationships with all their customers, namely we the citizens of North Kingstown.  This, no doubt, increases the level of suspicion some people feel about the possibility of wrongdoing.  The objective measures we have at hand today, however, indicate that this is still a management problem which should be addressed by the School Committee rather than a criminal problem that should be addressed by every citizen.

I hope the Forensic Audit we eventually undertake will bear this out, or prove it wrong to the satisfaction of all concerned.

Here’s an exchange that took place between a constituent and me just last week.  It concerns the unanimous decision by the Town Council, on August 28th, 2006,  to offer a negative opinion to the state siting board which is about to review a request by National Grid for a permit to locate a new electrical substation in town.  This vote came just in the wake of a long stretch of unusually hot weather, which meant unusually high demand for electrical power.  During this period the part of North Kingstown where this citizen and I both live experienced several commercial power failures as a result of this overload.  He wrote to inquire why I had voted as I had:

Dear Mr. Zaccaria,

Since you reside on Congdon Hill, I expect you experienced the same power outages as I did during the recent hot weather.  I live in the Holly Hills development and went without power for considerable periods of time.  This generated my interest in the cause of the problem and since then I have been following the developments with the NK substation proposal.

On the face of it, the National Grid proposal appears reasonable.  I understand the concerns of property owners that will be in the vicinity of the substation, but it would seem that National Grid has developed a plan that would create a buffer.  The news recently reported that the town council has voted against the National Grid proposal, yet I saw nothing that indicated that there were any cost effective alternatives suggested by the council.  While it is not the Town Council's responsibility to act as energy supply engineers, I do believe the town has a responsibility to work with National Grid to arrive at a viable solution.  It is the town that has permitted the residential growth that has resulted in increased energy demands, thus the town has some responsibility in identifying an alternative when rejecting the National Grid proposal.

If the town has recommended viable alternatives then I am not fully informed and would be interested to know more about the alternatives.

I have directed my comments to you since I expect you are very familiar with the power supply issues in this area, but you are certainly free to share my comments with other council members.  My primary objective in this e-mail is to express my view that the town's role on this issue goes beyond accepting or rejecting National Grid proposals, the town played a role in creating the issue thus the town has to provide alternatives when rejecting a proposal.

Since this message was sent to me by name, naturally I felt I owed the writer a reply.  Here’s what I said:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for taking the time to write me on this matter of critical public interest.  You're right.  Both our families sweated out the recent power interruptions and the reason we had to was that our local electrical distribution system is currently inadequate for the peak loads we all demand from it during hot weather.

The National Grid proposal for a new substation in North Kingstown is both timely and appropriate.  The final decision on where to place it will be made by the State of Rhode Island's Energy Facilities Siting Board.  This decision will be made in November and it may or may not take the Town Council's recent vote on the matter into account.  One way or the other there will be a site selected for the new substation in November.

National Grid's preferred location, on Tower Hill Road next to the Carriage Inn, had much to commend it from a purely technical standpoint.  However their choice of that site did not take into consideration any of the feelings of the neighbors, many of whom would abut the facility or its feeder lines.  The Town Council formally joined the selection process to speak for those homeowners.  You can argue whether or not their property values would actually be affected or whether or not Electro Magnetic Force (EMF) emissions would cause them long term problems.  The mere fact that they thought that these and other problems existed made it necessary for the Town to assist.

In fact, the Town offered several alternative sites for national Grid's consideration.  The most attractive of these is located just west of Route 4, approximately 1000' north of the intersection of West Allenton.  Perhaps you've noticed the southbound curb cut in that area?  That dirt road is for access to a town water well and could also be used to get to the parcel suggested for the new substation.  National Grid's own estimates of the costs to put the substation in the alternative site give a delta of only $100,000.  On an overall project in the tens of millions, and one for which rate payers will pick up the tab over time, I don't consider that much of a difference.  At the alternate site there are issues with wetlands in the area, with protection of the town well, and with crossing Route 4 with additional overhead lines.  It was the Town council's position last Tuesday evening that these matters could all be addressed, especially if a cooperative effort ensued where the town and the utility worked in concert.

The problem we faced last Tuesday evening was that National Grid did much to acknowledge the alternatives offered by the town but nothing to seriously consider their actual use.  The utility persisted in its focus on the preferred site and refused to undertake any serious thought about whether or not they could live with the alternative location.  In the town's view, the alternative is in an area where no future residential encroachment will take place and where a more than sufficient buffer exists between it and the nearest present neighbors, Deerfield Condominiums.

In the end the Town council's negative vote on a recommendation to be sent to the Energy Facilities Siting Board was intended as a Wake-Up Call to National Grid to get them to work with us seriously.  I don't think anyone is under any illusions as to who has the hammer here.  If the utility chooses to forge ahead with its application for the Tower Hill Road site the EFSB will almost certainly over rule the town and that's where the substation will go.  It is my hope, however, that the utility will open itself to the new idea (despite the fact that it was invented elsewhere) and take the opportunity to install the needed additional capacity whilst also being a good neighbor.

From your perspective and mine up on Congdon Hill, Tuesday's Town Council vote will not change the schedule for adding the electrical distribution capacity needed to forestall any future problems in the next heat wave.  If it prods the utility into re-thinking a position that might actually be less advantageous to it in the long run, however, I believe the Council will once again have done the job that the voters hired it to do.

I hope you agree.

- Mark Zaccaria

It is always good when you see that you appear to have made the right call, and that it’s been communicated that the Town Council is looking out for all the town’s citizens.  I was very pleased that this writer took the time to get back to me:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for taking the time to provide me with a thorough explanation of the factors that influenced the council's action.

I was unaware of the alternative sites and it certainly seems like the town has made a good faith effort to be an active participant in the process by proposing  reasonable alternatives.  At minimum, if the alternatives are not
viable, it sounds like National Grid has done a poor job of effectively communicating the reasons why.  Your point is well taken that there is unequal power (pardon the pun) in this situation and that certainly would explain why the party with more power may not see an upside in a thorough discussion of alternatives.

I also understand the role the council should play in addressing the concerns of any town resident and in no way am I critical of your actions. In fact, it is reassuring to see local government fully embrace their responsibilities.

Again, thank you for taking the time to bring me up to speed on many of the details.   I believe I would have taken the same action as you and the other council members.

I only wish that All Constituent Concerns could be resolved so easily by better Communication. - MZ

September 7th:  Today is nominally 60 days before the election and is the first day that political signs may be displayed without first pulling a permit.  The candidate signs are sure to sprout like wildflowers, some would say weeds.

Beginning last March I began buying the raw materials and preparing to silk screen a new set of lawn signs for the ’06 Election Season.  Starting with my wife Ruth’s campaign for the RI House in 2000, we have made all our own signs down in the basement of our home.  Having purchased a silk screen with the art for my Town Council signs already on it, I’ve saved money by using the same design since 2002.  Up close I can see that the screen has worn after four years of aging and hundreds of impressions pulled.  From a distance, though, the signs still ‘Read’ alright so my Scots blood will prevail and we will get one more campaign out of the 2002 investment.

Starting in the early spring, as I do, the speed and hubbub of the campaign ramps up slowly.  Through April and May Ruth and I have spent alternating weekends applying each of two colors to both sides of the fifty signs I’ll use.  I got the uneasy feeling that I was falling behind during those days because we were not really doing much.  It wasn’t even June, though.  There wasn’t that much to do…Yet.  As we get closer and closer to Election Day the pace gathers, imperceptibly at first, but inexorably.  In March the thought of every night, weekend, and holiday spent going door-to-door, or to public events, or blogging like this seems daunting.  By the time you get there, though, the pace has built to a crescendo by small degrees and you’re into it almost without realizing how far you’ve come.

The stakes that hold up my signs are oak construction markers that I’ve partially split on my table saw and pre-drilled to take the screws that hold the whole thing together.  For the 2006 campaign when I rooted around the garage to find the leftovers from last time I discovered buried treasure.  There was a bundle of stakes left over from the last campaign that was more than sufficient to build up all the signs I’ll need for the start of this year’s contest.

Later I’ll need more because there is always significant attrition in the political Ground War.  The second sign I put out this year lasted less than half an hour before an enraged neighbor removed it as unsightly.  The sign was located on private property and I did have the permission of the owner to display it there, but one of the abutters felt it didn’t look good in the neighborhood.  I replaced it and tried to explain to the neighbor that for the two months leading up to the General Election those lawn signs represent Free Speech for me.  They are one of the very few ways I have to communicate with the voters and to remove them stifles that speech, I think wrongly.

One of the late summer rituals before campaign season is the series of telephone calls I make to past supporters whose homes are along busy streets around town.  I am pleased that most are happy to have me put out my signs again for the 2006 edition, but there are those who prefer not to attract that attention to their yards this time.  If you see one of my lawn signs out there it’s because I or the NKGOP have been in touch with the land owner to get permission to put it there. 

By the way, if you see one of my lawn signs out there, please read it and think about supporting me for a second full term on the North Kingstown Town Council.

I agree with the person who removed my lawn sign that the political season makes our suburban landscape unsightly.  My own front lawn is perhaps the worst offender in town.  I see beyond that sixty day blight on our roadside vistas, however, because I know that the bi-annual harvest of political signs is an integral part of the process that keeps our volunteer, local government both free and responsive.  I hope you agree with me that the temporary eye-sore is worth it.

One political promise I can make and keep is that all my signs will be collected before noon on Wednesday, November 8th.

Hey.  I may need all those stakes again.

Tuesday, September 12th, Primary Day:  I am a strong supporter of Senator Lincoln  Chafee and this year I have been volunteering in his Primary Campaign.  You might have gotten a phone call from me or seen me acting as a poll watcher today. 

Mayor Steve Laffey is a good man who has done a great service for the
City of Cranston and, thereby, the whole State of Rhode Island.  I was far from alone in Republican circles when I pleaded with him in 2005 to run for one of the other important offices that were up this year.  He was determined, however, and the primary ensued.

Senator Chafee’s Primary Campaign was a model of organization and efficiency.  His ability to poll likely voters in advance and identify those who would support him in the voting booth was a triumph of focus and elbow grease.  It’s not hard to imagine how to ask someone their preference and then keep them in mind on Election Day.  It’s pretty difficult to actually do it, though, when the target is over 70,000 voters.  That the Senator’s campaign was able to touch and then track all those supporters is an example of organization and execution.  Voters in the General Election should think about what went into that effort when they are deciding who they want to have managing their affairs in Washington for the next six years.  I see it as an example of the man’s abilities and I hope you do, too.

I had a primary two years ago before getting on the ballot for Town Council in November of 2004.  I learned not to fear the Primary.  It is a chance to make additional impressions on the voters and to enter the final campaign weeks with tremendous momentum.  Steve Laffey had every right to pursue his dream.  I only hope he keeps that dream alive and re-kindles it in two years when he can take on a Democrat for the Senate.  Meanwhile, the RI GOP arguably only has three marquee candidates in the 2006 campaign: Chafee, Laffey, and Governor Carcieri.  It’s a shame we had to pit two of them against each other and, perhaps as a result, let the 2nd District seat in Congress go uncontested.

I hope we don’t make that mistake again in two years.

Saturday, September 23rd:  Late tonight my colleague, competitor, and friend, Councilwoman Suzanne Henseler passed away.  She succumbed in the end after a long and bravely fought campaign against a chronic and unrelenting disease. 

Sue’s passing was a surprise, in fact a shock to most who knew of her work on the Town Council, in the State Legislature, and on the North Kingstown School Committee in years gone by.  That very shock is a testament to Sue Henseler’s determination to soldier on, despite her discomforts.  She didn’t let her illness slow her down, in fact the casual observer would have missed the fact that it was there at all.  That’s a stark reality check on her priorities. 

The people she represented always knew Sue’s number-one priority, it was them.  Her internal gyroscope always pointed her towards what she envisioned were the best interests of her constituents.  As I said to a reporter who asked for an assessment of her strengths in public life, Sue Henseler always had a crystal clear vision of what she believed was right for the people she represented.  She was always ready to use her energy and political capital in the pursuit of those goals.  She would happily ally herself with whoever shared those goals and would immediately resist whoever did not.

Sue Henseler will be missed.  I might or might not have agreed with her on every issue we deliberated.  In the upcoming election we might have been contending for the same seat and trying to differentiate ourselves from each other, at least to the voters.  Over the course of this term I might have learned to read some of the ‘Tells’ she had that indicated in advance whether or not she was happy with whatever proceedings were underway.  I might have escaped some telling criticism once or twice if I’d never had the chance to serve with her.  When it’s all said and done, though, I will miss Sue Henseler because she was an example of a politician who kept her eyes on the prize.  Her life was about service and she acquitted herself well in the pursuit of that goal.  I only hope that I benefited enough from that example that I can emulate it myself.

One way or the other, we’re on our own now.

Good Bye, Sue.

Sunday, September 24th: Despite the news that’s come in overnight, despite the low clouds and threatening rain that is surging in from the southwest, and despite the short rations of family time that mark the campaign season, it is time to go Door-To-Door once again.

Up in Massachusetts years ago Tip O’Neil offered the opinion that All Politics is Local.  Down here in Rhode Island we’ve been proving it, election after election, since Colonial Times.  We are such a small state, composed of small villages and closely knit neighborhoods that even down to these days of isolating media and arm’s length political marketing our voters can still expect to meet the candidates out on their own doorsteps.  Now that’s local.

For each of the last few political campaigns the NK GOP has planned organized Door-To-Door coverage of every neighborhood in town.  We issue maps of each of the town’s neighborhoods to each of our School Committee and Town Council candidates.  With these maps comes a calendar pairing those running for each of the boards so that a pair of town candidates will visit every part of town at least once in the first six weeks of the campaign.  The NK GOP Palm Cards for each slate feature an individual candidate on one side and the entire ticket on the other.  That means by mid-October houses in every part of town will have seen something of every candidate we’ve fielded for both the Town Council and the School Committee.

That leaves the last three weekends of the campaign for individual candidates to concentrate on areas they think will do them the most good.

One of the dirty little secrets of partisan politics is that where there are four or five candidates from the same party running for a four or five seat board we tend to run against ourselves as much as we do against the other party.  Rhode Islanders vote for the People and not so much for the Parties.  If each slate for the NK Town Council features an incumbent or a well thought of, well known elder of the town, then there might not really be five seats left open for the five Republicans or five Democrats to seek.  We are in a major-league game of musical chairs with each other as well as with the opposition.

That makes name recognition all the more important and in a small time, small town race Walking is the way to get that name recognition.

So it’s time to pack up a good supply of palm cards and refrigerator magnets.  It’s time to write notes on another stack of palm cards, punch holes in them, and string them with rubber bands to leave on the doors of those who are out when I get there.  It’s time to get out the clip board and candidate ID badge that will signal the reason I’m at the door before it is opened.  It’s time to mount a campaign sign on the top of our mini-van so when I leave it parked at the head of a street those coming and going will know who’s working the neighborhood.  It’s time to spend five hours this afternoon being shooed away from some doors, politely tolerated at others, and challenged at many on issues from snow plowing to street sweeping to the back gate at Quonset or the trash build up on Plum Beach Road.  It’s time to meet the voters.

As I write this I am not seeking your sympathy.  I go out Walking because I want to.  There is no place else in politics where a candidate can put his or her finger on the pulse of the populace this way.  What I learn on the doorsteps of North Kingstown will be invaluable to me if I’m re-elected and will be just as big a deal in any future undertaking where a sense of how people really respond is critical to success.

At the end of the day my feet will hurt but before I start out I look forward to presenting myself to the town this way.

Answer your door bell.  That may be me on the front porch.

October 8th, 2006: NKHS Candidates Day – The Interview.  Each Election Year Mr. Larry Verria, of the Social Studies Faculty at NK High School, delivers a syllabus of instruction on the election process to a select group of his Junior and Senior students.  Mr. Verria’s ability to make history come alive and be relevant is well known.  He out does himself in his bi-annual exercise on the local elections, however.

A small team of students, usually two or three, are assigned to delve into the candidacy of a single aspirant for either one of the Town offices (Town Council or School Committee) or one of the State offices from North Kingstown (State Rep, State Senate).  This year I was contacted by Kate Kilcommons and Meghan Coughlin, as it seems they drew the short straw: Me.  Tonight these two bright and interested young ladies joined my wife and me at our home for a face to face interview that will be part of the research for the paper they will submit on my candidacy.  It only took a moment to realize that these women were serious about their task and had already done quite a bit of homework.  (They’d even read this Blog in its entirety – Poor Girls.)

Mr. Verria’s assignment to his students went far beyond just asking for a re-hash of campaign positions and public appearance schedules for their respective candidates.  Part of their grade will be based on the outcome of a straw poll to be taken by NKHS Students after an assembly presentation by the candidates and a series of video interviews to be broadcast on the School’s TV Network.  In other words, Meghan and Katie were charged to become political consultants who needed to advance the cause of the Zaccaria Candidacy to their specific constituency.  If I come in last in the NKHS Poll, their grade for the project will suffer.

The story of the Sword of Damocles came to mind as these two young women started probing my positions with a vengeance.  They had quite a bit on the line and wanted to be sure they got it right.

Well, I have quite a bit on the line, too, and this was an opportunity for me to demonstrate the complexities of the positions I have taken so far on the Council and the multiple facets I see in the problems that will face us ahead.  I tried to explain something of the vice that the town budget is in with globally rising costs crushing us against our own mandated cap on expenditures.  I sought to highlight that the Council’s successful use of the Budget Cap over the last four years was a clear indication that we could take control of spending and, by extension, that meant any other town could, also.  I made that point to show that the State Legislature had created a problem, rather than solved one, when it voted in the last session to further legally limit the year-on-year increase in a town’s total tax levy.  Was that a blatantly political move made just prior to an election?  Would the legislature follow up by limiting the additional costs they impose on towns, thereby making the new restrictions realistic?

Katie and Meghan asked me pointed questions about the move the Council had made in the FY’07 Town Budget that eliminated Dan O’Connor’s position as Director of Leisure Services in a move to save money.  I had worked closely with Dan and was aware of the good job he was doing representing the town to its lessees at Allen Harbor and the Municipal Golf Course.  I also pointed out that these enterprises throw off operating profits that largely pay for North Kingstown’s comprehensive Summer Recreation Program.  Understandably the ladies probed me as to why that had to end.  I explained that it didn’t end but that productivity undoubtedly suffered as the full time set of tasks Dan had been performing were parsed out to a number of different Departments Heads, representing more work for them to do.  In the end my answer as to why I voted for it was twofold: 1) I supported the Budget Cap and even though there would be pain of this type to enforce it the goal of limiting Property Tax Growth needed to be met, and 2) The Town Council had given an assignment to its Town Manager to present an FY’07 Budget that met the expenditure cap.  He did so, making the tough decisions as to where cuts could be sustained and where they could not.  In the discussion prior to passage of how to save Dan O’Connor’s job we considered taking the money from the budget lines for replacement tires for the Police and Fire Departments.  I hope the girls were suitably impressed that this decision was made firmly in the jaws of the vice I described and that it was a much more gut-wrenching matter than they might at first have thought.

Did they get it?  Have they decided to veer away from politics in their own career paths?  Or, perhaps they’ve smelled blood and really will become Political Consultants.  The first indication of the answers to these questions will be seen in the paper they write for Mr. Verria, and in the ‘Messaging’ they create to sell my candidacy to their fellow students.

If they will be kind enough to send me a copy of their work I will certainly post it here, after the Election.  Watch This Space