To the Editor:

As a former City Councilman and an advocate for Warwick taxpayers, I had to comment on the latest bit of election year nonsense.

Brian Dunckley just put out an attack piece in his State Senate campaign because he doesn’t have an actual record of accomplishment to talk about. Instead, he made wild accusations about one of his opponents and said his opponent was part of “the same old politics in Warwick.”

These charges are totally ridiculous coming from a man who has served on the Warwick Municipal Pension Review Board for nearly a decade. During Dunckley’s tenure, the board was found to have violated the state’s Open Meetings Law several times by the Attorney General. One meeting was found to have violated the 48-hour public notice requirements. In another meeting, that other taxpayers and I attended, Dunckley and his colleagues decided to double down on ignoring the law by going into an illegal executive session to keep us in the dark about what they were discussing even after we objected. I filed an open meetings complaint against the board. The RI Attorney General found Mr. Dunckley and his colleagues willfully guilty of the violation, filed a lawsuit against them and fined the board $2,000 as part of an out-of-court settlement.

On Dunckley’s watch, the Municipal Pension Review Board has consistently underperformed expectations. And at a time when the City of Warwick has had huge budget problems, Dunckley has sold out taxpayers and voted to give municipal retired employees, including those who are receiving over a $100,000 a year pension, a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) increase. It’s a disaster, leading to higher property taxes and Brian Dunckley has had a front row seat, watching it happen. And now he is telling us what a financial guru he is.

 When it comes to deciding who will best represent District 31 in the State Senate, I urge you to reject the phony attacks from Brian Dunckley and understand he is a poster boy for the same old politics in Warwick.

Bob Cushman

Mr. Cushman is a former Warwick councilman and chairman of the School Committee.