To the editor:

On October 10 Tiverton will hold an election for two sitting Town Council members — Justin Katz and Robert “Rob” Coulter. This will be the first time that Tiverton Town Council members will face a recall and possibly be removed from office with just over a year remaining on their terms. There have been some councils in the past that were somewhat dysfunctional and some that outright lacked cohesiveness but none ever faced being recalled because that was thought to be for situations like the one the current mayor of Fall River faces involving alleged crimes while in office.

Although Mr. Katz and Mr. Coulter haven’t committed a crime in the legal sense, they have misled the citizens of Tiverton into believing they are looking out for everyone’s best interests when frankly they only care about pushing through their own agenda and ideologies. The Tiverton Taxpayers Association (TTA) is a political action committee which serves as the “bus” and Coulter and Katz are the “drivers.” They have refused to listen to the general public at meetings while placing their associate Giovanni Ciccione in the town solicitor role, placed another TTA PAC member on the Library Board of Trustees over more qualified candidates, and now possibly wish to remove a longstanding valued member of the zoning board and replace that person with a TTA associate with insufficient experience or qualifications.

The game is quite simple for Mr. Coulter and Mr. Katz. You must realize that under the guise of “Control Your Taxes” is a smarmy plan to gut the town financially to include bare essentials, open the town to litigation and make changes that benefit their beliefs. They have no intention of leading the town in the right direction, they have absolutely no intention of hearing the voices of their constituents and virtually zero social awareness and what those optics look like from the other side of the table at which they sit at meetings.

Their latest stunt is to convince themselves and other TTA sympathizers to write letters and urge residents to stay home and not vote. The same folks who urge you to get out and vote during budget season and general elections are asking you to give up one of your most God given rights. If you stand in the corner of the TTA and give credibility to their ideologies, think twice about a group that preaches staying home and not voting. This recall isn’t about those who filed it or the ones who collected signatures and their motives — it is about the finagling TTA and removing two of their members so that we can actually accomplish quality initiatives that our town sorely needs rather than wasting time on topics such as sanctuary cities and opening prior town lawsuits.

Get out and vote on October 10. That is your right as an American.

Michael C. DeCotis

Tiverton Budget Committee member