To the editor:

Charles Levesque’s recent letter to the editor (“Water board had roundabout plans all along,” Portsmouth Times, June 27) only heightens the deafness of our town government in the matter of the so-called roundabout. 

In light of the RIDOT’s massive dysfunctional execution of the construction on Aquidneck Avenue in Middletown, one would think that the Portsmouth Town Council would be more concerned with RIDOT’s inability to protect our local merchants and their employees from the affects of well-documented ineptitude. 

One merchant represents that he lost 50 percent of his sales due to the Aquidneck mess. How many employees lost their jobs or hours? Mr. Levesque’s letter mentions that RIDOT was not forthcoming with plans for review. He fails to mention that RIDOT failed to hold public forms to explain their proposal. This is a major departure from past practice. 

Can one imagine if Director Alviti had chosen to crawl under a rock in the matter of the Washington Bridge. He has been singing on that one on a regular basis. Why Mr. Levesque chose to continue to unearth this matter in spite of the cloud it has brought upon the Town Council and our local government is like manna in this election year for the dissidents. 

It will be interesting in this forthcoming election to see how active the roundabout merchants are. In Mr. Levesque’s letter he mentions the availability of roundabout plans at the Portsmouth Water And Fire District. Please note that at the time of the public hearing I had heard about (was aware of) their existence. I had not read them. They had not appeared on any meeting agenda. I had not even determined if they were in the realm of classified documents. It was after the public meeting that I completed my due diligence. Apparently I was, or Mr. Levesque expected me to, do a halfway job so that I could muddy the water with more government ineptitude.

Philip Driscoll

169 Immokolee Drive

Portsmouth