If you are reading this blog, you probably know that Vincenzo Cordone is the president of the Hopkinton Town Council. What you may not have known, however, is that he can whine and moan with the best of them.
On June 10th, Cordone sent a letter to the editor of the Westerly Sun complaining that the “Debate over Chariho funding has sunk to a new, disturbing level”. Basically, the Chariho School Committee Chairman (Bill Day) and the Richmond Town Council President (Joseph Reddish) had a good chuckle at Cordone’s expense on the televised feed from the Chariho School Committee meeting on May 5th. Cordone worked as the service manager for Dunn’s Corner Repair and was laid off. They thought this was funny and made a number of jokes about the fact.
Now obviously, the behavior of Day and Reddish was childish and asinine. Some will say that childish and asinine are the prerequsities to be on the Chariho School Committee, but that is beside the point. The fact that Cordone took the time to chastise these boobs for their behavior not only draws attention to the behavior but also makes Cordone look like a giant baby.
What is also unfortunate is that Cordone’s letter was disingenuous. He states that,
“Not one of us has resorted to personal attacks, name-calling or the other dishonorable tactics that have been routinely used against us.”
And that may well be true in this case (as the Town Council is concerned regarding the current Chariho debacle) but Cordone has resorted to dishonorable tactics in the past. To decide he doesn’t want to play the game now is ridiculous, ingenuous and hypocritical. Should someone go tell his mommy a bully is picking on him? This is a case of where the “living in glass houses” rule applies.
It’s not funny. None of it is. But sadly, this is what politics are all about. We may not like it, but politics in America is all about smearing your opponent. If you cannot win your argument on merit, you attack your opponent. And even if you can win on merit, you make sure you will win in the long run by smearing your opponent. And Cordone knows this, he has a B.A. in political science from UCONN. Are personal attacks a surprise to him? It’s not as though he ran for the Council on a lark and can’t honestly believe how nasty local politics are. Cordone moved to Hopkinton in 2003 and ran for Town Council in 2004, having been a Rhode Island resident for a total of one year? Although I have been unable to confirm it, I have been told that he ran for Town Council in Stonington prior to this and lost. I have confirmed that he lived in Pawcatuck CT before moving to Hopkinton. It looks to me as though he moved to Hopkinton so he could run for Town Council.
And why not? There isn’t much else you can do with a B.A. in politics except run for office. Any office. Who cares what office, who cares what state, who cares what town? He doesn’t. But the long and the short of it is that he is not a naive as he wants us to think.
So why bother even mentioning this now? Because Ms. Doreen Dolan responded to Cordone’s letter to the editor with one of her own. Basically, she feels that she has been personally attacked since September, over the original Chariho bond vote (she implicates a member of the Hopkinton Town Council). I’d hate to put words in her mouth but she appears a little sarcastic about Cordone’s complaint. She does hope that,
“the public will see through behavior such as this and seek out the facts in this debate on a bond for Chariho.”
Well, fat chance. But I do have some good advice for Mr. Cordone. When I was a child, my mother taught me an important lesson: sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me. I hope that helps.
Your Neighbor, Ishmael
