Remember the Seaweed Guy? The guy who, the summer before COVID-19, was arrested for collecting seaweed on the beach, a right given to every Rhode Islander by our state Constitution? Remember? Well, he won a wrongful arrest case and went on to inspire pending bipartisan legislation to decriminalize trespassing on the shoreline.
Now the Seaweed Guy is running for Charlestown Town Council. The Seaweed Guy, aka Scott Keeley, will provide the leadership, vision and energy that our town needs. After a childhood spent as a summer resident of Charlestown, Scott and his wife have lived here for close to 15 years. Scott is a patent agent as well as a sculptor, bicyclist, and, well, yes, seaweed collector.
Scott Keeley’s vision for Charlestown includes safeguarding our shoreline rights, including our constitutional right to our beaches and rights-of-way; maintaining the health of our salt ponds; and ensuring pedestrian and bicyclist safety on our increasingly busy roads. As he said regarding the repaving and line-painting on Charlestown Beach Road, “Now that we’re all aware of the volume of pedestrian and bicycle traffic on the beach road, not only doing nothing about it, but taking away the walking and biking space that we had become used to, is negligent. When someone is hurt, it will be hard to say it’s anything other than willful negligence.”
Scott Keeley will make town government more responsible to the needs of its citizens. I hope you’ll all vote for Scott Keeley for Charlestown Town Council.
Grace Farrell, Charlestown
This article appeared as a Letter To the Editor in The Westerly Sun on October 22, 2020.
