NEWS

Some voters question why mayor is thanking them

By JOHN HOWELL
Posted 8/13/20

By JOHN HOWELL Some registered Warwick voters are getting "e;hank you"e; letters from Mayor Joseph Solomon for something they didn't know they did. Both the Board of Canvassers and independent mayoral candidate Frank Picozzi reported they have received calls

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NEWS

Some voters question why mayor is thanking them

Posted

Some registered Warwick voters are getting “thank you” letters from Mayor Joseph Solomon for something they didn’t know they did.

Both the Board of Canvassers and independent mayoral candidate Frank Picozzi reported they have received calls from people saying they have received letters thanking them for signing the mayor’s nomination papers, when, to their recollection, they didn’t sign his papers. Solomon as well as Picozzi and Carel Bainum, who is running as a Democrat for mayor, had to obtain the signatures of 200 registered Warwick voters citywide to appear on the ballot.

But in the case of Solomon, who is the endorsed Democratic for mayor, his name also appeared on the nomination papers of all endorsed Democratic candidates for council. So, whether they knew it or not, people signing the papers of an endorsed candidate for council were also signing for Solomon.

The result is that Solomon garnered about 600 signatures.

Dottie McCarthy, director of the Warwick Board of Canvassers, said Wednesday the listing of the endorsed mayoral candidate on the nomination papers of endorsed council candidates is accepted and that it was used in 2018. She said that Rep. Joseph Solomon Jr., the mayor’s son, questioned if that would be the case this year and that she printed out the nomination sheets accordingly.

McCarthy said she explained provisions of the law to the people inquiring why they were getting a letter from the mayor. She said she received two or three calls.

Picozzi said in his Facebook post he had received messages from several people who were upset to learn they had signed the mayor’s nomination papers in addition to those of their council candidate.

“You think that you’re signing for the candidate but you are in fact also signing for the mayor. So hundreds of people are fooled. It’s all legal of course, politicians make the laws. This is just one of a million tricks that politicians use to stack the deck and hold on to all the power,” Picozzi writes.

He goes on to say, “The mayor has all the money in the world to throw at and try to buy the election. I’m not only running against him but I’m running against every councilman in all nine wards along with each nine member ward committee and in addition all the Democratic state reps and senators.”

Picozzi said he doesn’t have the resources for extensive advertising, mailings and professional consultants.

“I can’t match them in manpower and will only have a percentage of a fraction of the funds they will use. But while I’m sure that they are smug and arrogant they have no idea what kind of a fight they have ahead of them and they aren’t going to know what hit them,” he said.

Solomon, mayor

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