Most people know about the unprecedented recall last year, in which a dishonest politician was removed from Smithfield's Town Council.

Tocco did quite a lot of damage, he berated town employees at public meetings and he drove loyal public servants out of town. He also conducted at least one secret meeting with a developer which resulted in a zone change favorable to the developer but detrimental to our residents.

But how could he have done this? Well he could not have done it alone. He had the full support of his Democratic party until his recall. No prominent Democrat called upon Tocco to resign from our Town Council. Not one. None of them ever stepped up to defend our town staff. Democrats supported Tocco over the people of Smithfield. Hawkins even threw a support rally for Tocco. No one attended that day, but still, Hawkins supported Tocco aggressively.

During the recall, Democratic Chairman Mancini was asked three times to join the Republicans in the recall effort. He refused, saying that he thought support for Tocco was increasing among the public. To him, it was purely a political issue. To us, it was a simple issue of right and wrong.

Had the Democrats stood up for Smithfield, the recall would not have been necessary. Instead, they worried about loosing control of the Town Council.

When the election was set to replace Tocco, the Democrats went to court. Represented by Stephen Archambault's business partner, the Democrats went to Superior Court and did all they could to stop the people of Smithfield from electing Tocco's replacement. Tocco was in court those days also, and he was conferring with the Democrats in the courthouse.

The bottom line is that the Democrats put their own party well ahead of our residents. They put the town through the difficult and expensive recall process, stalling as long as they could and ultimately going to court to stop an election.

Even though Republicans knew that Tocco's replacement would be a Democrat, we pushed forward and got Tocco recalled. It cost us a good chunk of our summer and a lot of money and, to be fair, many rank and file Democrats, who are not members of the Smithfield Democratic Town Committee, joined us.

Why did we do all this, even though we could not regain control of the Town Council? Because it was what was necessary for Smithfield. Period.

Smithfield Republicans have always and will always put Smithfield ahead of our political party. We just proved it.