One of the most important duties of the Smithfield Town Council is making appointments. The Democrats have made some very poor choices.

The probate judge is a very important position. Probate judges have the power to declare people incompetent, taking away their rights, their control over their own money and indeed, their own lives.

This position should be reserved to an attorney with significant experience in probate law. Jean Fallago has complained that we have questioned her integrity and her competence. She has complained that the job pays only $60.00 per hour, which is probably more money than a large majority of Smithfield residents earn in 2 or 3 hours.

In fact, we never questioned her general competence at all, we just pointed out that prior to her appointment, she had no experience in probate law. Typically, attorneys practice in a specific area of law. You would not hire a criminal defense attorney to prepare your will. You wouldn't hire a family lawyer to press a corporate contract dispute. By the same token, a probate judge should have vast experience in probate law. Jean Fallago had none. We don't expect that they appoint an experienced judge, but we do expect they appoint an attorney with significant experience in probate law to be the probate judge. This is not a joke; people's lives are impacted by this.

And, it is completely true that the company her family owns - and she represents - made a significant contribution to the Democrats during the last election. This contribution was illegal, as businesses are prohibited from contributing to a political candidate or party in Rhode Island. The attorney who represented this company - Jean Fallago - should have known this was illegal. She was certainly aware of the donation, because the donation was use of an office building. The donated building was immediately next to Jean Fallago's own small office, about 40 feet away. It would have been hard to miss all those huge Democrat signs at a 40 foot distance.

A complaint about this illegal donation is still pending before the RI Board of Elections. But then again, Jean Fallago is not an expert in campaign finance law, so perhaps she can be excused for not know the donation was illegal. This is why it's important that attorneys have experience in their own area of law.

Whether the Democrats were knowingly violating election law or merely incompetent in accepting that donation is immaterial. They did accept it and, we believe, appointed Fallago as a reward. That speaks to their judgment and integrity. Their answer was that they wanted to appoint a woman to this position. In other words, because of political correctness or reverse sexism, they appointed an unqualified attorney to this critically important position. Again, this speaks to their judgment.

Another Democratic attorney appointment is very problematic. Although he is not young, Chris Petracia, the town prosecutor, had barely left law school when the Democrats appointed him. He is responsible for prosecuting domestic violence cases, drunk driving cases and many other types of cases in district court.

So far, he has hardly distinguished himself in court. Many experienced attorneys openly laugh at him around the Providence courthouse. On at least one occasion, he was scheduled to argue against a motion to dismiss a criminal case. He arrived 25 minutes late. Other attorneys had gathered to watch him argue, expecting a comedy act. They were not disappointed. At one point, an attorney in his audience actually laughed out loud during his argument. He lost that motion, hands down.

On at least two occasions, Petraca moved to dismiss cases against defendants and our own police department actually opposed the dismissals. The police, who have been assisting in prosecutions for years, seem to be on a different page than the prosecutor if they can't even agree on which cases to dismiss.

Town prosecutor is another critically important position. Victims of crimes have a right to have perpetrators competently prosecuted. In the case of domestic violence survivors, their safety may depend upon it. It's not too much to ask that the appointee have some legal experience before sending him or her into a courtroom.

Then there are boards and commissions. The Democrats appointed a local civil engineer, who owns a local civil engineering firm, to the Planning Board. He is a good engineer, but about half the applications that came before the Board had a connection to his company, so he had to recuse himself often. And in the cases that he was not involved in, you can be sure one of his competitors was involved. Although this person is unlikely to deliberately exploit that advantage, it still creates an impression of impropriety. We still don't know what they were thinking, or if they were thinking, when they made that appointment.

Compare this record to Republican appointments. Republicans have appointed Democrats to the Zoning Board, to the Planning Board and to other boards and commissions. We always consider a persons experience and ability, never their political party.

Republicans put Smithfield before our party.