RI Attorney General says Block Island Marina expansion deal lacks environmental evidence
By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI
News staff
Rhode Island Attorney
General Peter Neronha has officially asked the state Supreme Court to reject
the agreement to expand Champlin’s Marina & Resort on Block Island.
The controversial deal was brokered in November and December during private meetings between the marina’s former owner and the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) board. Retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank J. Williams mediated the pact, known as a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
The town of New Shoreham and other
long-standing opponents of the project weren’t involved with the agreement, a
fact that troubles Neronha.
“Because this case
remains in the exclusive jurisdiction of this court, CRMC’s participation in
the mediation itself was inappropriate,” Neronha wrote in the March 4 court filing.
The court approves of mediation to settle cases, Neronha noted, but in this case the court didn’t authorize the process. Instead, it was done independently and without the intervenors.
Neronha also noted that the MOU was brokered by CRMC vice chair Raymond Coia, executive director Jeffrey Willis, and CRMC attorney Anthony DeSisto in a private meeting.
The agreement was later approved by the full CRMC
board without a certification by the court showing that board members read the
transcripts and evidence in the case, a requirement set by the court prior to
other CRMC votes during the 17-year case.
“The CRMC and Champlin’s
mediated resolution circumvented this open and required process where any aggrieved
party could be heard,” Neronha wrote.
Neronha also accused
CRMC of abandoning the environmental protections it set in 2011 when the
citizen coastal zoning board denied the marina’s expansion into Great Salt
Pond. The reversal demonstrates, he wrote, “how far afield the MOU is from the
CRMC’s charge to protect and restore the coastal ecology of the State.”
Neronha pointed to
CRMC’s own words in the 2011 decision to deny the expansion that read,
“Champlin’s evidence failed to sustain its burden of showing that the proposed
project will not cause significant impacts on plant and animal life in Great
Salt Pond.”
“However, the MOU
inexplicably contains no information on wildlife impacts in the proposed plan,”
Neronha wrote in his recent 40-page court filing. “Did the full council’s vote
to implement the MOU consider wildlife impacts? Were there updated studies
performed for the new proposed layout?”
These procedural
failures, he said, prevent the public and courts from deciding if “CRMC’s
decision protects the wildlife, navigation, competing uses or any other
resources that the CRMC is charged with managing and protecting.”
CRMC declined to comment on the attorney general’s court filing, citing ongoing litigation. But during a Feb. 23 council meeting, CRMC board member Jerry Sahagian called for a disciplinary complaint against the attorney representing the opponents of the proposed marina expansion for characterizing the CRMC board as “crooks” for approving the MOU.
Sahagian noted that R.
Daniel Prentiss was paid by CRMC for legal work related to offshore wind
development in 2019.
"So the same
attorney that’s been calling us a bunch of crooks was representing us?
Wow," Sahagian said.
Prentiss told ecoRI News
that he never referred to council members as crooks, and he hasn’t received any
notice of disciplinary action by the CRMC. In a Feb. 22 ecoRI News story,
Prentiss called the mediated agreement “a backroom arrangement” and said the
CRMC board “engaged in blatantly illegal procedure.”
After Sahagian’s
remarks, DeSisto promised to give an update on legal proceedings during an
executive session at the CRMC’s scheduled March 9 meeting.
The attorney for the
previous owner of Champlin’s takes issue with Neronha’s latest court
filing. (On Feb. 8, Neronha filed a motion in
Supreme Court to intervene.)
“Unfortunately
the attorney general's brief is based on an outdated proposal, which
Champlin's had abandoned years ago,” said Dyana Koelsch, spokesperson for
Champlin’s attorney Robert Goldberg.
Koelsch noted that the
mediated expansion is less than half the size of the original expansion
proposal. The town of New Shoreham and the intervenors were invited to
participate in the mediation, she said, “and for reasons not explained to us,
they declined.”
“The MOU was reached
fairly and under the parameters of the law,” Koelsch said. “This case has
languished for 17 years and only with significant concessions by Champlin's
was an agreement reached.”
Prentiss, the attorney
representing the town and other project opponents, has said his clients
declined to join the mediation because, they believed, without their
participation a settlement wouldn’t go forward.
Construction can’t begin
until the MOU is reviewed and approved by the Supreme Court. The Block Island
Times recently reported that
repairs to buildings and docks are underway in preparation for a May 1 opening
of the private marina.
There are no dates for
court proceedings. Champlin’s has 10 days to respond to the attorney general’s
filing. Champlin’s didn’t respond in court to a Feb. 17 request for an oral
argument by Prentiss.
The new owner of the
marina, Great Salt Pond Marina Property LLC, a unit of Cranston-based
Procaccianti Companies, insists that the previous owner, Joseph Grillo, is
representing himself in the litigation. The Procaccianti Companies operates the
marina as a new subsidiary, TPG Marinas.
“In terms of the recent
mediation, neither TPG Marinas or its affiliates are parties to the prior
owner’s ongoing litigation. Their full attention is directed towards
addressing the many deferred maintenance issues that exist at the property,”
Annie Mulholland, spokesperson for TPG Marinas, told ecoRI News.
Private mediation
Supreme Court Chief
Justice Paul Suttell told Channel 10’s Gene Valicenti that the MOU between
Champlin’s and CRMC was a private mediation and not the result of the court’s
mediation program.
Prentiss said the judge
makes an important point because CRMC, Champlin’s, and Williams have been
implying that the MOU was done through an official court process. “It had
nothing to do with the court,” he said. “It was a private transaction. It
wasn’t a mediation because not all of the parties were there.”
Prentiss is perplexed
that the MOU was approved by the CRMC board Dec. 29, six days after Grillo sold
the marina to the Procaccianti Companies.
“Nobody really knows,”
he said. “This is a black box; this took place behind a black curtain.”
Prentiss concurred with
Neronha’s complaint that there is no evidence that the MOU addresses the
environmental risks as there was in 2011, when CRMC used those risks to deny
the expansion.
“How does the CRMC
change its mind without any evidence?” Prentiss asked. “Everything about this
case is odd.”
Adding to the
controversy is the reappointment of three members to the CRMC board by Gov.
Gina Raimondo on her way out of office. The candidates — chair Jennifer
Cervenka, Donald Gomez, and Coia — have been tabled since the day their
reappointments were scheduled to be voted on by the full Senate.
Senate leaders paused the nominees
because of Neronha’s concerns about CMRC’s jurisdiction in the MOU process and
his assertion that the agency failed to adhere to its own regulations and
procedures.
“Three CRMC appointments
remain on the desk,” according to Greg Pare, the Senate’s director of
communications.