ACLU asks phony fire district to withdraw letters to donors supporting Spring Ave. extension fundraising campaign
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
The Rhode Island American Civil Liberties
Union is wading into a shoreline access dispute, telling a high-profile fire
district to knock it off.
Photo by Alex Nunes, The Public's Radio
Steven Brown, executive director of the state’s ACLU
branch, sent a formal letter to
the Weekapaug Fire District in Westerly, asking it to rescind a number of
letters notifying shoreline access activists who donated to a specific GoFundMe
that they may be called to testify in the legal dispute over the Spring Avenue
Extension right of way.
In his letter to the fire district, Brown described the
effect of the letters sent by Joseph A. Farside Jr., a partner at the
Providence-based law firm Locke Lord and attorney for the fire district, as
having a chilling effect on the donors’ First Amendment rights.
“Singling out these donations as a justification to
threaten the contributors with compulsory process and interrogation under oath
could easily be interpreted as an attempt to chill core First Amendment
activity,” Brown wrote.
The ACLU is asking the fire district to withdraw any
current letters sent to donors, and for the fire district to disavow “this
effort to chill public support for a position it opposes based solely on
participation in a GoFundMe campaign.”
In an emailed statement to ecoRI News, the Weekapaug Fire
District said it shared the ACLU’s commitment to transparency. “We contacted
individuals who made their donation information public through the GoFundMe
because they are meaningfully engaged in the issue and may have information
that is relevant to the case,” the fire district wrote.
The Weekapaug Fire District, a quasi-government
organization that acts more like a homeowners’ association than it does
anything to do with fire suppression, is contesting a popular public access
point in Westerly known as the Spring Avenue Extension. The fire district
claims it owns the right of way (ROW), and that it’s private, not open to the
public. The matter is pending before the Coastal Resources Management Council.
Opposing the fire district’s ownership claim on the ROW is Westerly resident Caroline Contrata. Two attorneys, Michael Rubin, a retired assistant attorney general, and Sean Lyness, a professor at the New England School of Law, have taken up Contrata’s case pro bono, but to help with related legal costs, Contrata opened a GoFundMe fundraiser earlier this year, hoping to raise $15,000.
But attorneys for the fire district sent out several
letters to the donors of Contrata’s GoFundMe, indicating they had been
identified as a potential witness in the legal proceedings over the Spring
Avenue Extension right of way, which is currently in its discovery phase.
“Based on your donation to Ms. Contrata’s fundraiser, you
have been identified as a potential witness in the Spring Avenue Extension CRMC
matter,” Farside wrote in a letter dated Dec. 1. “We would like to interview
you in the near term and potentially depose you.”
Warwick resident Richard Langseth said he received one of
the letters from Farside, and shared it with others in a popular shoreline
access Facebook group. He wasn’t the only one; others in the Facebook group
began sharing screenshots of similar letters from the fire district.
“I said, ‘Oh shoot, it’s the Weekapaug Fire
District, you gotta be kidding me,’” Langseth said. “That was my initial
reaction.”
Langseth said he notified the ACLU about the letters, and
it’s his copy of the letter from Farside, addressed to both Langseth and his
wife, Jo-Ann, that’s attached to the formal letter from Brown. According to
Langseth, the ACLU responded to his complaint right away, and the formal letter
came not long after.
Meanwhile, as a result of the letters, the Weekapaug Fire
District may have become a victim of the Streisand effect. Contrata’s GoFundMe
fundraiser has seen a surge of new donations over the past week as a result of
the controversy. As of Monday, the fundraiser had garnered $14,648 toward its
$20,000 goal.
“You know what happened? The donation went through the
roof,” Langseth said. “Everybody said, ‘OK, I want to be on the list too.’”