AG urges R.I. Supreme Court to reject Block Island marina expansion approval

ATTORNEY GENERAL PETER F. NERONHA filed a memorandum with the R.I. Supreme Court urging the court to reject the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council's approval of a request by Champlin's Marina to expand its dock further into Block Island's Great Salt Pond. / COURTESY ERIK ELWELL

NEW SHOREHAM – Attorney General Peter F. Neronha’s office is urging the R.I. Supreme Court to reject the Coastal Resources Management Council’s approval of a request by Champlin’s Marina and Resort to expand its dockage 156 feet into the Great Salt Pond.

The dock extension would add about 150 slips to the Block Island shoreline property, which was purchased by the Procaccianti Companies on Dec. 23 from owner Joseph Grillo, who had owned it since 1986.

In a filing with the supreme court on Thursday, the attorney general’s office argued that “At every phase over the past seventeen years, all of the parties with an interest in the Champlin’s application have had opportunities to seek appellate review of the CRMC’s decisions with respect to this application – until now. The CRMC and Champlin’s mediated resolution circumvented this open and required process where any aggrieved party could be heard. For these reasons … the attorney general prays that the joint motion … be denied.”

Tricia Jedele, special assistant attorney general and environmental advocate and Alison Hoffman, special assistant attorney general stated in the filing that, “The [memorandum of understanding] is fatally flawed because it does not meet the standards required of agency orders by the Administrative Procedures Act. Indeed, this court has consistently ruled that it will not review a decision of the CRMC when it substantively and procedurally violates the APA.”

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The Town of New Shoreham, The Committee for the Great Salt Pond, the Block Island Land Trust, and the Block Island Conservancy have been waging a legal battle against Champlin’s Marina since 2003 when an application for expansion was first filed with the CRMC.

In a surprise turn of events, on Dec. 7, 2020, Champlin’s was granted approval for expansion during a controversial mediation conducted by retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank J. Williams. The mediation has been characterized by opponents as a “shady backroom closed-door deal.”

On Feb. 8, the attorney general’s office stepped in, petitioning the supreme court to intervene in Champlin’s Realty Associates v. the Coastal Resources Management Council, a case that affects the state’s coastal resources and the regulatory process designed to protect them. By participating in this case, the attorney general’s office said it was seeking to protect the state’s coastal environment and ensure the CRMC follows legal requirements necessary to approving Champlin Marina’s bid to expand its marina.

In Thursday’s filing the attorney general wrote: “CRMC’s participation in the mediation itself was inappropriate.” A memorandum of understanding outlining the expansion “was improperly reached off-the-record between a single member of the full council, Champlin’s, and the CRMC’s Executive Director, [Jeffrey Willis], while this court held exclusive jurisdiction over the matter.”

“CRMC’s and Champlin’s argument that the intervenors waived their rights to challenge the MOU because they declined to participate in a mediation and because they are not ‘full parties’ is misguided and incorrect,” Neronha wrote.

“Even if the mediation had been otherwise appropriate, the fact that a council member, otherwise expected to function in a quasi-judicial capacity, participated in the mediation and then voted to approve the MOU in executive session, violates the requirement of impartiality in contested cases,” the filing motion stated.

While the supreme court allows mediation in some cases, the attorney general agreed with the opponents to the marina expansion that this case was not eligible for mediation. Nor did the case go through the officially prescribed mediation process.

The attorney general also noted that “the CRMC itself determined that intervenors to contested cases have the same rights as parties. … In this case, CRMC granted party status to the intervenors and therefore it was improper for these full-party status intervenors to be excluded from the mediation.”

The CRMC in 2011 denied the Champlin’s Marina request for expansion.

“The CRMC’s sudden and unexplained departure from its findings of fact in its May 6, 2011, decision, coupled with the inconsistencies between the 2011 decision and the MOU, serve to demonstrate how far afield the MOU is from the CRMC’s charge to protect and restore the coastal ecology of the State,” the attorney general’s office wrote in its filing.

The filing included three tables demonstrating “several of the unexplained contradictions between the May 6, 2011 decision and the Dec. 7, 2020” agreement with Champlin’s.

Henry DuPont, founding director of the Committee for the Great Salt Pond, said the committee is pleased that the attorney general’s office became an intervenor in the case. He also acknowledged that the supreme court could rule on its own to uphold the superior court’s rejection of Champlin’s appeal of the CRMC’s ruling that denied the expansion.

“That’s not a backdoor deal – when the supreme court looks at the superior court’s decision and makes sure it is legal, and just,” said DuPont. “That is the standard appeal process, and we can work with that all day long. That’s what we do.”

DuPont said the CRMC’s approval through mediation “raised a few eyebrows. We are so happy that the attorney general picked up on that and weighed in on this.”

Cassius Shuman is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Shuman@PBN.com.

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