City Council Rules Set Tonight

WARWICK, RI — The Warwick Warwick City Council meets tonigh, 7 p.m. at City Hall, Council Chambers, 3275 Post Road, moving public comment an item down the agenda as new Council members settle into their first terms.

The new Council will be presided by Warwick City Council President Anthony Sinapi,  with Councilman Jeremy Rix (Ward 2), its majority leader.  Sinapi and Rix are joined by fellow incumbent Council members Willam Foley (Ward 1), Vincent Gebhart (Ward 9) and Ed Ladouceur (Ward 5, with newly elected members  Bryan Nappa (Ward 3), Sal DeLuise (Ward 4) William Muto (Ward 6) and John Kirby (Ward 7) serving for their first meeting in ‘City Hall.

City Council rules move public comment, preserve criticism rule

One change to meeting rules will move the regular meeting’s public speaking segment down one item on the agenda, after after #3: Referred business:

a)Public hearings and actions thereon not initiated by petition or application

b) Public hearings and actions thereon initiated pursuant to petition or application

Rix said moving public comment on the agenda is something that’s often done in practice, depending on the docket.

“When there is a formal “public hearing” on applications being heard by the City Council, there are usually more members of the public who show up for that than the number who attend for Rule 41 Public Comment, and, there’s also the stenographer, attorneys, and experts. That’s the legally-required hearing for members of the public to comment on that application being heard, which is often very significant to the immediate neighbors if not the whole neighborhood or city as a whole. These hearings can last from about 10 or 15 minutes (if it’s very straightforward and noncontroversial) to hours if it’s something like the Solar Ordinance or a particularly controversial development. But, most meetings, there aren’t any of these on the agenda.”

A staple of the Council rules, discouraging criticism of others, remains in the Council rules, in Rule 17:

RULE 17: Members desiring to speak shall address the President, or the Chair of the Committee in the case of Committees, and after their right to speak has been recognized, they shall not be interrupted while speaking, except by a call to order, or for the correction of a mistake, or to yield to another member. They shall confine their remarks to the question under debate and shall avoid making personal attacks on others.

The City Council is the defendant in a lawsuit brought by frequent city critic Rob Cote and the ACLU of Rhode Island, contesting Cote’s ouster from a July 17 2023 City Council meeting by then Council President Pro Tem Donna Travis after he attempted to criticize former Councilwoman Donna Travis for her role in the controversial acquisition of land from the Oakland Beach Real Estate Owners Association.

Travis later pled ‘no contest’ to a charge of filing a false document in the transaction.

Steven Brown, Director of the ACLU of RI, has contested Travis’s comment at the time about not allowing personal attacks on public officials, which she stated to Cote during the meeting and also in a Warwick Beacon article.

“Any such policy itself is just as problematic from a First Amendment standpoint. In fact, courts have often struck down such restrictions as a violation of the public’s free speech rights,” Brown wrote.

This is the second official meeting of the body, which met for the first time last week at Crowne Plaza for the City’s inauguration.

The agenda and supporting documents for the meeting have been posted to the city’s website, and are available for viewing and downloading. The Warwick City Council meeting will also be streamed on its Youtube Channel.