Warwick, RI – RI Attorney General Peter Kilmartin’s office is suing the Warwick Retirement Board for what it’s calling a willful violation of the state’s Open Meetings Law, something Mayor Scott Avedisian’s Chief of Staff William DePasquale calls a clerical error.
Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin’s office filed a lawsuit in Rhode Island Superior Court May 12 citing the Warwick Retirement Board for a willful or knowing violation of the Rhode Island Open Meetings Act (OMA) when the Board held a meeting on less than 48 hours notice, and when it discussed matters at its March 18 closed session meeting that should have been discussed in public.
On April 27, Kilmartin’s office issued Cushman v. Warwick Retirement Board, OM 15-05, finding that the Board violated the OMA by failing to post notice for its March 4, 2015 meeting within a minimum of forty-eight (48) hours before the date of the meeting. Public notice for the Board’s March 4, 2015 meeting was not posted on the Secretary of State’s website until March 3, 2015. The Office’s finding also determined that the Board violated the OMA when it discussed matters in closed session that were not appropriate under the exemption cited.
Kilmartin’s office allowed the Board the opportunity to address whether the violations were knowing or willful. By May 12, the office concluded that both OMA violations were knowing or willful, according to a release from the Attorney General’s office.
“We disagree,” said William DePasquale, Mayor Scott Avedisian’s Chief of Staff.
“It was a clerical error,” DePasquale said. He said he and his colleagues look forward to defending their actions in Superior Court.
The meeting was deemed null and void due to what Personnel Director Jane Jordan referred to as the “inadvertent” failure to post the meeting 48 hours in advance. However, the ruling points out, the meeting description entered into the posting on the RI Secretary of State website reads, “SPECIAL NOTE: This is an emergency meeting.”
“To us, this suggests that the board was well aware that it was convening its March 4 meeting on less than 48 hours notice,” the ruling reads. Also, the minutes show that a reason for convening in closed session was not provided, as is required under RI Open Meeting Law.
Author: Rob Borkowski
Rob has worked as reporter and editor for several publications, including The Kent County Daily Times and Coventry Courier, before working for Gatehouse in MA then moving home with Patch Media. Now he's publisher and editor of WarwickPost.com. Contact him at [email protected] with tips, press releases, advertising inquiries, and concerns.
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