In Trying to Dispel Smoke, Travis Started a New Fire

WARWICK, RI — Which is worse for Warwick City Councilor Donna Travis: Participating in a possibly shady land deal, or hindering someone’s right to criticize her for it?

Those are the two grim options facing Travis, who recently ejected local resident Rob Cote from a council meeting within minutes of Cote sarcastically congratulating her for making front-page news over a property transferred to her and her husband in 2021 by the Oakland Beach Real Estate Owners Association.

With the exception of brief statements to local media — which followed similar themes of “the transaction was legal, no further comment” — Travis has been reticent to discuss how the lot next door to her home at 733 Oakland Beach Ave. came into her possession.

That, of course, is her right, though her refusal to comment may soon be ending now that she’s been named in a Superior Court complaint filed by current OBREOA President Deb Shatley.

But the issue here isn’t just legality — it’s the perception created when a sitting city councilor and longtime officer of a community organization, in this case the Oakland Beach association, appears to gain a benefit from their membership in that group.

That perception, in turn, stems from interviews that Shatley gave to the local press at Cote’s urging, and the ethical questions that logically arise based on the facts of the matter.

It was that perception that Cote sought to bring up at the council meeting when Travis stopped him — but instead of shutting down one controversy, she succeeded only in starting another one.

Travis gets ACLU attention, ‘Muzzle Award’ for stifling Cote’s comments

By refusing to let Cote speak and calling in a police escort to remove him from City Hall, Travis turned what could otherwise have been an under-the-radar story about a politician’s activities into a much bigger issue related to a citizen’s rights under the First Amendment.

During the back-and-forth at the council meeting, Cote even told Travis: “You know this is going to be with the ACLU.”

And, as he suggested, the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union did respond — with a strongly-worded letter that terms Travis’s behavior “antithetical to the whole goal of allowing public comment.”

While the ACLU did not threaten legal action against the city, Executive Director Steve Brown did call on local officials to “to reassure the public that this type of response will not be repeated and that residents will be free to speak at future meetings on matters involving city government without fear of being silenced.”

The ACLU’s reply then put Travis squarely in the sights of open-government advocates including Dan Kennedy of Media Nation, who bestowed one of his annual Muzzle Awards upon Travis for kicking Cote out of the meeting.

Kennedy wrote that “Few people would know about the property dispute if [Travis] hadn’t tried to silence Cote. All around, it was a pretty sad performance by someone who was elected to act in the public’s best interest.”

What’s the deal with the land deal?

As Kennedy indicated, more attention — not less — has been directed at Travis and the property transfer following her treatment of Cote.

But what, exactly, is the issue?

City records show that Travis and her husband, William, received the land at 735 Oakland Beach Ave. as a gift from the OBREOA through what’s called a quitclaim deed, which means that the original owner (the grantor) gives up their rights to the property and transfers them to another party (the grantee).

The transfer followed several years of the Travises using the lot for a shed and parking space; maintaining the land; and paying taxes on it.

According to the city’s deed book, the quitclaim was filed on Aug. 14, 2021 on behalf of the owners association by Beverlee Sturdahl and signed by Notary Public Jeffrey Ursillo.

Sturdahl’s involvement with the Oakland Beach owners group includes signing its annual reports in 2017 and 2018, but she is not listed as an officer in more recent reports.

This raises the reasonable and logical question of whether Sturdahl was, in fact, authorized to sign the deed on behalf of the homeowners group — and, as a result, whether the transfer is actually valid.

And that is the central question that Shatley poses in her Superior Court complaint, alleging that the land transfer was based on “a defective and invalid legal instrument,” requesting a jury trial, and calling for a temporary injunction that would prevent the Travises from selling or transferring the property.

As for the question of whether Travis benefitted from this, it’s hardly a stretch to say that getting a piece of property constitutes a benefit — whether in the sense of taking full control over the land or preventing someone else from building on it.

Whether it’s people reviewing the plain facts or filing a lawsuit in court, though, Travis is, by her public position, subject to questions and criticism about her behavior — whether she likes it or not.

Public officials, rightly, are held to higher ethical standards because of their positions in the community — not only for their actions, but how those actions are perceived by people in the community, whether the office holder thinks voters’ opinions are fair or not.

And so whether she agrees with how Shatley and Cote brought up the issue, Travis can and should be held accountable for her actions as an elected official.

What she shouldn’t do — as it appears she’s learning — is try to escape accountability by shutting down her critics.

Conclusion: City Councilor Donna Travis had options when responding to criticism over her participation in a land transfer — and the one she chose only made the situation worse.