Neronha slams CRMC over approval of Jamestown Boat Yard expansion
By Jim Hummel
PROVIDENCE For the second time in two months Attorney General Peter F. Neronha is questioning how the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council handled a request for a waterfront expansion, this time from a boatyard in Jamestown, saying the agency skipped required steps in the approval process.
In a strongly worded four-page letter Monday to the agency’s chairwoman, Jennifer Cervenka, Neronha said there were “inadequacies” in a draft decision, adding that the way CRMC made its decision “confused and frustrated the public’s trust in the structured and formal agency decision-making process designed to protect our environment.”
CRMC subcommittee recommends denial of proposed South Kingstown oyster farm expansion
Updated at 5:20 p.m.
A SUBCOMMITTEE of the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council on Monday recommended to deny the application from Matunuck Oyster Bar owner Perry Raso, pictured above, to lease a second area for farming oysters and scallops in Potter Pond. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MIKE SKORSKI SOUTH KINGSTOWN – A drawn-out fight between South Kingstown residents and a prominent business owner seeking to expand his oyster farm may be nearing a resolution. A subcommittee of the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council on Monday voted unanimously to recommend denying the application for a three-acre oyster and scallop farm in Potter Pond in…
PROVIDENCE Attorney General Peter F. Neronha is urging the Rhode Island Supreme Court to reject a settlement approved by state coastal regulators that allows for the expansion of a marina on Block Island that has been the subject of heated dispute for nearly two decades.
In a motion that excoriates the state Coastal Resources Management Council, Neronha’s office argues that the memorandum of understanding agreed to by the council and the owner of Champlin’s Marina behind closed doors and without public review is invalid.
“Given the long and complicated history associated with the Champlin’s application, it is troubling that now, before this final stage of review, the CRMC, in partnership with only the applicant, has moved this Court to allow a form of the very expansion that has been at issue these past seventeen years and which has been repeatedly rejected by the CRMC after opportunities for hearings and the review of evidence in the record,” says the motion filed on
The council did not respond when asked to comment on Fugate s statement.
In her February 2020 decision, Rodgers ruled that the council acted appropriately and rationally in rejecting the marina’s expansion in Great Salt Pond in 2011, and again in 2013 when it was forced to revisit the proposal amid allegations that it had treated Champlin’s unfairly.
“Champlin’s rights have not been prejudiced by any constitutional violations, error of law, or arbitrary or capricious conduct on the part of CRMC,” Rodgers wrote.
At the time, opponents of the hotly disputed project celebrated the decision as the end to a saga that by then had dragged on for 17 years and involved questions about navigational safety, use of public trust waters for private enterprise and environmental harm from expanded development.
PROVIDENCE - Senate leaders have canceled a confirmation vote for three of Governor Gina Raimondo s re-appointees to the Coastal Resources Management Council, mid-controversy - and mid-investigation - of a behind-the-scenes Block Island marina-expansion deal.
In his email to colleagues explaining why he was pulling the three names from Wednesday s Senate calendar, Ruggerio wrote: The Attorney General raised concerns regarding a closed-door mediation between the CRMC and Champlin s that would allow for a marina expansion. He asserted that the settlement agreement recently presented to the Court for approval was formed outside of the public regulatory process and does not account for the factual findings that formed the basis for the CRMC s 2011 decision denying Champlin s application to expand.