Providence Board of Licenses Shake-Up - Serena Conley Out
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Serena Conley, the long-serving Administrator of the Providence Board of Licenses, is retiring, GoLocal has learned.
Conley, a former Providence school principal, had served in the License Enforcement Unit dating back to Mayor David Cicilline’s administration, under then-Board Chair Andrew Annaldo.
The move comes following the replacement of Board Member Johanna Harris with Dylan Conley — and following the scathing report issued by former Attorney General Jeffery Pine this summer, who slammed the Board for the record keeping system not being up to date, and repeatendly violating the Open Meetings Act with regard to “proper notice details in the agenda, and timely and accurate posting of the minutes of the Board."
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“It's a great loss for the city and for the board, and for that department,” Board Chair Juan Pichardo told GoLocal. “I said to her, we need to make sure there's a good transition. She's got a lot of institutional knowledge that needs to be passed along.”
“It’s an opportunity to transition and move forward with the city and the department and continue to innovate, including putting applications online and making sure people feel Providence is open for business and they can reach out to the director and me and the board,” said Pichardo. “It’s a bittersweet process -- the job will be posted, there's still some time.”
Controversy
Conley’s role with the Board came under fire by critics when a shooting occurred outside a club owned by Cicilline’s brother on Federal Hill. As GoLocal reported in June:
As a result of the shooting, The Vault Lounge is being hauled in front of the City of Providence's licensing board.
According to Providence realtor Sharon Steele, who attended a meeting of the Board of Licenses on Thursday in which Vault was not on the agenda, but came up as part of an emergency hearing, there were a number of discrepancies at the meeting.
"Now what's interesting is when the subject of Vault's 'history' came up, they said there was none. Meanwhile, I have notes from when there had been a stabbing. I have a police blotter with numerous complaints. If you ask anyone from Federal Hill, they'd ask why there wasn't a history [for Vault] provided," said Steele in an interview with GoLocal.
"Serena Conley is responsible for attaching the history to a show-cause hearing. There's no testimony allowed except for the witnesses, so I for example couldn't submit what I had," said Steele. Conley served on now-Congressman Cicilline's staff when he was Mayor of Providence. She was his scheduler for many years and worked in his Office of Community Relations.
SLIDES:
Related Slideshow: Providence Clubs and Reports of Crime and Violence - 2016
Related Articles
- Does Club in Cicilline’s Building Get Preferential Treatment?
- Cicilline Ally Pichardo Overrules Providence Police, Reopens The Vault After Shooting
- Cicilline Helped Lead House Sit-In; Family Owns Building Tied to Repeated Violence
- Providence Clubs Plagued by Violence and Drugs
- NEW: $3 Bar Lawyer’s Complaint Ruled in Board of Licenses Harris’ Favor
- Former Board of Licenses Chair Harris Takes Aim at Current Chair Pichardo in Blog
- Scathing Report on Providence Board of Licenses Issued by Former AG Pine
- Councilman Jennings Calls for Resignation of Board of Licenses Chair Pichardo
- Elorza Passes Over New Licensing Board Nominee for Chair
- Shooting, Stabbing Get Licenses Revoked for Aqua, Van Gogh Nightclubs in Providence
- NAACP: Black-Owned Night Clubs Unfairly Fined
- New Ranking: Providence Has The “Best” Strip Clubs In Southern New England