Secrets and Scandals: Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 32
Monday, October 12, 2015
Between 1986 and 2006, Rhode Island ran a gauntlet of scandals that exposed corruption and aroused public rage. Protesters marched on the State House. Coalitions formed to fight for systemic changes. Under intense public pressure, lawmakers enacted historic laws and allowed voters to amend defects in the state’s constitution.
Since colonial times, the legislature had controlled state government. Governors were barred from making many executive appointments, and judges could never forget that on a single day in 1935 the General Assembly sacked the entire Supreme Court.
Without constitutional checks and balances, citizens suffered under single party control. Republicans ruled during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Democrats held sway from the 1930s into the twenty-first century. In their eras of unchecked control, both parties became corrupt.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTH Philip West's SECRETS & SCANDALS tells the inside story of events that shook Rhode Island’s culture of corruption, gave birth to the nation’s strongest ethics commission, and finally brought separation of powers in 2004. No single leader, no political party, no organization could have converted betrayals of public trust into historic reforms. But when citizen coalitions worked with dedicated public officials to address systemic failures, government changed.
Three times—in 2002, 2008, and 2013—Chicago’s Better Government Association has scored state laws that promote integrity, accountability, and government transparency. In 50-state rankings, Rhode Island ranked second twice and first in 2013—largely because of reforms reported in SECRETS & SCANDALS.
Each week, GoLocalProv will be running a chapter from SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006, which chronicles major government reforms that took place during H. Philip West's years as executive director of Common Cause of Rhode Island. The book is available from the local bookstores found HERE.
Part 3
SEPARATION OF POWERS 1
32
Heavy Hands (1998)
By 1998, Vincent J. Mesolella Jr. had become an icon of legislative overreach, yet nothing prepared Rhode Island for what he did that spring with the Pascoag Reservoir. Mesolella managed the historic Sayles Mill complex, which consisted of ten stone mill buildings, an earthen dam constructed in 1860 to provide hydropower, and Pascoag Reservoir — also called Echo Lake — that stretched for miles through rural Burrillville and Glocester.
Sayles Mill Associates, a partnership that included Mesolella’s father, had purchased the properties in 1980 and authorized the son to represent them. The next year, fires on three successive nights burned out the stone structures and tower whose 500-pound bell had clanged the changing of shifts for sixty-six years. During demolition of the ruined tower, a slab of granite crushed a crane operator in his cab. Two 17-year-olds pleaded guilty to arson and the tragic death. An insurance settlement put Mesolella and the Sayles Mill partners ahead of their investment with picturesque real estate to sell.
In 1982, Mesolella offered the dam and land under the reservoir to owners of cottages along the lakeshore for $300,000 — far higher than its assessed value of $14,550. Homeowners refused his offer, and one accused him of intimidation.
In 1997, Mesolella tried to sell the dam and reservoir to the Department of Environmental Management (DEM) for $400,000, but the state agency turned him down. In 1998, he tried again, asking $425,000, but was again refused. Ironically, if DEM had agreed to buy his lake, Mesolella might have had to switch sides at the table, since he also served as John Harwood’s designee on the powerful State Properties Committee that controlled the acquisition of real estate. By 1998, the insurance settlement, land sales, and rents had grossed more than $1.2 million dollars.
Mesolella resented having to pay taxes on property he could not sell, and he blamed DEM for stalling. He ratcheted up the pressure by posting a No Trespassing sign at the only public ramp for launching boats onto the reservoir. “We own the lake,” he told a reporter. “We pay the taxes on the lake, and we pay the insurance. The DEM put a dock in our lake.”
DEM quickly countered that it had built the ramp, could document thirty years of continuous public use, and had a deed that guaranteed public access. The environmental agency posted a sign allowing boaters.
Not to be bested, Mesolella cranked open heavy gates in the dam and locked the gatehouse. Water gushed out through a submerged drain. Owners of cottages that dotted ten miles of shoreline watched their lake vanish. From their docks, they peered out at boats stranded on mud flats. Local volunteer fire departments wondered how to stretch hoses from shore to the distant shallows. Angry letters poured in to the Providence Journal’s editorial pages, including one that blasted Mesolella for his Mob-like extortion. “It’s a shame that he is dragging the Italian culture to a new low with this act,” wrote John A. Fazzino.
DEM quickly charged the powerful state representative with violating the Freshwater Wetlands Act and sought an injunction. A Superior Court judge ordered Mesolella to close the sluice gates within three hours. He complied but again locked the gatehouse. Over a weekend nearly two inches of rain fell on Rhode Island. As watercourses swelled with run-off, Pascoag Reservoir filled to its normal level and kept rising to a record depth, encroaching on lawns and threatening cottages. A whitewater torrent surged through its granite spillway.
Reporters tried without success to reach Mesolella while pundits had a field day. Editors at the Providence Journal summarized Mesolella’s dual roles as a powerful legislator and member of the House leadership who executed laws as chairman of the Narragansett Bay Commission and a member of the State Properties Committee.
The editorial did not mention that Mesolella also controlled a fund that dispensed gasoline taxes to replace leaky underground fuel tanks.
In 1996, the DEM had reported fuel leaking from 107 underground tanks scattered around the state. Leaking gasoline glistened on the surface or migrated into aquifers that fed thousands of wells. DEM estimated that it would cost $18.8 million to dig up leaky tanks and stop the seepage.
To pay for the cleanup the legislature levied a penny-per-gallon tax on gasoline. Instead of directing the funds to DEM, which legislative leaders loathed, the General Assembly created the Underground Storage Tank Financial Responsibility Fund Review Board. Lawmakers got seats on the new board, and Rep. Mesolella became its chair. While House leaders subsequently wrestled with Gov. Almond over control of the fund, the likely costs to fix leaking gas station tanks soared to $40 million.
In June of 1997, as the General Assembly rushed toward adjournment, Mesolella shoehorned a special article into the state budget, raising the allocation for his Underground Storage Tank Fund from $125,000 to $550,000. He had not cleared his request with the fuel board, and the House Finance Committee had never held a public hearing on the unprecedented four-fold increase. When they heard that the extra $425,000 would not go for cleanup work but for administrative costs, environmental groups were incensed. The process reeked of insider influence.
In response to a reporter’s question, I pointed out that Mesolella was exercising both legislative and executive powers in ways that would be unconstitutional for members of Congress and legislators in other states. As the deputy House majority whip, Mesolella had enormous influence on enacting budgets and laws. Meanwhile, as chairperson of two quasi-public bodies — the Narragansett Bay Commission and the Underground Storage Tank Fund Board — he directly administered public funds. And if that were not enough, he sat on two other executive entities — the State Properties Committee, which controlled state leases and purchases, and the Rhode Island Telecommunications Authority, which operated WSBE-TV, the state’s only public television station. Mesolella’s political leverage had grown to legendary proportions.
Mesolella announced that he would step down from the fuel board. “I don’t want Phil West or the Journal to think they chased me out,” he told reporter Peter Lord. “It was always my intention — as soon as the program was up and running — that I would resign as chairman, and maybe as a member of the board.”
But months passed by and Mesolella continued to run the board, hiring staff and spending tax dollars, repeating his promise to resign the following May. In June 1998, he announced that he would not seek an eleventh term in the House of Representatives. During farewells on his last night in the House, I heard genuine affection in the stories his colleagues told. Mesolella basked in several standing ovations. “Without me around next year,” he quipped, “I hear the Journal is going to have to lay off two reporters and a columnist.”
Even after he left his seat in the House, leaders juggled appointments to keep Mesolella in charge of both the fuel board and the bay commission. Still close to House leaders, he visited the State House frequently.
One afternoon, as I entered through a legislators’ parking lot nestled against the building’s broad marble base, Mesolella drove toward me in a forest-green BMW. In an instant, we recognized each other. He touched the gas and pretended to swerve toward me. Never in danger, I dodged between the parked cars and laughed, wondering if under other circumstances I could have placated him. Instead, I had goaded him and drawn out the worst. When his father died that fall, I read the obituary and felt sympathy for my muscular antagonist. How had the father shaped his son?
Unlike Mesolella, House leaders used a carrot-and-stick approach with those who became too visible or vocal in the campaign for separation of powers.
Save the Bay, Rhode Island’s largest environmental group, filled the entire main floor of a former bank building on Smith Street, where Common Cause rented a second-floor office. A convenient flight of central stairs touched down near a massive vault that stood perpetually open. Environmentalists filled the space: educators, receptionists, a bookkeeper, development staff, and the savvy executive director, Curt Spalding. Besides being our landlord, Save the Bay had been a strong partner in the RIght Now! Coalition.
Christopher Hamblett, known as “Topher,” worked as Save the Bay’s lobbyist, and we often exchanged tips at the State House. Sturdy and cheerful, he had served in the Peace Corps, digging wells in Sierra Leone. He welcomed an invitation to serve on the Common Cause state governing board. Over several years he helped me understand Mesolella’s conflicted roles as a legislative leader and key player in four public or quasi-public boards.
Topher Hamblett came into my office one spring day in 1998. I knew he had been struggling with House leaders over funds to restore salt marshes and eelgrass beds along the margins of Narragansett Bay, but he had not come to talk about that. Frank Pontarelli, director of policy of the House Policy Office, had drawn him into a room, closed the door, and offered him a job. I knew Pontarelli as a shrewd operative who always acted on behalf of George Caruolo.
“What job did he offer you?”
“Environmental policy analyst for the House majority,” Hamblett said. The job would pay much more than he was making at Save the Bay. I had often seen him driving an old Subaru, dropping off his two daughters at a home day care center behind our building, or picking them up at the end of the day. Though his father was Stephen Hamblett, publisher of the Providence Journal, Topher Hamblett’s modest manner made it clear he had higher values than wealth or power. Still, he had a young family and might easily rationalize his ability to influence environmental policy at the State House.
I asked if Pontarelli had mentioned separation of powers. He shook his head. “But I’m sure they would expect me to follow their lead.”
A few days later, he told me he had turned down the offer.
On the last day of the 1998 session, I found Topher Hamblett in a State House alcove, dazed and dejected. Save the Bay had spent $200,000 for aerial surveys and other scientific documentation that Narragansett Bay eelgrass was in crisis. Hamblett said their bills to strengthen wetlands protection and to replenish eelgrass had passed the Senate but lay like beached whales in House committees. A few hours later the session ended, and the environmental legislation was dead.
Karina Lutz, the Sierra Club’s state director, was outraged. Curt Spalding, Save the Bay’s normally soft-spoken executive director, blasted the House for not having “any desire to improve the Bay, the air, or the water.” He told reporters: “We took everybody at their word that if we did this right, the bill would be passed. We feel like we’ve been betrayed by the process.”
Had House leaders killed those bills to send a message? What if Topher Hamblett had accepted their offer? Or if Save the Bay had steered clear of the controversy over separation of powers?
Another threat came with blunt force. A vocal member of the Common Cause board, Kevin Grau, worked for the Rhode Island Historical Society. A graduate student at Brown University, he sported round glasses, shoulder-length hair, and bow ties. After one separation of powers task force meeting, he lingered to tell me his boss had gotten a call from the speaker’s office with a warning: unless Grau backed off from his advocacy for separation of powers, the Historical Society might lose its legislative grant, worth many thousands of dollars.
“They’re not even subtle,” Grau said.
I asked if the message from House leaders meant he had to leave the Common Cause board.
“They weren’t entirely specific. It sounded like they just wanted me gagged.”
We agreed that he would tell the Historical Society’s executive director he would cease public advocacy for separation of powers.
Then Richard Morsilli phoned and asked me to his office. Under his leadership the Ethics Commission had completed a two-year process of revising rules for public officials. One new rule prohibited public officials from accepting gifts from lobbyists and other “interested persons,” which had sparked indignant responses from lawmakers and the governor. Another rule was advancing the question of legislators on public and quasi-public boards — separation of powers — to the Supreme Court. Legislative leaders had taken umbrage at the rule designed to end their participation in such boards.
I drove to Morsilli’s office in the Citizens’ Bank Tower that stood on a point where the Moshassuck and the Woonasquatucket Rivers converged. Round turreted towers at its three corners made it look ready to blast off, and his window offered a panoramic view of downtown Providence. On a pair of computer screens brightly colored numbers danced, showing transactions on the New York Stock Exchange in real time.
Although the State House was not visible from his window, Morsilli pointed in that direction. “Those sons of bitches,” he seethed. “They’ve been sending Providence Journal clippings anonymously to my superiors on Wall Street. Can you imagine?”
On his desk lay familiar headline stories whose common thread seemed to be that the Ethics Commission under the leadership of Richard W. Morsilli was cracking down on public officials. I asked what was wrong with that.
“Nothing’s wrong with the stories,” he said. “It’s the goddamned way that they’re being used against me. All of a sudden Smith Barney can’t get the bonding business we always used to get.”
Pieces of a jigsaw puzzle snapped into place. The legislative press office photocopied newspaper stories and distributed them each day to State House offices. Those familiar layouts now lay on Morsilli’s desk, faxed from Salomon Smith Barney headquarters on Wall Street. Someone had been mailing these copies anonymously as a warning.
I said I thought his bosses favored ethical government.
“When I first went onto the commission,” he said, “they did. Good visibility for me as their branch manager. But after these articles they’ve lost business and gotten cold feet.”
He had felt the change coming. When people from Wall Street came to Providence, they normally came to his office before other business. But that had stopped, and he wondered why. Morsilli stood by his window and peered down at the river. “I think those conniving bastards are going to fire me.”
“On what grounds?”
He shook his head. “Whatever it may be, they’re not saying. They’ve just gone silent on me. You know the line: ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.’”
“But you’ve left the commission.”
“My term was up, and I thought that would satisfy them.” He drew a deep breath. “I don’t think it did.”
Morsilli’s premonition proved right. A few weeks later Salomon Smith Barney dismissed him on the pretext that he favored male brokers over women in the Providence office and gave them the most promising leads.
Word spread quickly. The firing of Richard Morsilli — like the salary cut for Jim Malachowski — became a warning to anyone tempted to stand up. Even Wall Street would cave in. With loyal lawmakers on the State Investment Commission and Retirement Board, legislative leaders could turn the state’s bonding business on or off like a spigot.
When Salomon Smith Barney replaced him with a 34-year-old manager, Morsilli sued the company for defamation, wrongful termination, and age discrimination. The case went eventually to a three-member arbitration panel, and Morsilli refuted charges that he had shown bias against women employees. Many of his female former subordinates in the Providence office testified to his fairness and professionalism.
Ironically, neither side brought up what Richard Morsilli had called me to his office to discuss: anonymous faxes that implied Salomon Smith Barney’s bonding business would dry up if the company kept Morsilli at the helm of its Rhode Island office. Because his leadership at the Ethics Commission lay out of bounds, the lawyers battled over sham issues. In September 1999, arbitrators ruled unanimously in Morsilli’s favor, awarding him $1.9 million plus legal fees — the largest arbitration award on record in an age-discrimination case.
H. Philip West Jr. served from 1988 to 2006 as executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006, chronicles major government reforms during those years.
He helped organize coalitions that led in passage of dozens of ethics and open government laws and five major amendments to the Rhode Island Constitution, including the 2004 Separation of Powers Amendment.
West hosted many delegations from the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program that came to learn about ethics and separation of powers. In 2000, he addressed a conference on government ethics laws in Tver, Russia. After retiring from Common Cause, he taught Ethics in Public Administration to graduate students at the University of Rhode Island.
Previously, West served as pastor of United Methodist churches and ran a settlement house on the Bowery in New York City. He helped with the delivery of medicines to victims of the South African-sponsored civil war in Mozambique and later assisted people displaced by Liberia’s civil war. He has been involved in developing affordable housing, day care centers, and other community services in New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
West graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, from Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., received his masters degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and published biblical research he completed at Cambridge University in England. In 2007, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Rhode Island College.
Since 1965 he has been married to Anne Grant, an Emmy Award-winning writer, a nonprofit executive, and retired United Methodist pastor. They live in Providence and have two grown sons, including cover illustrator Lars Grant-West.
This electronic version of SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006 omits notes, which fill 92 pages in the printed text.
Related Slideshow: Rhode Island’s History of Political Corruption
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