Battle Over Champlin’s Marina Heats Up - Attorney General’s Office Files With Supreme Court
Friday, March 05, 2021
For nearly two decades, sides have battled over plans by Champlin’s Marina to expand on Block Island, and on Thursday, the legal wrangling took yet another major turn.
In a 40-page filing with the Rhode Island Supreme Court, the Rhode Island Attorney General's office argued, "At every phase over the past seventeen years, all of the parties with an interest in the Champlin’s application have had opportunities to seek appellate review of the CRMC’s [Coastal Resources Management Council] decisions with respect to this application – until now. The CRMC and Champlin’s mediated resolution circumvented this open and required process where any aggrieved party could be heard.”
The lawyers for the AG's office -- Tricia Jedele, Special Assistant Attorney General & Environmental Advocate and Alison Hoffman, Special Assistant Attorney General -- wrote in the filing, “The MOU is also fatally flawed because it does not meet the standards required of agency orders by the APA [administrative procedures act]. Indeed, this Court has consistently ruled that it will not review a decision of the CRMC when it substantively and procedurally violates the APA.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTChamplin's attorney disagreed with the AG's filing and fired back.
Boston PR Firm for Block Island Group Can't Support Claim
A Boston public relations firm working with one of the opponents said this is a "backdoor deal." When asked who made the charges of the "backdoor deal," the firm could not confirm who made the claim.
“Following almost two decades of unsuccessful administrative and in-court attempts by the marina owners to expand the marina further into the environmentally sensitive body of water, the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council late last year quietly –without the knowledge of the parties representing Block Island -- negotiated an agreement to allow expansion including an additional 156 feet of dock,” wrote the Boston-based public relations consultants Joe Baerlein and Kristen Daudelin for "The Committee for the Great Salt Pond."
Former Supreme Court Justice Mediator
When the Attorney General’s office announced it was seeking to intervene on a mediated agreement, the mediator, former RI Supreme Court Justice Frank Williams, said the AG’s office had missed the opportunity.
Williams told GoLocal in February that he questioned Attorney General Peter Neronha's jurisdiction -- and motivation -- to petition the Rhode Island Supreme Court to intervene in the mediated case.
Williams served as the mediator in the case between Champlin’s Realty Associates and the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC).
Neronha asked to intervene in the proceedings to "address concerns about a recent closed-door mediation between the CRMC and Champlin’s that would allow for a marina expansion."
And the Supreme Court allowed Neronha to intervene.
Champlin’s had applied to the CRMC back in 2003 to expand its marina on the Great Salt Pond by including into areas that are considered “part of the public trust” and have town moorings, adding docks to accommodate 140 more boats, according to the Block Island Times.
The town, joined by the Committee for the Great Salt Pond, the Block Island Land Trust, the Block Island Conservancy and the Conservation Law Foundation opposed the application, and the CRMC ultimately turned it down.
"Then, suddenly in October [2020], Champlin’s appealed the decision to the R.I. Supreme Court, which agreed to take on the case," The Times reported in January 2021. "Evidently the town was asked if it would like to enter into mediation on the case, and chose not to – preferring to see it play out in court."
The Times reported that lead attorney R. Daniel Prentiss on behalf of the opposition groups sent them a statement saying, “The town was apparently misled, having been told that CRMC would only ‘mediate’ if the town agreed to join the process, which it did not.”
"The interveners were given the chance to mediate," said Williams in February. "They knew we wanted them to participate and advised the New Shoreham council through their solicitor. They refused."
"CRMC and Champlin reached out to me to mediate this, as I do all the time — privately — and we mediated," said Williams.
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