Secrets and Scandals: Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 47

Monday, January 25, 2016

H. Philip West Jr.

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.

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H 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 4

47 Restoring Ethics (2003–06)

Catastrophic meltdowns occur in nuclear power plants, financial markets, and public institutions. The Rhode Island Ethics Commission had survived bureaucratic sieges and challenges to its constitutional authority, only to melt down in 2001. Commissioners fired their executive director and dismissed ethics complaints against three of their colleagues. This disaster stunned many, and it left the nation’s most powerful ethics commission in ruins.

Common Cause proposed to fix the Ethics Commission by establishing qualifications for commissioners, mandating diversity on the commission, and barring the appointment of the business associates of registered lobbyists. We urged requiring governors to seek public comment on nominees before actually making the irrevocable appointments. In 2001, as in several previous years, Rep. David Cicilline sponsored this legislation to require greater independence and higher standards for appointments.

At the State House, several lawmakers who asked me about the Ethics Commission barely disguised their delight at its downfall, and it came as no surprise when Cicilline’s bill died without a vote in the House Judiciary Committee.

Yet deep in the ruins, almost unseen, change had begun.

I warned in a newspaper column that the ethics disaster might prevent any competent director from taking the post, but Mel Zurier proved me wrong. The commission’s beleaguered chairperson recruited Kent Willever, a retired Navy judge, to assist Katherine D’Arezzo, a young staff attorney, who had become acting executive director.

I had met Willever in 1995, when the Judicial Nominating Commission interviewed him for chief justice of the Supreme Court. A career Navy officer, he had served as chief judge of the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals in Washington and was teaching at the Naval War College in Newport. Willever had no visible pretensions and displayed a deep devotion to the rule of law. He made a vivid impression as he answered questions before the nominating commission, but it came as no surprise when Almond appointed acting Chief Justice Weisberger, who won quick confirmation. The same thing happened when Willever later made the short-list for several Superior Court vacancies. As much as we had tried to squeeze politics out of the judicial selection process, connections still counted.

Those rejections became the Ethics Commission’s gain. Amid the turmoil of Healey’s dismissal, Zurier hired Willever on a part-time basis to help restore order.

At fifty-seven, Kent Willever proved professional and nonpolitical. When the commission advertised for a permanent director, he and acting executive director Katherine D’Arezzo became finalists. Two months after they fired Healey, commissioners chose Willever.

Before speaking, he honored D’Arezzo with a hug. “I have not had an agenda other than to be fair and follow the law,” he said modestly, “and that is what I will do here. I’d much rather educate people than prosecute them, but if I have to prosecute them, I will. I have been a prosecutor.”

M. Charles Bakst, political columnist for the Providence Journal, wrote that he had “never seen a state agency so messed up.” He said the panel needed “a steady hand.” He quoted Willever’s wife, Nina, saying he had a strong sense of duty, brought out the best in people, and liked to “organize situations that may be chaotic.”

Willever was mellow, but when asked about his life, his smile faded. His first wife had died several years earlier of brain cancer. “She was smart and she was pretty and she was the mother of my daughters,” he said. “She didn’t smoke, she didn’t drink, she exercised.” Her decline and death had been the toughest time in his life.

He had grown up in a church-going family seared by the death of his parents’ first-born child. His father, a New Jersey paper mill worker, told him never to whine; his mother, a school secretary, taught him to write thank-you notes. He learned cooperation on his high school football team, joking that his coach made him quarterback because he could remember the plays. He led his team to a state championship and went to Yale on a Navy ROTC scholarship. During the Vietnam War, he served on an aircraft carrier and ocean-going minesweeper. Taking leave to attend law school, he returned to active duty and then rose through the ranks to become the Navy’s highest judge.

Willever empowered the staff in his chain of command. He believed in teamwork, delegated duties, and expected results. He mounted a print of the Picasso drawing, “Don Quixote,” on his wall because he refused to believe that ethics in Rhode Island was an impossible dream.

Departures and new appointments reshaped the Ethics Commission. The day after Diane Monti-Markowski voted to hire Willever, she resigned. Melvin Zurier also asked to be replaced. He resented Operation Clean Government for tarnishing his reputation with an ethics complaint and condemned what he called their “abuse of the process.” He insisted that no one in public service should have to go through what had happened to him.

Despite the General Assembly’s resistance to establishing criteria in the law, Gov. Almond changed his approach to ethics appointments. In 1997, before controversy over Red Sox tickets and other gifts soured him, Almond had appointed retired Army Lt. Colonel James Lynch to the Ethics Commission. A decorated Vietnam War veteran, Lynch was the first African-American Almond had named. He embodied discipline, practiced diplomacy, and stood up to lawyers on the commission. At the end of August 2001, Almond reappointed him. In an interview with the Providence Journal, Lynch said, “I’ll be able to assist the new members and the old members to carry out what we think is necessary to make the Ethics Commission what it used to be.”

That fall Almond strengthened the panel by appointing two commissioners who openly shared Lynch’s hope for restoration. George E. Weavill Jr. had chaired the planning board in Lincoln, the governor’s hometown. He run a Sears store and been business manager for the statewide conference of the United Church of Christ. I had appreciated Weavill’s leadership at meetings of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches, where he presided over discussions of policy on ethics and separation of powers. “Hopefully,” he told the Providence Journal, “I can make a contribution to what has been a real difficulty for the state.”

Almond also appointed James C. Segovis, who taught business ethics at Bryant College, to fill the seat Zurier left. Segovis had worked in the U.S. Treasury Department and was director of the John H. Chafee Center for International Business at Bryant. He had published papers on workplace stress and assigned his students ethics readings that ranged from Niccolò Machiavelli to Martin Luther King Jr. Finally, when Paul Verrecchia’s term ended, Almond picked Patricia M. Moran from a list supplied by Senate Majority Leader William Irons. Moran held finance and business degrees from Bryant College. She had served as administrator of the state Health and Educational Building Corporation but seemed to have little political experience. At the table with other commissioners, she listened carefully but said little.

During the first week of October 2001, Thomas Goldberg resigned. When a reporter asked my reaction, I answered with one word: “Good.”

Donald Carcieri became governor in January 2003 with a promise of ethical government but little practical knowledge beyond pledging during his campaign to work for separation of powers. After a slow start on ethics, he made three impressive appointments to the Ethics Commission. Frederick K. Butler replaced Thomas Goldberg. Tall and gracious, Butler had risen through the ranks at Textron, a Providence-based conglomerate, to become vice president of business ethics and corporate secretary. Now, for the first time, two African-Americans served simultaneously on the Ethics Commission.

Carcieri then appointed Barbara R. Binder and Ross E. Cheit. Either would have been formidable; together they consolidated the hopes of reform-minded Rhode Islanders. Binder, a public interest lawyer, had served as deputy counsel at the Department of Business Regulation under Nancy Mayer, and then as chief of staff when Mayer became general treasurer. She shared Mayer’s passion for open and accountable government.

Cheit, also trained as an attorney, now taught ethics and public policy at Brown University. In 1991, he had played a central role in drafting Carved in Sand, the Gregorian report on RISDIC. We had worked together in forming ACCESS/RI, and he won my respect by guiding students to request public records at town halls, school boards, and police departments. Cheit’s concern for justice sprang from personal pain — in the mid-1990s, flashbacks had disrupted his life as memories broke through of being sexually molested at a summer camp. He struggled to understand and eventually shared his story. He filed suit against the San Francisco Boys Chorus, which had covered up rampant sexual abuse by its staff.

These seven appointments — Lynch, Weavill, Segovis, Moran, Butler, Binder, and Cheit — restored the personal and professional diversity that had undergirded the commission’s authority in the 1990s. These commissioners were politically independent and embodied a wealth of ethics experience. With the exception of James V. Murray at Amica, no member of the Ethics Commission shared offices or financial interests with lobbyists.

Over several years, with new commissioners and Kent Willever’s steady hand, the Ethics Commission rebuilt from within. After Zurier stepped down, Richard Kirby served briefly as chairperson until the remaining commissioners elected James Lynch to head the panel. Under Lynch’s unflappable leadership commissioners studied the law they were charged with enforcing, listened to public officials who came for advisory opinions, and adjudicated complaints in open session. Despite differences of perspective and style, they developed an impressive esprit de corps. Individual differences faded as they took pride in their constitutional mandate.

Gift reports filed in January 2004 roused the Ethics Commission to reconsider its $150/$450 rule. Under a commission requirement that they disclose all gifts worth $100 or more, public officials listed eye-popping gifts. Under the commission’s $100 disclosure requirement, public officials listed eye-popping gifts. Building inspectors received gift certificates from builders. State House staff took tickets from lobbyists to watch the Celtics, Red Sox, Patriots, and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

William Irons acknowledged over three thousand dollars worth of free meals, golf, games, and other entertainment. He conspicuously failed to report flights on a CVS corporate jet to a World Series game in Yankee Stadium and a golf outing at the Augusta National Golf Club. Shortly before lawmakers approved a twenty-year no-bid lottery contract for GTECH, the gambling firm’s executives took Irons to dinner once at the Capital Grille and twice at Capriccio’s. GTECH’s highly paid lobbyist Robert Goldberg did not disclose these expenses on his lobbying reports.

Former Sen. John Celona had golfed as often as five times a month, courtesy of lobbyists who had legislation before his committee.

Richard Licht, a former state senator and lieutenant governor turned lobbyist, tried to dismiss reporter Katherine Gregg’s question about lunch and golf at the Ledgemont Country Club with Joseph Montalbano, Irons’s successor. Licht insisted that the event was merely social: “Joe Montalbano has been a friend of mine for twenty years,” he said. “It was after the legislative session was over.”

AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer George H. Nee said he had not reported a late-session golf outing with Irons because it had not been “for the specific purpose of promoting or opposing” legislation.

In response to a question from reporter Scott Mayerowitz, I replied: “Here we have highly paid lobbyists who have set up situations where they were closeted with top legislators at the peak of the legislative session and try to say afterwards that this was not lobbying. Do they really expect anybody to believe that?”

In October 2004, the Ethics Commission quietly began the months-long process required to rescind the $150/$450 gift rule. James Lynch, George Weavill, and James Segovis spoke in open session about the need to restore credibility. Then in February, commissioners voted to publicize and schedule a final vote that would slash the allowable gift limit from $150 per occasion to $25. The annual limit any public official could accept from any “interested person” would plunge from $450 to $75. Chairperson James Lynch made no pretense of neutrality on the question. “There’s no reason for any elected or appointed official receiving anything — other than their salary — for performing their jobs,” Lynch declared.

Former chair Richard Kirby, one of the five lawyers who had pushed the $150/$450 rule, voted to post the lower limit for public hearing.

Commissioner James Segovis explained his vote against the proposal: he wanted to ban gifts entirely. He warned that any dollar amount above zero tolerance could become a “slippery slope” back to the $150/$450 figures: “There will be pressure to go back.”

On March 22, in contrast to the packed hearing room five years earlier when the commission narrowly voted to rescind the zero-tolerance gift rule, a smaller group signed up to speak. Robert Sumner-Mack, a retired public health physician, told of canvassing his neighborhood when he ran for a seat in the General Assembly. “Ninety-seven out of a hundred people favored a tighter gift rule,” he said. “We, the people of this state, are not corrupt people.”

Attorney and Common Cause board member Kevin McAllister testified that while he was president of the Cranston City Council people approached him frequently on behalf of developers and others who wanted favors from the city. Requests usually came with invitations to dinners or Red Sox games, he said. “It was always very helpful to me to be able to say, ‘No, I am not allowed under the gift regulations to accept that. Thank you very much.’ No one was snubbed and no one’s feelings were hurt. It was a real easy thing.”

Tory McCagg, chair of the Common Cause ethics committee, spoke in favor of the proposed new $25/$75 rule as a reasonable compromise. “We don’t see a problem with a glass of wine and hors d’oeuvres at an event,” she said, “but that’s vastly different from what’s been going on for the last few years.”

Harry Staley, president of the Rhode Island Shoreline Coalition, also testified in favor of the new gift limit.

Commissioners paused to review a packet of emails from citizens. All supported the lower gift limit or a return to zero tolerance. The formal vote for a new $25/$75 gift rule had little drama. Eight commissioners voted yes; one was absent. “It’s only right,” Richard Kirby told me as we shook hands afterward. “This puts us all in a better place.”

Following the Plunder Dome trials, Rep. David Cicilline, now mayor-elect of Providence, set out to establish ethical government in the capital city. No one knew how widely corruption had spread during nearly twelve years of Vincent “Buddy” Cianci’s second act. Operation Plunder Dome had shown how police promotions, towing lists, building permits, and tax breaks were sold and traded. Many offenses could never be prosecuted, however, and Cianci loyalists were entrenched in city departments. A residue of corrupt conduct still coated the city like slime from a toxic flood.

I had not attended Cianci’s inaugurals in 1991, 1995, or 1999, but I could not miss Cicilline’s swearing-in on a snowy January day in 2003. Like his hero, New York’s legendary Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, Cicilline was short and drew from the compatible strengths of his Jewish mother and Italian father. He was also Providence’s first openly gay mayor. Like LaGuardia, Cicilline needed to restore public faith in a city government permeated by cynicism and corruption. In response to a press question, Cicilline cited LaGuardia’s comment when he became mayor of New York: “To the victor belongs the responsibility of good government.”

Wind whipped falling snow through a crowd that stretched from the steps of City Hall deep into Kennedy Plaza. Bareheaded and without an overcoat, Cicilline addressed an exultant crowd. “Over the past three decades,” he called out hoarsely, “a culture of self-service, insider dealing, and arrogance established at the very top has made us cynical about the capacity of city government to behave ethically, let alone respond to our concerns.” He explained how corruption corroded democracy. “Cynicism may make for shrewd politics, but it makes for ineffective government and a disengaged citizenry.”

Rejecting the notion that large numbers of city employees were corrupt, Cicilline promised to create an ethics ordinance tailored to the city. He said it would not “solve the problem, but it will make it clear what is proper conduct and what isn’t. Particularly with what we have just been through, we want to set high ethical standards.” With a flourish he added: “Today we turn our backs on the practices and customs of the recent past. Today I declare a new approach to city government, grounded in ethics and strong values, and in fact, guided by those old-fashioned principles of right and wrong.”

Barely a month later, at a press conference in his City Hall office of dark woodwork and ornate wallpaper that still reeked of Cianci’s cigarettes, Cicilline announced formation of a task force that would draft the ethics code. He introduced its eight members: former U.S. Attorney Margaret E. Curran, Ethics Commission Director Kent A. Willever, former Rep. Joseph E. Newsome, City Councilwoman Rita M. Williams, newly appointed City Solicitor Joseph M. Fernandez, former Rhode Island Bar Association President Alan S. Flink, URI Ethics Professor Alfred G. Killilea, and me. Deputy Solicitor Adrienne G. Southgate would staff the task force.

Pamela Ferdinand, a reporter from the Washington Post, popped the question whether any of us would have accepted a similar assignment from Cianci. When no one else answered, I said I would have rejoiced if Cianci had asked in good faith. I reminded the audience of reporters, union leaders, and public officials how often Cianci claimed there were no stains on his jacket, but never expressed dismay at his subordinates’ misdeeds. “Why didn’t he demand, ‘Did they really do that in my city?’ Why was there no indignation or anger at what they had done?”

The Mayor’s Ethics Task Force met in an industrial building that Joe Newsome had renovated for the South Providence Development Corporation. Large thermal windows filled the conference room with light. Cast-iron pillars supported massive timber beams, and ducts for air-conditioning hung exposed beside mechanical systems painted in pale hues.

Meg Curran chaired the task force but was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and had to stop. Kent Willever stepped up.

Our goal was a code that would foster fair and impartial public service. We aimed to create a culture where all city officials and employees would “strive to meet the highest standards of ethics consistent with this code and state law, regardless of personal considerations, recognizing that maintaining the respect of the people must be their foremost concern.” As Al Killilea said, the culture could change when employees were trained to avoid conflicts of interest and inspire public trust.

We proposed that the mayor appoint a cabinet-level municipal integrity officer who would educate, advise, and only occasionally prosecute employees. A hotline would allow ordinary citizens or city workers to report wrongdoing. The municipal integrity officer would investigate allegations and decide next steps — whether to prosecute serious offenses or to discipline minor misconduct with a written warning.

But we aimed first for voluntary compliance. Because the ordinance would contain exhaustive legal language, we designed a “plain English” handbook to help employees understand ethics rules. The municipal integrity officer would work closely with integrity officers who would be appointed to promote compliance in each city department. At the same time, we had to avoid confusion over differences between the state and city ethics codes. During our deliberations, the state rule still allowed gifts up to $150 per occasion. Since no one knew if or when the state Ethics Commission might lower that limit, we proposed a $25 gift limit for all city officials.

The state’s revolving door rule affected state but not local elected officials, and Buddy Cianci had routinely co-opted his opponents on the City Council with permanent city jobs. We proposed specific language to lock that revolving door.

The task force also wrestled with the question of lobbyists who swarmed City Hall without badges or reporting of any kind. State law split the problem: lobbyists disclosed their activities to the secretary of state, while public officials reported their financial obligations to the Ethics Commission. By contrast, Los Angeles led the nation in empowering its ethics commission to police both government officials and the lobbyists who tried to influence them. Several cities followed that model and I urged the same for Providence, but the task force decided to leave lobbyist regulation for a later phase.

On December 12, 2003, we delivered our report to Mayor David Cicilline. “An Ethics Code,” we declared, “will restore confidence only as the people perceive that all who are elected or appointed or employed in public service guard against both impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in their everyday behavior.” We urged Cicilline to begin its implementation with an executive order and present the draft ordinance to the City Council. Only the mayor and council together could create the necessary legal framework.

Over the next six months, the administration reviewed our draft code internally and with the union that represented most city employees. Donald S. Iannazzi, president of Laborers International Union Local 1033, stood at Cicilline’s side during a press conference to support the draft in principle. He said previous city leaders had talked about an ethics code but never produced one. “We are public servants,” Iannazzi said, “and we take ethics as an obligation.”

Our proposed ban on revolving door jobs touched off explosions at City Hall, just as similar provisions had at the State House in the early 1990s. Ten City Council members had recently swung through the revolving door to permanent city jobs, most with good pay and pensions. Several had been critics of Buddy Cianci, but as the 1998 election loomed they moved into full-time jobs — most newly created, well paid, and never advertised. With those appointments Cianci captured his enemies, silenced dissent, and gained a pliant City Council.

Frank Corrente, Cianci’s felonious director of administration, had routinely rationalized the practice. “Certain conditions arise,” he had told reporter Ken Mingis, “certain jobs become available.” Corrente had claimed he asked himself only two questions before any hiring: “Does he know city government? Is he best qualified for the job?”

Without giving reasons, the Providence City Council stalled the ethics code for more than a year — despite the fact that Councilwoman Rita M. Williams had served on the task force that drafted it. She had held office during Cianci’s rule, resisted his badgering, and suffered his retaliation when Cianci purged her husband from a city-funded job. Williams now chaired the council’s Ordinance Committee. In April 2005, she convened a public hearing on the proposed ethics ordinance, but only one other council member attended. As she explained to a Providence Journal reporter, the need for an independent specialist in ethics who would serve as an honest broker was great. “It’s very, very important,” she said, “especially in light of what we’ve been through.”

Members of the council refused to budge. Although the draft ordinance was clear, several council members complained publicly that they did not know who would appoint the ethics officer or how investigations would be conducted. One councilman warned that a mayor might use the integrity officer to strong-arm council members or bring charges against political opponents. Several wanted assurances that the city ethics commission would offer protection against an aggressive mayor who tried to abuse the ethics process.

Nearly two years after the task force delivered its draft, the mayor and council president jousted with a series of extraordinary public letters. Cicilline expressed “surprise and disappointment that members of the Providence City Council are only now becoming familiar with the content of the proposed ethics ordinance.” He added: “The reputation of City Hall was badly tarnished from the lax ethical atmosphere that was allowed to prevail here.”

Council President John J. Lombardi fired back: “Surely, three years into your term, you must feel it is time to stop ‘running’ against the previous administration.” He blamed Cicilline for what he called “lapses in ‘ethical’ conduct” within his administration.

The dispute prompted Lombardi to fly Florida ethics officials to Providence. Carla Miller had successfully prosecuted corrupt officials and led the Jacksonville Ethics Commission. In May 2006, she spoke to the Providence City Council about delays and difficulties in getting an ethics code right. She suggested that Providence copy Jacksonville’s code. Lombardi hired lawyers R. Kelly Sheridan, who had earlier drafted the RIght Now! Coalition merit selection legislation, and James A. Musgrave to draft a new code of ethics for Providence.

In July 2006, the attorneys submitted a draft that adapted specific prohibitions from the Jacksonville ethics ordinance. Although it had no revolving door prohibition, it did outlaw funneling business to particular vendors, using the city seal or public property for private gain, manipulating jobs or promotions, and misusing government positions for private gain. From the Jacksonville template Sheridan proposed bans on “No Show Jobs” and “Outside Work During Business Hours,” both chronic problems in Providence.

Cicilline and Lombardi ended their standoff by seeking common ground. The mayor assigned deputy solicitor Adrienne Southgate, and the council president asked Kelly Sheridan to draft a compromise ordinance. Together they produced a draft that struck me as more robust than either of the original proposals. From our task force proposal they kept the revolving door prohibition and rules against city employees representing private clients. From the Jacksonville Ethics Code they added prohibitions against various kinds of employee fraud and abuse. Their draft retained our task force’s proposal for a municipal integrity officer appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council. From the Jacksonville code, they proposed a Providence Ethics Commission: seven independent community leaders would oversee education, advisory opinions, and enforcement as unpaid volunteers. The mayor and council would each appoint three members, and those six would choose a seventh, who would serve as chairperson.

The City Council’s Ordinance Committee, still chaired by Rita Williams, met twice during the last two weeks of July 2006. Despite sweltering nights, the entire committee filled seats around a long table to ponder the compromise draft. The narrow, high-ceilinged room pulsed with energy. Williams assured her members that the ordinance was better for the time and work they had invested in it.

A looming primary election on September 12 also raised the stakes. Cicilline had recruited candidates to run against six Lombardi backers in wards across Providence. By passing a credible ethics ordinance, the incumbents could deflect charges that they were soft on corruption. Then, on August 3, a day when temperatures soared to 98 degrees in Providence, the full City Council voted unanimously to enact the ethics ordinance and send it for the mayor’s signature.

Restoring ethics required far more than the Ethics Commission’s new gift rule and a new ethics ordinance in Providence. It took years of work by key public officials. Kent Willever, James Lynch, and David Cicilline each strode into the dismal aftermath of scandals, when many Rhode Islanders felt government integrity was a lost cause. They staked their reputations on rebuilding public trust.

Nor were they alone. Mel Zurier, who chaired the Rhode Island Ethics Commission, had found himself overrun by his allies and targeted in an ethics complaint. Despite deep disappointment, he stayed to recruit Kent Willever as executive director.

Two governors — Linc Almond and Don Carcieri — took seriously their duty to appoint independent individuals with ethics expertise to the commission. And the commissioners they named — Frederick Butler, George Weavill, James Segovis, Patricia Moran, Barbara Binder, and Ross Cheit — put in hundreds of hours with their veteran chair James Lynch to rebuild. Attorney Richard Kirby, whose votes had contributed to the Ethics Commission’s meltdown, stayed to repair the damage. Kirby never said publicly that he and his cohorts had gone too far, but he worked to enact the new $25/$75 rule.

In a similar vein, the effort to cleanse Providence after Cianci’s corrupt regime required patience and pragmatism. Mayor David Cicilline’s Ethics Task Force had no idea what we could accomplish as we drafted an ethics ordinance. City Council President John Lombardi, meanwhile, tried to adapt Jacksonville’s ordinance as an alternative. To their credit, Cicilline and Lombardi directed Adrienne Southgate and Kelly Sheridan to mesh the rival ordinances. The final version proved stronger than either draft.

Councilwoman Rita Williams had tried to bridge the chasm between two administrations, Cianci’s and Cicilline’s. She supported David Cicilline for mayor and worked diligently on his Ethics Task Force, where her painstaking work helped Providence finally establish one of the best municipal ethics codes in the United States. But she found herself targeted in a primary by a Cicilline ally and ultimately defeated. She left public life with little thanks for her integrity, courage, and diligence.

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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.

Secrets and Scandals: Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 47

Part 4

47

Restoring Ethics (2003–06)

Related Slideshow: Rhode Island’s History of Political Corruption

Buddy Cianci

Joseph Bevilacqua

Thomas Fay

Brian J. Sarault

Edward DiPrete

Plunder Dome

N. Providence Councilmen

Charles Moreau

Joe Almeida

Gordon Fox

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Secrets and Scandals: Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 47

Part 4

47

Restoring Ethics (2003–06)

Related Slideshow: Rhode Island’s History of Political Corruption

Buddy Cianci

Joseph Bevilacqua

Thomas Fay

Brian J. Sarault

Edward DiPrete

Plunder Dome

N. Providence Councilmen

Charles Moreau

Joe Almeida

Gordon Fox

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