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McKee, Warwick officials at odds over local appointments to Airport Corporation board • Rhode Island Current
A plan by city officials in Warwick to get local representation on the board of the quasi government agency overseeing Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport has hit some turbulence with Gov. Dan McKee’s office.
Warwick Mayor Frank Picozzi said when he last met with McKee in December, the governor was all in on a bill sponsored by Rep. Joseph McNamara, a Warwick Democrat, to let the mayor have one appointment to the Rhode Island Airport Corporation’s (RIAC) Board of Directors.
Proposal to resolve dispute between Warwick and T.F. Green officials is now grounded
But as the House Corporations Committee heard testimony on the bill March 26, the governor’s legal team submitted a letter of opposition to the legislation.
“I feel that the Governor’s argument DID kill the legislation and was meant to,” Picozzi said in an emailed statement Monday. “That is why they presented it to the House committee in the 11th hour without informing me, so that I didn’t have an opportunity to challenge it.”
Under McNamara’s bill, the Warwick designee would replace one of the current directors up for reappointment this year. Three board members have terms set to expire in June: Jonathan Roberts and Jeffrey Bogosian, both of whom were appointed in 2020, and Board Secretary Christopher Little, who was appointed in 2015.
The board does have one member from the City of Warwick, John Justo, who was appointed in 2023.
“But he wasn’t appointed by the mayor, he was appointed by the governor,” McNamara said in an interview Monday morning.
Companion legislation is sponsored in the Senate by Warwick Democrats Mark McKenney and Matthew LaMountain.
At issue for the governor’s office is the constitutionality of McNamara’s proposal. McKee’s executive counsel, Claire Richards, wrote to the House Corporations Committee March 26 that only the governor has the power to appoint members to any board, commission, or quasi-public entity of the state that exercises executive power.
McKee spokesperson Laura Hart said Monday the governor still supports the concept that Warwick should have a voice on the airport corporation’s Board of Directors. The office just doesn’t support McNamara’s legislation.
“As always, our office is willing to continue the discussion with the Legislature and the city to ensure a constitutional path forward for having municipal representation on the board,” Hart said in an email Monday afternoon.
The airport corporation also opposes McNamara’s legislation.
McNamara disagrees with the administration’s assessment. He argues the 2004 amendment was meant to prevent legislative appointments to boards with executive power.
Should his legislation pass, McNamara said appointment power would still lie with the executive branch — just with one pick at the local level.
“This is not a separation of powers issue — it’s not even close,“ McNamara said. “The fact of the matter is, when the Airport Corporation was formed, it did have a representative appointed by the mayor of Warwick.”
Indeed, Warwick’s mayor had the power to make appointments to the airport’s board of directors as recently as 2011. But the state that year passed legislation designating all board members were to be nominated by the governor.
And the airport board would not be alone in allowing local appointments. Along with six members chosen by the governor, the statute creating the Quonset Development Corporation (QDC) gives North Kingstown two board members, as well as one each from Jamestown and East Greenwich.
Legislation forming the Quonset Development Corporation board was passed in 2004, the same year as the constitutional change.
“It is a highly dubious argument that the General Assembly would pass a statute creating a QDC board that violates the current language — in the very same legislative session it was proposing that constitutional language to the voters,” Warwick City Solicitor Michael Ursillo wrote in a memo to Picozzi April 1.
Even with officials at odds, McNamara said he’s hopeful there’s room for compromise. One idea, he said, is to make the appointment a collaboration between the governor and Warwick mayor.
“I think that can be worked out,” McNamara said. “The fact that the airport has such a tremendous impact on this city, it is important you have a board that reflects that.”
McNamara’s bill is co-sponsored by all six of Warwick’s State House representatives, including Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi. In an emailed statement Monday evening, Shekarchi said he plans to find middle ground with the governor.
“My goal is to pass House legislation that will satisfy the concerns of all parties because it is important that Warwick’s mayor has an appointment to the RIAC board,” Shekarchi said.
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New East Bay Bike Path bridges are open and ready for bikes
What’s it like to ride over the new East Bay Bike Path bridges? We sent a reporter to try them out.
I’ve long thought bike paths are among Rhode Island’s premier attractions, up there with the beaches, the mansions and the bay.
We like to knock government, but credit where it’s due, the state has done an amazing job building out an incredible pedaling network.
It’s clearly a priority.
At least I thought it was.
But they’ve just dropped the ball on what should have been a beautiful new stretch.
The plan was to finish a mile-long connector from the East Providence end of the Henderson Bridge all the way to the East Bay Bike Path.
There was even $25 million set aside to get it done.
Except WPRI recently reported that it’s now been canceled.
The main fault lies with the Trump administration, which is no friend of bike paths, and moved to kill that $25 million.
But it gets complicated, as government funding always does.
To try to rescue that money, the state DOT reportedly worked with the administration to refunnel it into a road project. Specifically, the $25 million will now be spent helping upgrade the mile-long highway between the Henderson Bridge and North Broadway in East Providence, turning it into a more pleasant boulevard.
That totally sounds worthy.
But it’s insane to throw away the bike path plan.
Especially for a particular reason in this case.
They’d already put a ton of money into starting it.
When state planners designed the new Henderson Bridge between the East Side and East Providence, they included a bike path.
It’s a beauty – well protected from traffic by a barrier, a great asset for safely riding over the Seekonk River.
The plan was to continue it another mile or so along East Providence’s Waterfront Drive, ultimately connecting with the East Bay Bike Path, which runs all the way to Bristol. Which, by the way, is one of the nicest bike paths you’ll find anywhere.
But alas, that connector plan has been canceled.
So the expensive stretch over the Henderson Bridge to East Providence is now a bike path to nowhere. Once the bridge ends, the path on it continues a few hundred yards or so and then, just … ends.
Too bad.
We were so close.
Most of the stories on the issue have been about the complex negotiation to rescue the $25 million by rerouting it to that nearby highway-to-boulevard project. But I don’t want to get lost in the weeds of that bureaucratic process here because it loses sight of the heart of this story.
Which is that an amazing new addition to one of the nation’s best state bike path systems has just been scrapped.
You can knock the Rhode Island government for blowing a lot of things.
The PawSox.
The Washington Bridge.
But they’ve done great with bike paths.
And especially, linking many of them together.
Example: not too many years ago, Providence bikers had to risk dicey traffic on the East Side to get to the more pleasant paths in India Point Park and on the 195 bridge to the East Bay Path.
But the state fixed that by adding an amazing connector that starts behind the Salvation Army building and beautifully winds along the water of the Seekonk River for a mile or so.
That makes a huge difference – and no doubt has avoided some bike-car accidents.
We were close to a comparable stretch on the other side of the river – that’s what the $25 million would have done.
But it’s now apparently dead.
Online commenters aren’t happy about it.
On a Reddit string, “Toadscoper” accused the state of being “complicit” with the feds in rerouting the money from bikes to cars.
And there was this fascinating post from FineLobster 5322, who apparently is a disappointed planner who worked on the project: “Mind you money has already been spent on phase one so rejecting it at this point is wasting money and also against the public interest … but what do I know? I only worked on the project as an engineer … I didn’t get into this to build more highways. I do it … to give back to communities and give them more access to their environment.”
Wow. One can imagine the state planning team is devastated. That’s not a small consideration. Good people go into government to make life better in Rhode Island, and it’s a bad play to take the spirit out of the job by first assigning a great human-scale project and then, after a ton of work, trashing it.
A poster named Homosapiens simply said, “We just accept this?”
Hopefully not.
The first stretch of the path over the Henderson Bridge is done, money already sunk.
What a shame to leave that as a path to nowhere.
It doesn’t have to happen.
Between Governor McKee and our Washington delegation, there’s got to be a way to get this done.
There’s got to be.
mpatinki@providencejournal.com
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
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