At your average town council meeting, the town solicitor is more likely to blend in with the wallpaper in the room than stand out as the person at the center of attention.
The attorney typically sits quietly, answers questions when called on by council members, and goes mostly unnoticed by the public. But things are different these days in Westerly, where the Town Council’s solicitor, William – or Bill – Conley continues to be the target of red hot criticism from residents.
Speakers at the podium have insinuated that Conley effectively aids the town’s opposition, keeps council members in the dark about critical legal matters they should know about, stonewalls the release of public information, and generally works against the interests of the public.
The criticism of Conley is coming from a persistent source: advocates for greater beach access who are from Westerly, or live in nearby towns. They think Conley is using his position to work against their cause and in favor of coastal property owners who happen to be represented by attorneys he knows.
“I think there is some terrorism by Mr. Conley terrorizing our citizenry,” Joseph MacAndrew, a Westerly resident and chair of the town’s Conservation Commission, said at a Nov. 6 meeting.
“Because he is not representing us. He is not representing the people,” MacAndrew told the Westerly Town Council. “Please put your hand up and try to say, ‘We need a different solicitor.’”
‘Proud’ of his service to Westerly
Conley is a former state Senator from East Providence and a longtime Rhode Island attorney who’s represented municipalities, as well as businesses. He markets his law firm as a shop where the lawyers have a “passion for good government,” as his LinkedIn page shows, and Conley has presented himself as a lawyer with a track record of bringing different stakeholders together to solve complicated situations.
“I have never done anything as an attorney for this council, or for this municipality, that I am not proud of, ” Conley said at a Sept. 11 Westerly Town Council meeting.
Right now, Conley is at the center of a number of critical shoreline access cases:
The town is closely involved in the state’s review of two potential rights-of-way to the undeveloped, 1.7-mile Quonochontaug Barrier Beach, where public access is restricted by the Weekapaug Fire District, a quasi-municipal entity that has no fire department yet operates like a cross between a neighborhood association and a beach club for people who own property in the district.
Westerly is also in court against the Watch Hill Fire District and Watch Hill Conservancy, which want a judge to invalidate a town-designated right-of-way to the popular Napatree Point beach and conservation area.
In another Watch Hill case, Conley is the point person on research into whether the public has the right to use the access road leading down to a federal lighthouse property that’s due to be transferred to a private non-profit group that says public access over the road isn’t guaranteed. The U.S. General Services Administration could rely on Conley’s word when it finalizes the documents that officially hand over the land to the Watch Hill Lighthouse Keepers Association.
Westerly councilor joins chorus of skeptics
Westerly Town Council member Joy Cordio says she shares concerns about Conley’s legal representation being raised by shoreline access advocates.
“I understand what’s at stake here, okay? … The stakes are huge,” Cordio said. “Representing the public, I myself want to have 100% confidence in our legal representation. And I don’t have 100% confidence right now.”
Cordio and Conley’s critics say they’re suspicious because of Conley’s actions during a key period about two years ago after the town asked the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council to investigate the Spring Avenue right-of-way at the barrier beach in Weekapaug.
Westerly wants CRMC’s Rights-of-Way Subcommittee to determine if the path can be designated a state public right-of-way to the shore. The Weekapaug Fire District claims ownership of the road and keeps a fence up at the start of the path to block the public from using the access point.
And while the town’s official stance is it wants CRMC to thoroughly vet the right-of-way, records recently obtained by The Public’s Radio from the town, Weekapaug Fire District, and Coastal Resources Management Council, show Solicitor Conley has used his office in ways that appear to have assisted the Weekapaug Fire District in its quest to kill off potential public access to the Quonochontaug Barrier Beach over Spring Avenue.
Conley to fire district: ‘I agree with you’
The documents released show Conley forwarded material to the state provided to his office by the fire district to help the investigation but did not share a key timeline of images access advocates compiled that eventually became an important piece of evidence in the case.
When a fire district attorney, Thomas Liguori, took the uncommon step of sharing Weekapaug’s draft memorandum on the Spring Avenue right-of-way before it was ready to be submitted to CRMC, Conley replied, “I am happy to review documents with you.”
At one point, Conley helped Liguori produce an affidavit for a Westerly town employee to sign that was written by the fire district’s own legal counsel to submit to CRMC to argue against public access to the barrier beach.
“I am attaching a hand-edited affidavit for the Town Clerk’s signature,” Conley wrote to Liguori in one email. “Please provide me with a signature-ready affidavit, and we can make arrangements for it to be signed.”
An executed affidavit was never provided to CRMC, but the fire district did submit an unsigned copy of the affidavit dealing with land evidence records that advocates for shoreline access have called dubious.
Documents show that, when the fire district was ready to submit its legal memo to the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council in July 2021, Conley was there at the meeting.
Liguori, the fire district attorney, had pitched the meeting to CRMC’s attorney, Anthony DeSisto, with the preface that “Bill Conley and I have conferred and believe that to move this matter forward a teleconference and/or meeting with you would be beneficial.”
According to DeSisto, Conley didn’t come to the meeting with any documents to hand in, when the lawyer for the fire district submitted his preliminary memorandum.
Shoreline access advocates argue Conley’s presence at the meeting was his implied endorsement of the fire district’s position.
When a former Rhode Island assistant attorney general, Michael Rubin, contacted Conley around that time with evidence he thought supported opening up Spring Avenue to the public, Conley forwarded his email to Liguori, who quickly submitted an addendum to his own argument to CRMC to rebut Rubin’s evidence.
Rubin later wrote to Conley, reminding him they never discussed a filing Rubin submitted to CRMC, and he saw no indication his documents had been shared with the Westerly Town Council, despite 12 months passing since he submitted the legal memo to CRMC.
“Your reply and comment would be appreciated,” Rubin wrote.
In a separate Weekapaug right-of-way case, the fire district continues to use Conley’s own words against the town in legal proceedings. The sticking point in that case has to do with the town asking CRMC to review the Sand Trail down the center of the Quonochontaug Barrier Beach as a potential public right-of-way.
The Weekapaug Fire District says the case shouldn’t be investigated by CRMC, because it was already settled in a legal agreement between the town and fire district that a judge approved in 1997.
In July 2021, Conley wrote an email to a Weekapaug attorney, saying, even though Westerly’s town manager “insisted” on a CRMC review, Conley concurred with the fire district.
“I agree with you that that is a completely resolved matter,” Conley told Liguori, the fire district attorney.
The Weekapaug Fire District says Conley’s email bolsters the fire district’s claim that the town is violating legally-binding commitments it made, putting Conley in the unusual position of being Westerly’s legal counsel in the case and a witness of sorts for the town’s opponent.
Cordio, the Westerly Town Council member, said Conley neglected to include the excerpt of the emails in the packet he shared with the Town Council when it was time for an update on the case. She said the overall record of communications has not been adequately explained.
“It does not look good. It raises some questions about the relationship,” she said. “I have questions about the relationship between the two attorneys.”
When shown the documents produced as a result of the public records requests, John Marion, executive director of the good government group Common Cause Rhode Island, said it’s “difficult” to “really determine who Bill Conley is actually representing as an attorney.”
“On paper, he’s the Town Council’s attorney, so he’s the legal counsel to the Town Council,” Marion said. “But he also seems to be, in some instances, providing legal advice to one of the fire districts.”
Marion said Conley’s communications with the Weekapaug Fire District “may be going over a line that exists for lawyers” regarding sharing information with adverse parties that can affect an attorney’s client. He said it’d be “wise of Westerly to look at who’s representing them.”
“There’s some unresolved questions there,” Marion said.
Jason Jarvis, chair of Westerly’s Harbor Management Commission, says the public needs to know more about how Conley is representing the town. Earlier this year, he and the other members of the commission threatened to resign because of their concerns about the town’s legal representation in shoreline access matters.
“I have no confidence because he doesn’t show upfront what he’s doing as a hired member of the town of Westerly staff, and we pay his salary as taxpayers,” Jarvis said in an interview. “I want to know what he’s done, and what he’s doing, and where we’re going, rather than having to guess at all of it.”
Council stands by Conley
To get clarity on Conley’s work related to the Weekapaug Fire District and how he accounted for it to Westerly, The Public’s Radio sought Conley’s invoices for the relevant time period. The town provided 386 pages of documents with all the legal descriptions blacked out, citing attorney-client privilege and attorney work product. The town denied an appeal asking for more transparency.
At a Westerly Town Council meeting Nov. 6, council member Dylan LaPietra defended Conley, saying he believed the redactions were made because Conley is “trying to protect his client.”
Conley did not respond to an interview request prior to the deadline for this article.
In a Westerly Town Council meeting on Sept. 11, Conley pushed back on what his critics have been saying about him, telling the public he has always followed the direction of the town council he’s working for.
“Unfortunately, a lot of half truths and selective narratives have led this council and, perhaps, even part of the public in the town of Westerly to have a very skewed and unfair vision of the work that I’ve done,” Conley said.
The majority of the Westerly Town Council has been unmoved by the pleas of shoreline access advocates, and the council appears likely to stick with Conley for now. One councilor, Mary Scialabba, even clapped for Conley at a meeting earlier this year after Conley gave a public presentation, detailing his qualifications amid continued criticism of his legal representation.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha has said he’ll push back against the town if its attorney tries to settle one of the two shoreline access cases he’s involved in with a deal that’s bad for the public. And while shoreline access advocates might want Conley to resign, the town solicitor doesn’t appear interested in walking away from Westerly – and its costly litigation – anytime soon.
Alex Nunes can be reached at anunes@thepublicsradio.org
