An advisory opinion issued Tuesday by the Rhode Island Ethics Commission says Westerly Town Council President Edward Morrone is not prohibited from participating in council discussions and votes related to the town-designated Fort Road right-of-way that’s being challenged in court by the Watch Hill Fire District.
The Rhode Island Ethics Commission said its response is based on information Morrone provided to the agency. In his written request for an opinion sent April 19, Morrone disclosed that he previously worked as a consultant for the Watch Hill Fire District between June 2019 and May 2022, earning $30,000 for monitoring issues concerning the district at the town and state level.
In its advisory opinion, the commission said, under Rhode Island’s Code of Ethics, public officials are prohibited from participating in matters that can affect them financially, or affect their family members, or business associates. But the commission said it does not consider public entities, like a quasi-municipal fire district, to be “business associates.”
The commission goes on to say it has also permitted officials to participate in issues that could impact a former business associate or former employer, if the relationship has ended and a future business relationship isn’t expected. Morrone no longer works as a consultant for the fire district or the Watch Hill Conservancy, which also hired him to monitor issues related to the vacation home community.
In a phone interview Tuesday, Morrone said the opinion “confirms” what he had already heard from Westerly’s town solicitor, William Conley, who didn’t object to Morrone participating in discussions on Fort Road at recent meetings.
But the advisory opinion is unlikely to settle the heated controversy over Morrone’s ties to Watch Hill, and it does not address other concerns raised at recent town council meetings.
Shoreline access advocates and some of Morrone’s fellow councilors say he should recuse himself from discussions on Fort Road, because he is also a property owner in the Watch Hill Fire District, and a previous Ethics Commission opinion said a Westerly Town Planning Board member who owns property in the Weekapaug Fire District should not participate in discussions or votes related to a contested right-of-way that district says it owns and can legally prevent the public from using to access to the Quonochontaug Barrier Beach.
In that opinion, issued in 2020, the commission said actions by the planning board member, Richard Constantine, could affect his property’s value. In that case, having a town-designated right-of-way would open up a stretch of beach largely blocked off to the public in the summer months. In contrast, Napatree Point is open to public use, and the fire district does not stop pedestrians from accessing the beach through the path it denies is a legal public right-of-way.
The opinion issued Tuesday does not address Morrone’s status as a property owner.
In Morrone’s written request to the Ethics Commission, he does not disclose that he owns a home in the Watch Hill Fire District or ask about the relevancy of the opinion regarding the town planning board member.
In an interview Tuesday, Morrone said he had disclosed his status as a Watch Hill Fire District property owner over the phone to an ethics commission attorney. When asked if he had spoken with the commission about the advisory opinion for Constantine, Morrone said, “I wasn’t interested in the Constantine thing. I was interested in me.”
Westerly Town Councilor Joy Cordio, who has been the leading voice calling for Morrone to recuse himself from the Fort Road issue, says the decision by the ethics commission “does not change anything at all.”
“Because my request for recusal was not based on his work and payments received from the fire district,” Cordio said in a phone interview. “My request for recusal was based on the Constantine ruling and property ownership. Nothing has changed.”
When issuing an advisory opinion, the Rhode Island Ethics Commission works solely off of information provided by the public official seeking an opinion and does not investigate the case as it would when a complaint is filed.
An attorney for the ethics commission did not respond to an email asking if the agency has received any formal complaints against Morrone, including any pertaining to potential violation of a state revolving door regulation that says no municipal official may seek or accept employment from a municipal agency within the municipality they serve for at least one year after leaving office. Morrone began his consulting work for the Watch Hill Fire District less than a year after ending his previous term as town council president in 2018.
When asked about that regulation Tuesday, Morrone told a reporter to speak with the ethics commission about the subject.
Morrone’s connections to Watch Hill have come under closer scrutiny in recent months as debate has heated up over the town-designated Fort Road right-of-way that leads to the popular Napatree Point beach and conservation area in Watch Hill.
The town council took action recently to request a survey of the area to accurately mark a path going through a fire district parking area to get to Napatree Point. Then, on May 4, the Watch Hill Fire District, along with the Watch Hill Conservancy, filed a lawsuit, asking a Rhode Island Superior Court Judge to invalidate the Fort Road right-of-way that was designated through a town council resolution in 2008, and prevent Westerly from marking or building a right-of-way.
The fire district argues there is no evidence in the title history that justifies the 2008 resolution, and the district says a designated right-of-way is unnecessary because beachgoers regularly access the area without being stopped by the fire district, which owns much of the land on and around Napatree Point. Shoreline access advocates fear the fire district could someday restrict or charge for access if there is not a guaranteed public right-of-way to Napatree Point.
The state of Rhode Island, which also owns property on Napatree Point, along with the town, was named as a defendant in the fire district’s lawsuit.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office is now an official party in the case and will need to file a response to the lawsuit by July 7. A spokesperson from the Attorney General’s office would not comment further on the pending litigation when contacted Tuesday.
The Westerly Town Council went into executive session on Monday night to discuss the lawsuit. Those deliberations are closed to the public.
Alex Nunes can be reached at anunes@thepublicsradio.org.
