If you went on the website weekapaug.org for the first time earlier this year and sought access to information about the Weekapaug Fire District’s facilities and services, you were asked to provide an email and await a response to gain sign-in access to the website.
And if you aren’t a Weekapaug property owner, there’s a good chance you never received permission to view the information shielded by the quasi-municipal entity.
That’s different today.
A visitor to the website can now read about the fire district’s beaches, its “veteran security force,” the recipients of an award named for a watchman who saved four people in Weekapaug during the Hurricane of 1938, and a theater camp for kids where “[p]reference is given to Weekapaug residents.”
The change comes after the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union sent the Weekapaug Fire District a letter dated Sept. 19, telling district officials, “Frankly, we have never before come across a government entity that hides information on its website from the general public, nor can we conceive of any lawful basis for doing so.”
The ACLU told the Weekapaug Fire District that information on the website “clearly is public and should therefore be readily accessible,” and that “it is unclear to us what purpose this secrecy serves.”
Rhode Island ACLU Executive Director Steven Brown said in an interview last week his group was considering taking legal action if the fire district did not change its website. But in an email on Tuesday, Brown indicated he was satisfied after speaking with an attorney for the fire district on Monday.
“In response to our letter, he instructed the fire district to open up the site, which … they have now done,” Brown said. “A small victory for open government in the Alice in Wonderland world of fire districts.”
The Weekapaug Fire District did not respond to an email seeking comment about the website and the ACLU’s objections to the old settings.
The weekapaug.org website still has a button at the top of the page that says “Log in.” Brown said the link takes users to a voluntary list of names and contact information for people who live in the fire district.
In 2021, The Public’s Radio sought a website account with the fire district and didn’t receive a response. When a follow-up email was sent to the fire district’s administrator, Jeanne McAndrew, McAndrew sent a response saying, “Oh gosh- I’m sorry- I did not see that email. .. I will check further.” The Weekapaug Fire District never provided an account to The Public’s Radio.
The fire district did share an index to its log-in protected website in response to a Rhode Island Access to Public Records Act request sent that year.
The Weekapaug Fire District is among several South County fire districts chartered by the General Assembly that do not provide direct fire services but do own coastal property. The district restricts public access to two Weekapaug beaches – Fenway Beach and the shoreline at the Quonochontaug Barrier Beach.
The district is currently involved in two separate shoreline rights-of-way cases before the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council, as it seeks to continue to keep the public off of the 1.7-mile barrier beach in the summer months.
The district claims it is the legal owner of an access path known as Spring Avenue and does not need to let the public access the barrier beach through what it claims is its land. The district says a separate question about beach access by way of the Sand Trail going down the center of the barrier beach was settled in a 1997 agreement between the fire district and town of Westerly, and shouldn’t be before CRMC.
South County Bureau Reporter Alex Nunes can be reached at anunes@thepublicsradio.org.
