Legal battle over controversial Chariho school appointment reaches RI's highest court
PROVIDENCE — The rules of the road for running a town, and for running a regional school district that town participates in, can intersect in confusion.
Ask the five justices of the state Supreme Court, who were asked Thursday to clear up the collision of language and law that has led to a contested appointment to the Chariho School Committee.
A controversial school committee appointment leads to legal fight
In January, when a Richmond resident on the regional school committee vacated his seat, a majority of Republicans on the Richmond Town Council appointed Clay Johnson to fill the open seat. He didn't run for a committee seat in the election last fall, but he was a town resident and a staunch fellow Republican.
Jessica Purcell objected. A Democrat, she actually did run for the committee last fall and narrowly lost. She expected the council would appoint her to fill the vacancy, since she was next in line with the most votes.
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When that didn’t happen, she filed suit, contending that the Richmond Town Charter, which governs how the town will run, specifically required that the Town Council appoint the next-highest vote-getter in the election to fill the School Committee vacancy.
But Johnson, and the Richmond council members who appointed him, argued in their court filing that the Chariho Act, the document that underpins the regional school district, gives the council discretion to pick anyone they wish.
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What happened at the hearing?
In oral arguments before the high court Thursday, Jeff Levy, a lawyer representing Purcell, said the town charter should take precedence over the Chariho Act because it was a newer law and more specific in its language of how vacancies should be filled.
The town charter was passed by Richmond voters in 2008 and ratified by the General Assembly in 2009, he said. State lawmakers approved the Chariho Act between Charlestown, Richmond and Hopkinton in 1958.
Not so fast, argued Joseph S. Larisa Jr. for Johnson and the Richmond Town Council members.
Whether intentionally or not, Larisa said the General Assembly never repealed the discretionary appointment provision in the Chariho Act when it approved Richmond’s town charter. Therefore, he argued, that provision was still on the books and valid.
Levy replied that the General Assembly didn’t have to take that additional step. The provision was effectively nullified when the legislature ratified the more specific town charter.
All five justices had plenty of questions for both lawyers, as the hour-long discussion touched on issues of how the rules and intentions of one community should affect the two other district communities, and the legal principles of “harmonization,” “expressed validation,” “statutory construction” and “administerial acts.”
“This is heavy stuff,” said Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg.
The court gave no indication when it would rule in the matter.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Chariho School Committee appointment heard before state Supreme Court
