OPINION: War over public access to Napatree Point heats up in Westerly
Apr. 19—Public access advocates worried about a new attack on Westerly's right of way to the pristine sandy beaches of the 1.5-mile-long undeveloped Napatree Point have targeted a villain, an elected official, in what appears to be an evolving war over access there.
Officials of the Watch Hill Fire District, which owns a lot of the point, have recently put the Town of Westerly on notice that they don't accept the validity of a 2008 town resolution enshrining into law "a right of way for access by the public to pass and re-pass to and from across Napatree Point in perpetuity."
"The council's reliance on the 2008 Resolution is misplaced at best," attorney Gerald Petros of the prominent Providence law firm Hinckley Allen, representing the Watch Hill Fire District, wrote in a March 30 letter to the Town Council, the latest salvo in the developing Napatree Point access war.
"Town councils do not have the authority to transform private land to public land by declaration or resolution."
With this standoff in place ― the wealthy enclave of Watch Hill vs. the Town Council, residents of Westerly at large ― beach access advocates, including some two dozen who turned out for a council meeting on the subject this week, have assailed council President Edward Morrone as an unethical villain in the fight.
Morrone, a retired Rhode Island court official and resident of Watch Hill, was elected to a new council term council last year, after leaving the town legislative body for several years.
During his time off the council, Morrone did consulting work for the fire district ― "monitoring" local issues for district officials who spend the winter away from town, he told me ― and was paid $30,000 over three years. The payments were discovered recently through a Freedom of Information request made by access advocates.
Morrone told me he also took $5,000 a year from the Watch Hill Conservancy, which manages the fire district's conservation land, but he would not elaborate on how many years he was paid by them.
Morrone has steadfastly refused to recuse himself from the Watch Hill public access issues, despite numerous calls for him to do so by public speakers at the council meeting this week and by fellow Councilor Joy Cordio, an outspoken hero to access advocates.
There were some testy exchanges at Monday's meeting between the public and Morrone, who asked people not to clap at remarks and suggested one gentleman leave, prompting a noisy exit in which the person said he didn't want to watch corruption anyway. His shouts of "thirty thousand dollars" drifted through the council chambers, as he yelled while leaving the building.
Morrone did agree at Monday's council meeting to ask "in the morning" for an opinion about a potential conflict from the Rhode Island Ethics Commission. By the time I caught up with him Tuesday afternoon he said he hadn't had time to do that yet.
Morrone referred me to the town attorney ― who has said there is no conflict ― when he refused to comment on suggestions that a previous ruling from the Ethics Commission would not apply to him. That ruling was in regards to a Planning Board member from the Weekapaug Fire District who was told not to vote on access issues there because he owns property nearby.
"They are mirror circumstances," said Councilor Cordio, who noted that Morrone owns property in Watch Hill.
Morrone and Councilor Philip Overton both voted against a motion made Monday by Cordio to commission a survey of the right of way to Napatree based on the tax maps used to justify the 2008 resolution creating access in perpetuity. The Monday motion passed 4-2.
The 2008 resolution notes that the town owns a lot on Napatree Point, which was wiped clean of houses in the Hurricane of 1938, and that a tax map in use at the time shows the original Fort Road, which led from Bay Street out Napatree Point, still exists.
That road gives the owners of lots there, like the people of Westerly, access to their property, the 2008 resolution says.
Overton said he respects the 2008 resolution but would have preferred a more elaborate survey ordered by the council than one focused on the maps used for the creation of the right of way.
Overton also said the town could ultimately use eminent domain to assure access, a suggestion that might send a chill through the Watch Hill cocktail party circuit this summer.
Morrone told me he wants a "deep dive" into the legal issues involving Fort Road and he would be fine if a survey showed the fire district has control of Fort Road. He said he believes public access would be assured either way.
On the contrary, I would agree with the access advocates who say that the public needs legal assurance of a right of way and should not depend on the munificence of the fire district to let the public use Napatree Point.
Indeed, the fire district notes there is a conservation easement allowing public access over much of its land on Napatree, but that permission specifically notes it depends on environmental issues.
It could be withdrawn at any time.
The easement allowing public access also does not include the district-owned downtown parking lot in Watch Hill, the route to Napatree, and without the legal justification provided by the use of the old Fort Road right of way there, the public is in no way guaranteed the right to get to its own property on Napatree.
I give Morrone credit for taking my calls and answering all my questions, even though I didn't agree with all his responses.
I did not hear back from messages left for both attorney Petros and Fire District Moderator Joan Beth Brown, who wrote to the Town Council March 30, asking that council members not "cause more divisiveness, unnecessary legal and other expenses" in asserting the claims of its 2008 law.
Like many of the beach access advocates, I have found a new hero in Councilor Cordio.
"We are going to protect it," she said at Monday's council meeting, about the town's 2008 declaration of a right of way in perpetuity, which is now under attack by the well-paid attorneys of the fire district.
The gallery lit up in applause.
This is the opinion of David Collins
