RI landlord fields questions on way to Commerce Corporation appointment. How she answered them.
PROVIDENCE — On her road to confirmation as the newest member of the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation – the board that runs the state's economic development agency – landlord Carol O'Donnell, who has also had a role in the Bonnet Shores beach club voting rights flap, faced questions in the state Senate.
Sen. Sam Bell, D-Providence, did most of the questioning and ended up casting the only nay vote twice when the Senate Committee on Commerce voted last week to recommend Gov. Dan McKee's nominee, O'Donnell, to the full Senate and Tuesday when she was confirmed on a 35-to-1 vote,
McKee chose O'Donnell to replace Vanessa Toledo-Vicker, who cast one of the nay votes in July 2022 on a reworked public financing plan for the delayed $124-million professional soccer stadium. McKee cast the tie-breaking vote for public financing.
Bell touched on O'Donnell's earlier public comments about her views on taking relief money to cover back rent from unwanted tenants, and her role in a battle over voter rights for people who own cabanas at the Bonnet Shores Beach Club.
O'Donnell said her comments at an earlier State House hearing on landlord-tenant legislation about back rent had been taken out of context.
More: Why the Ethics Commission found no conflict by lawmaker in Bonnet Shores voting-rights fight
Who is Carol O'Donnell?
O'Donnell described herself as a "Rhode Island contractor...[and] a Rhode Island landlord...[who is] also president of Rhode Island Builders."
She described herself as the president of three Johnston-based businesses: Emerald Re-Construction LLC, which does damage estimates and repairs; Emmy LLC, which "purchase(s), rent(s), repair(s) and sell(s) property"; and CRM Modular Homes which constructs and sells modular buildings. (Her spouse Salvatore B. Moio's portfolio includes: "Moio Properties" and "SBM Properties.")
On her disclosure filing with the Rhode Island Ethics Commission, she listed 40 properties that she and her husband own in Rhode Island and Florida., including 5 condo units at 175 Bonnet Point Rd. in Narragansett. Asked if she anticipated any conflicts, she said: "no."
More: Are RI's guardians of ethics such insiders they can't rule on the conflicts of others?
"I hope to use my qualifications and my skills for Rhode Island in the economy," she told the Senate committee.
Contention over past statements by O'Donnell about back rent
"As you're probably aware, the Commerce Corporation has done a lot of subsidies of housing, mostly market rate housing," said Bell, in an apparent allusion to the ReBuild RI tax credit program. "One of the really important things for the Commerce Corporation [is] to vet is the quality of landlord tenant relations."
He questioned her positions on landlord-tenant bills – including one banning landlords from asking about a prospective tenant's immigration status – and more specifically, her comments earlier last year about not accepting back rent from tenants a landlord wants to evict.
O'Donnell said her testimony last year was "cut and pasted" by the advocacy blog, UpriseRI, "so my verbiage was not exactly what my verbiage was."
She said: "they wanted to pass a law that you had to take rent relief money. And what I had said was I didn't feel that we should be forced to take rent if a tenant is not in good standing for behavior because it disrupts a building."
"And one of the other things that was left out that I had said, [was] I don't discriminate. We work with Crossroads, Amos House, veterans," she continued. "We work with many people. We have people right out of the A.C.I. So that I feel that I'm a very fair landlord, but I don't like my rights taken away ... if the building is disrupted for the other tenants that live there or it's dangerous."
She also recalled saying, "one of the reasons we were evicting someone is because they had a meth lab in one of our apartments." In other words, "I believe that everyone should have rights, landlords and tenants."
"So I heard you saying basically you still [believe] it should be allowed for a landlord to not take back rent?" Bell asked.
"Absolutely not," she said. "You're misstating what I said."
"I take rent and payments," she clarified. "I have tenants [who], by the time they pay a month, the next month is due. And you know what we do for them? We keep them there. We don't charge them any type of late fees. We embrace them and when we have other people move out, we give them things."
As for the legislation making it illegal for a landlord to ask about immigration, "I don't think that should be illegal," she said.
O'Donnell answers questions about Bonnet Shores voting controversy
Bell moved on to the ongoing Bonnet Shores voting controversy playing out at the State House, in a heated debate over a pending bill.
Like many waterfront fire districts in Rhode Island, the Bonnet Shores Fire District does not fight fires. That service, and policing, are provided by the Town of Narragansett.
The fire district operates like a private homeowners association or beach club, with the state-sanctioned power to levy taxes.
It maintains two small beaches, collects trash, owns a community center, maintains a boat ramp and employs a security guard in the summer to prevent street parking and nonresidents from using the beach during the day.
Bell asked O'Donnell where she stood as chairwoman of the Bonnet Shores Fire District.
His own opinion? "Denying renters the right to vote [in] their local government is a really strong ... imposition on rental rights."
She responded that the fire district has had a charter that effectively said if you had "ownership of $400 in property and then you would have a [right] vote." She said a judge upheld that "and we embraced that ... We also have a letter from the Secretary of State saying that the more people that can vote, the better."
The judge's decision left unclear whether people who don't live in the district but share ownership of a cabana at the Bonnet Shores Beach Club can keep voting in fire district elections.
Pending legislation seeks to clarify that anyone who has "resided in a seasonal residence in the Bonnet Shores Fire District for at least 60 days" in the year before the election and "who is residing in said residence at the time of voting" is eligible to vote on charter amendments.
Bell asked O'Donnell if she believed "renters should not be allowed to vote?"
O'Donnell: "No. The only thing that I didn't agree with is that summertime renters should come in for 60 days to vote in the neighborhood."
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI landlord with Bonnet Shores ties headed to Commerce Corporation appointment
