Johnston elected officials hide behind fire codes and police to prevent access to a public meeting

Mayor Joseph Polisena Jr. is applying the lessons he learned from his father.

Forty people stood in the freezing cold outside the Johnston Rhode Island Municipal Court Building on Tuesday night, unable to attend a meeting of the Town Council. The council voted to approve a plan to take land intended for affordable housing by imminent domain and instead build a new public safety complex. Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena Jr., who vowed last month to do everything in his power to stop the project, proposed the eminent domain plan, which will be funded by renovating the existing high school instead of building a new one, diverting $40 million from education to public safety.

A town that doesn’t fund education and housing will need all the police it can get.

The project was initially intended to bring 250 affordable housing units to the town, prompting Robert Pingitore, a Johnston Town Planning Board member, to call it “the future Chad Brown of Johnston.” Providence City Councilmember Jason Roias, who represents Chad Brown, called the remark “racist and unacceptable.”

With one member absent, the five-member town council voted 4-0 to approve the Mayor’s plan at a public meeting with limited seating. The 40 people outside were only a small number of those turned away since parking was also scarce and temperatures were in the low 20s. Around a dozen members of the Johnston Police Department, uniformed and plain clothed, formed a line to prevent people from accessing the building, at one point threatening arrest. One officer made a show of activating his body camera as though arrests might be imminent. The crowd was entirely peaceful if properly aggrieved by the town council’s disinterest in finding a venue to accommodate the crowd or allow them to speak during public comment.

Here’s the video:

Channel 10 reporter Leanna Faulk, who was inside with other TV news crews, noted that only one person spoke during public comment. That person spoke in favor of the housing development and against using the land for a public safety complex. Faulk noted that most of those supporting the housing development were kept outside due to “overcrowding.”

I initially thought that not rescheduling the hearing until a larger venue could be found would constitute a violation of the Open Meetings Act, but unfortunately, the Rhode Island Attorney General disagreed, finding in the 2017 Brunetti et al. v. Town of Johnston case that Johnston could indeed hold public meetings in spaces too small for the public to access.

Despite that ruling, Open Meeting Act complaints should be filed with the Attorney General. The email is opengovernment@riag.ri.gov.

There were other possible violations of the Open Meeting Act. The agenda was not specific about what the meeting was about, noting only that the meeting was about a discussion of a numbered parcel of land. No mention of affordable housing, eminent domain, a new public safety complex, or diversion of school building funds was on the agenda.

Another issue was a sign seen through the building’s window that stated cameras were not allowed in the room. That sign might be appropriate and lawful under its everyday use as a courtroom. But the courtroom was being used for a town council meeting, and under the Open Meetings Act, cameras and recording devices are legal (and encouraged, by me at least.)

I should note that I was at the 2017 meeting that sparked the Brunetti et al. v. Town of Johnston dispute. That meeting, about the Town of Johnston’s plan to sell water to Invenergy, the company trying to build a $1 billion fracked gas and diesel oil-burning power plant amid the pristine forests of Burrillville, was similarly filled with supporters of then-Mayor Joseph Polisena Sr. Power plant opponents, which included members of every environmental organization in the State, were similarly prevented from attending the meeting.

Polisena Jr. is applying the lessons he learned from his father.