The Bristol County Water Authority, and more specifically the chairman of the authority’s board of directors, needs to immediately end its “information-gathering” effort directed against four East Bay residents.
John Jannitto, the BCWA chairman of the board of directors, recently sent a letter to numerous Rhode Island and Massachusetts agencies requesting any correspondence they had from four individuals — Barrington’s Gary Morse and Jeff and Janice Black and Bristol’s Marina Peterson. The “East Bay Four” have been critical of the water authority’s management and practices.
Mr. Jannitto’s letter — it appears that he wrote it without consent from some of the other board members — also asks for a log of calls or meetings that involved any of the four residents. He sent the letter to agencies including the Rhode Island Water Resources Board and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.
Clearly, the letter is designed to discredit and discourage anyone who might speak out against the authority.
Mr. Jannitto tried to explain the letter as something done for benefit of the ratepayers. He said he believed the “East Bay Four” had cost the authority unnecessary money and had obstructed the board from its normal duties. “I feel that we’re looking out for the welfare of all the ratepayers, all the people of Bristol County,” he said during a recent interview.
We disagree. The BCWA would do much better by its ratepayers by focusing on important tasks at hand: Hiring a new executive director, reducing exorbitant overtime expenditures and improving the authority’s infrastructure.
It’s time to drop this public campaign against four concerned ratepayers. It smacks of petty, vindictive sour grapes.
Comments
JackBaillargeron 6 months, 1 week ago
Congress Elementary School District v. Warren, et. al.
In effort to prevent four women from filing any Public Records Requests without first getting permission from a judge, or from filing future lawsuits, the Congress Elementary School District filed a SLAPP suit on January 28, 2010. The Goldwater Institute, a think tank based in Phoenix, AZ, represented the four defendants. The school district said that it has been harassed so often by Warren that it was not able to functionally educate its students. Toni Wayas, the school district’s superintendent, claimed "that it had, time and time again, complied with the requests" The Goldwater Institute argued that the school district had been in violation of state laws mandating government transparency in the past.
Investigations in 2002 and 2007 by the state Ombudsman and Attorney General uncovered violations of the state’s open meeting law by the Attorney General’s Office. According to Carrie Ann Sitren of the Goldwater Institute, this was “a clear attempt to silence people in the community who have been critical of the board’s actions, and have made good-faith attempts to ensure the district is spending taxpayer money wisely.” None of the records requested were private or confidential, and thus, should have been readily available to be released to the public, according to the assistant state Ombudsman.
Strange how it is also 4 people huh. But as you can see they prevailed
JackBaillargeron 6 months, 1 week ago
Decision of the Court
On March 31, 2011, The Arizona Court of Appeals filed an Opinion on the court case. They concurred with Judge Mackey's April 15, 2010, decision and sent the case back to his court to assess court and attorney fees for the Goldwater Institute who successfully defended the four women.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_Elementary_School_District_v._Warren,_et._al.
JackBaillargeron 6 months, 1 week ago
Oh notice the appeal, assess court and attorney fees for the Goldwater Institute who successfully defended the four women.
Good way for the BCWA to fund yet more money to the law firm I guess right?
NiceTry 6 months, 1 week ago
It's a shame Mack & Jannitto didn't know better. The high-paid attorney provided the letter and guided the Chairman of the Board off on an ignorant, vengeful, costly frolic. This is very, very bad. Mack and Jannitto need to be replaced right now. There is no excuse for delay.
And where would we all be if not for the free press?
In the dark.
At best.
Thank you, EastBay Newspapers.
GaryM 6 months, 1 week ago
I want to thank the East Bay Newspapers for their continued efforts to root out mismanagement and cronyism at BCWA.
RI ranks at or near the bottom in just about every measure of mismanagement in the US. BCWA itself is a perfect microcosm of everything wrong in the state of RI.
What is really going on here is that those insiders who have been a part of that cronyism want the party to go on. It was so easy when nobody was watching.
Gary Morse
DownTown 6 months, 1 week ago
It's quite obviously a lot more than sour grapes.
This latest maneuver wreaks of desperation.
It's only my opinion but I smell fear on the part of those involved with this info gathering ploy.
The only question is fear of what?
NiceTry 6 months, 1 week ago
Fear of the questions that remain unanswered.
And there are a lot of them. Like: where's the reconciliation of the millions from the state? Why the $5,000,000 cost overrun on the East Bay Pipeline? Why are water mains only being replaced in certain areas of Bristol but all other capital projects are on hold?
The Water Treatment Plant was pretend as was the expensive legal advice, and the Shad was a scam.
Millions of state dollars down the drain and all the ratepayers have to show for it is the liabilities that are Mack & Jannitto. This is very bad.
We heard a rumor in a coffee shop... only in this rumor Mack & Jannitto are the defendants.
galt 6 months ago
It is on record that the BCWA requested an executive session on 11/10/2011 using 42-46-5(1)
"Purposes for which meeting may be closed – Use of electronic communications – Judicial proceedings – Disruptive conduct. – (a) A public body may hold a meeting closed to the public pursuant to § 42-46-4 for one or more of the following purposes:
(1) Any discussions of the job performance, character, or physical or mental health of a person or persons provided that such person or persons affected shall have been notified in advance in writing and advised that they may require that the discussion be held at an open meeting. Failure to provide such notification shall render any action taken against the person or persons affected null and void. Before going into a closed meeting pursuant to this subsection, the public body shall state for the record that any persons to be discussed have been so notified and this statement shall be noted in the minutes of the meeting. "
Exactly whose job performances, character, or physical or mental health was to be discussed? And if it was the "East Bay Four", we weren't notified in advance.
GaryM 6 months ago
The BCWA Board are themselves calling into question the "something to hide" theory in their efforts to investigate residents. Let's look at a short list of the current BCWA controversy's:
1) How did BCWA attorney Sandra Mack convince the Board of Director's that her services are worth $475 / hr paid for by rate payers?
2) How did Sandra Mack convince the BCWA Board that where BCWA has a fully staffed admin department, and where the 1993 Bristol County Water Supply Act (Act) requires that all records have to be readily available for inspection for a period of 3 years until after the final check is paid (it's not yet paid), Mrs Mack's law firm should be doing such admin work at a rate of $475 / hr.
3) How is it that there has NEVER been a qualified audit of the millions spent on projects covered under the Act where the Tri Town Council could have done this audit, but instead removed that requirement out of the recent B&E performance audit due to Mrs. Mack's instructions?
Would an audit of the project spending under the Act actually show that rate payers are still paying off millions in bonds that are largely the result of BCWA mismanagement? We won't know because the town councils voted NOT to complete that first ever audit at the insistence of Mrs. Mack.
BCWA could have removed controversy by finally doing a first ever audit of project spending under the Act, but instead has worked hard to avoid this audit. They can spend $65,000 to fight records requests, but will now say, "we need to save money and cannot afford an audit".
They bring this scrutiny on themselves. And in the end, BCWA will say that we can no longer afford to buy clean Scituate water, but instead have to process the local water because we're broke!
Sign in to comment
Or login with:
OpenID