Public Or Private?

Lawyers for the town of Coventry are asking a federal judge to seal minutes of a 2023 closed session that were mistakenly posted by the town clerk’s office and available for public viewing for 15 months.

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The minutes detail discussions the Town Council and its solicitor, Stephen Angell, had about taking by eminent domain Johnson’s Pond, a 1,000-acre freshwater reservoir. The minutes are central to a lawsuit the owners of the pond filed in U.S. District Court June 13, first outlined in a Hummel Report story published in The Providence Journal.

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The lawsuit paints the picture of what the pond’s former owners, Soscia Holdings LLC, say was an orchestrated, and illegal, effort by the town to take the property - saying one thing in public about the process, and something entirely different as outlined in the closed-door minutes.

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And it asks the court to return ownership of the pond to the Soscias, who paid $1.7 million for the property in 2020. The town voted last summer to take it for $157,000.

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"The town’s motion to seal (the minutes) is nothing more than an attempt to erase evidence of its own misconduct and drag the court into its cover up,” Doug Soscia, who runs Soscia Holdings with his father and brother, told The Hummel Report.

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Half a dozen lawyers, representing members of the council at the time of the closed meeting in 2023, Town Manager Daniel O. Parillo and Angell, the solicitor, signed a 26-page motion that also included an affidavit from the town’s IT director about how the minutes were erroneously posted.

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The motion says that the Rhode Island Open Meetings Act authorizes the need for closed sessions and protects attorney-client privilege. “The attorney-client privilege is a cornerstone of the legal system, designed to encourage open and honest communication between attorneys and their clients,” the motion says. “This privilege protects confidential communications made for the purpose of obtaining or providing legal advice.”

Soscia, in its lawsuit, said the frank discussion council members were having behind closed doors with their solicitor, was not what was being communicated to the public.

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“Behind closed doors, as exemplified by the executive session, the town, through the Town Council and (Solicitor Stephen) Angell, was quietly conspiring to develop a comprehensive plan to take control of Johnson’s Pond for the purpose of redevelopment and economic gain for the town, themselves, and the property owners on the Pond,” the complaint alleges. 

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“The defendants later changed the public narrative to focus on conservation and recreation, only to return to the original economic redevelopment agenda after the (eminent domain) was complete,” the complaint continues. 

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One councilman said the town could turn the property into a “profit machine.” 

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Soscia’s attorney, Michael A. Kelly, filed a 40-page response and attached The Hummel Report story and closed session minutes posted with it. Kelly wrote that Rhode Island law pertaining to closed session minutes does not apply in a federal case.

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He added that it took the town 15 months to realize it had mistakenly posted the minutes (only discovering it when Soscia filed its lawsuit), showing “a clear failure” to take reasonable precautions.

“Any semblance of privilege that the town may have held over the minutes has evaporated over the 525 days that the minutes have been publicly available,” Kelly wrote.

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He added that the town waited another 59 days to file a motion when it discovered the minutes were publicly available. Officials removed the minutes from the town website a few weeks after public disclosure.

Kelly cited a federal case that addresses privileged communication: “If the client wishes to preserve the privilege, it must treat the confidentiality of attorney-client communications like jewels – if not crown jewels,” the case reads.

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Soscia told The Hummel Report: “You cannot un-ring the bell and the town’s effort to seal these minutes is nothing more than a desperate bid to avoid accountability. I am confident the court will recognize it as such."

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Seven attorneys have entered their appearance in federal court on behalf of the various defendants in Coventry. Asked by The Hummel Report how they were being paid, Parillo, the town manager, responded in an email: Town budget.

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U.S District Court Judge Melissa R. DuBose, has scheduled a Sept. 24 hearing on the town’s motion.

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SEE THE MEETING MINUTES HERE.