Perhaps in appreciation and recognition of the power that his office can yield, the Committee for the Great Salt Pond is appealing to R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha for help in bringing to light just what happened, and whether it was legal when the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council mediated with Champlin’s Realty Associates and granted them an expansion of their marina after 17 years.
The mediation was arrived at in December and unanimously approved by the CRMC in an executive session of their Dec. 29 meeting. The Town of New Shoreham and the other intervenors in the case, the CGSP, the Block Island Land Trust, and the Block Island Conservancy, were not aware that the mediation was actually taking place. They were told by the CRMC, through Town Solicitor Kathy Merolla, that no mediation would take place without them. But, it did, and no one ever told the town about the change in plans.
Although the R.I. Supreme Court has denied the motion submitted by Champlin’s, through its attorney Robert Goldberg, some members of the public have erroneously assumed that the court’s denial somehow ended the matter, but it hasn’t. It is still an active case in
