Fake fire district fights to restrict public beach access
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
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| Access to Weekapaug Beach in Westerly, R.I., is guarded by a security officer from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. during the summer. The Weekapaug Fire District, at least according to a group of concerned residents, is also illegally blocking a shoreline right of way known as the Spring Avenue Extension. (Frank Carini/ecoRI News) |
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Weekapaug Fire District is actually just a homeowners' association not an fire-fighting entity. Ironically, the Fire District lost what little capacity it had when its own firehouse burned down in November 2017. They have a security force, as shown above, but no firefighters. Weekapaug is similar to Charlestown's two fake fire districts, Shady Harbor and Central Quonnie, who likewise lack the ability to fight fires but plenty of determination to keep outsiders off the beach. - Will Collette
Observers hoping for a quick resolution to
the Spring Avenue Extension coastal access point are sure to be disappointed.
The Coastal Resources Management Council’s right of way
(ROW) subcommittee opened its first evidentiary hearing Nov. 4. It’s the first
chance both sides have had to produce evidence that proves or disproves if the
ROW is truly open to the public.
For two and a half hours — with a single 15-minute break —
the subcommittee heard testimony from witnesses, including title attorney
Joseph Priestly, as attorneys representing the town of Westerly tried to prove
to council members using decades-old plat maps the public status of the ROW.
“It’s a public highway open for access by the public and
will remain so until abandoned by the town of Westerly,” Priestly testified.
“Assuming that it has not been, it remains a public highway.”
Priestly added he had seen no evidence indicating the town
had abandoned the ROW, either formally or informally, but noted he had not
specifically looked for evidence of abandonment either. He also testified to
subcommittee members that he saw no maintenance obligation by Westerly in the
land evidence records.
A key point of evidence for supporters of the right of way
is a 1939 plat map that has the ROW labeled. Westerly solicitor William Conley
said for the ROW to be accepted under common law jurisprudence was a plat map
depicting the ROW, and proof that it was open to the public historically, which
would count as the town “accepting” the ROW without formally adopting it.
“By the late 1800s the Weekapaug Beach was a thriving beach community, there were hotels, it was a wonderful place to visit,” Conley said in his opening remarks. “But the only access for all those people from the trolley cars and hotels was the Spring Avenue right of way.”
But attorney Joseph Farside, representing the Weekapaug Fire
District, which opposes labeling the Spring Avenue Extension as a public right
of way, said in his opening remarks it was only one piece of evidence among
many others that contradicted it, and said supporters of shoreline access were
“trying to speak a right of way into existence.”
“It does not make all the ways on that plat public,” Farside
said. “This is confirmed by two other roads shown on that plat map, Meadow and
Shawmut, which remain private roads to this day as conceded by the town
itself.”
Farside said the town never accepted Spring Avenue Extension
as a right of way, even if it was dedicated. The ROW has been fenced off,
undeveloped and untouched, said Farside, and a 1940 report from the Town
Council shows it was not a public right of way. Aerial photos, said Farside, do
not show a path over the Spring Avenue Extension, and rights to grant easements
over the ROW to organizations like the Weekapaug Beach Company, a predecessor
to the fire district, has never been a power held by the town.
“Proponents are guided by the blind hope that this
subcommittee will sympathize with them, ignore their burden of proof and bend
the public pressure to access what we call the beach, a piece of land owned by
the fire district and its predecessor since at least 1884,” Farside said.
The legal tug-of-war over the Spring Avenue Extension ROW is
nearly three years old. Members of CRMC’s ROW subcommittee accepted it as a
contested case in early 2023, and over the past two and a half years the two
sides in the case have been operating similarly to a lawsuit: making motions,
filing depositions, entering discovery, and exchanging evidence.
It’s no surprise that once lawyers became involved, CRMC’s
officials’ hopes of a quick and speedy resolution were dashed, and the
evidentiary hearing indicated it would be a long process.
The subcommittee has already taken its first round of public
testimony as to the right of way, at a packed meeting in Town Hall in September. CRMC executive
director said at that meeting the agency was hoping to reach a final decision
on the ROW within the next year.
Future subcommittee hearings for evidence are expected to be
scheduled, with a second round of public input on the Spring Avenue Extension
to follow after the hearings for the lawyers conclude.
