Latest Camp Davis court case goes against the Tribe

Institutional racism wins another round in Charlestown

By Will Collette

Broadside for the Sale of the Narraganett Indian Reservation, 1882.
Courtesy of Tomaquag Museum

The Narragansett Indian Tribe has been taking a beating from Charlestown’s European immigrant settlers since at least 1675 when colonial forces tried to wipe out the whole tribe at the Great Swamp Massacre.

After the slaughter, it was slavery for some survivors, other hid and someremaining other members of the tribe had their land stolen. 

In 1880, the General Assembly declared the Tribe no longer existed and in 1882, we took all the remaining tribal land except for one acre.

In 1978, the Tribe's lawsuit to recover their land resulted in a settlement that restored 1800 acres to the Tribe. There was a catch: nothing could be done on that specific land without local permission.

In 1983, the federal government formally recognized the Narragansetts as a sovereign nation, but the term “sovereign” depended on who has the power to interpret it, as the following chain of events shows.

The town blocked the Tribe's plan for a casino in 1992 and a bingo hall in 1995. State Troopers and Charlestown Police fought a pitched battle with tribal members in the infamous 2003 Smoke Shop Raid.

In 2006, voters rejected a state referendum on the Tribe’s effort to partner with Harrah’s to build a casino in West Warwick where the town was eager for the jobs it would create. A West Warwick casino would also have ended any further fear of a Charlestown casino.

The Carcieri case started with the Town's fight to prevent this planned
senior housing project from being completed. The town thought the
Tribe planned to build a casino here. See if you can spot slot machines

The Tribe wanted to build affordable housing for its low-income elderly population on new land they purchased outside the settlement area in 1991. 

The Tribe attempted to use its rights under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 to put that land under trust with the US Interior Department and thus outside state and local jurisdiction.

That led to years of litigation ending up before the US Supreme Court which issued its 2009 Carcieri V. Salazar decision. In a nutshell, the decision denied coverage under the Indian Reorganization Act to all 500-plus tribes across the US who won federal recognition after 1934. Of course, that included the Narragansetts.

Charlestown, former Gov. Don Carcieri and the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) celebrated that decision as a major win for white people who sought to have the final say over what Native Americans do, even on their own land.

Fact sheet produced by the House Natural Resources Committee

Congress may at some point pass what’s called the “Carcieri Fix,” a law that clarifies its intention that the Indian Reorganization Act applies to all Indian nations consistent with the motto “Equal Justice Under Law” that is carved over the front portal of the Supreme Court.

But in the meantime, the Tribe  keeps fighting for its sovereign rights. 

On March 15, the Tribe lost another case this time before the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

The Tribe had sued the US Transportation Department and the state to honor a pledge and legal obligation to turn over land as compensation for the destruction of historical archeological sites under the I-95 reconstruction project in Providence.

The Tribe was due to receive this compensation under the provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act.

In 2013, the RI Department of Transportation bought the old Camp Davis property for $1,650,000 intending it to be given to the Tribe along with other historic properties connected to the Tribe, costing a total of $8 million. 

The transfer seemed to be going smoothly until the CCA-led Charlestown Town Council got up in arms. 

Charlestown deployed the town’s Indian fighting Special Counsel Joe Larisa who convinced the state that the Tribe should be required to renounce any claim of sovereignty over the use of the property even though the land was NOT part of the original 1978 Settlement deal. The state agreed. 

That would mean the Tribe could only use the land for purposes approved by the state and Charlestown.

Larisa never misses a chance to attack the Tribe's sovereign rights as this
  YouTube video screed shows (screenshot from EcoRI video). In this event,
Larisa is speaking against Invenergy's proposal to use tribal water for
its now-defeated gas plant in Burrillville. By this point in the fight,
the project was already beaten, so Larisa's snide remarks (note how he mocks
a previous speaker) were totally gratuitous.

This demand was a deal-breaker for the Tribe who insisted that only the original settlement lands were subject to such a condition of use.

For nearly a decade now, the Tribe has been trying to get the land it was promised as compensation under the law without having to give up its sovereign rights. 

So far, that hasn’t worked, although this latest court setback was largely on procedural grounds, leaving open the door to further legal challenges.

Charlestown’s perpetual state of war with the Narragansett Indian Tribe is the heart of this issue. It’s been almost 350 years since the Great Swamp Massacre. The casus belli is Charlestown’s intention to maintain its dominion over the Tribe come what may. Some would call it racism – I certainly do and so do tribal leaders.

We are the only town in Rhode Island with an anti-Indian specialist on retainer as a Special Counsel. The CCA says that’s because we’re the only town with an Indian nation on its lands. But the towns hosting Foxwoods and Mohegan Suns casinos have no equivalent to Injun Joe Larisa on their payrolls.

The CCA fought like hell, even violating Roberts Rules of  Order by taking three votes, to keep Joe Larisa on the payroll. 

Even former Eagle Scout Cody Clarkin voiced his strong support for Larisa despite the Boy Scouts'  strong denounciation of  institutional racism.

Larisa has dug in deep on the Camp Davis controversy, seeing it as a terrible threat to white supremacy in Charlestown. As he told WRNI reporter Alex Nunes:

“If the tribe gets land in federal trust, unrestricted, it'd be ‘Indian country…And when you have ‘Indian country,’ the land is largely exempt from state laws, state civil laws, state criminal laws, and town ordinances. It means they can largely do what they want, just like a sovereign nation within our borders.”

In this respect, Larisa’s anti-Indian views closely resembles those of the state of Oklahoma’s arguments against the 2020 US Supreme Court decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma.

In that ruling, the Court ruled that state and local governments must respect federally recognized Indian nations’ sovereign rights, This ruling did not apply to those tribes, like the Narragansetts, who were screwed by the Carcieri decision.

In the two years since McGirt, Oklahoma has asked the Supremes to reconsider the McGirt decision more than 30 times and has been denied each time. 

Larisa should consider moving to Oklahoma where he can litigate against Native Americans all he wants. He'd probably make more than the $25,000 a year Charlestown pays him.

From time to time, the CCA has tried to paper over its racism through token gestures, such as last weekend's walk through the Frances Carter Preserve as a tribute to famed runner Ellison "Tarzan" Brown. 

Of course he deserves it, and so do his children, especially the late Sis Brown, tribal organizer. I had the privilege of working with Sis in the 1970s. 

If the CCA really wanted to honor Tarzan Brown, they would support firing Joe Larisa and begin working WITH, not against, the Tribe.

Instead, Charlestown has waged a shameful war against the Narragansett Indian Tribe for the past 345 years. During that time, we’ve seen crimes against humanity, slavery and fraud on a massive scale. Enough. Let’s stop pretending this is about zoning and face down institutional racism. And stop it.

End institutional racism in Charlestown

It’s real and it has to go

By Will Collette

Slave population by town – 1755 (Copyright Peter Fay)

We are at one of those moments in history where it is not only appropriate but necessary for us all to do some soul-searching.

Charlestown residents may be thinking that while George Floyd’s killing was horrific and racism is wrong, this is not Charlestown’s problem because we have almost no black people. US Census data show only 0.2% of Charlestown’s population of just under 7,900 are African-American. Charlestown is 94.1% white.

But racism IS Charlestown’s problem, and in a major way. In my opinion, the town of Charlestown is committed to institutional racism in two significant ways.

The first is a determined and deliberate effort by Charlestown’s political leadership to KEEP Charlestown white by keeping non-whites out.

The second is Charlestown’s determination to maintain its centuries old dominion over the Narragansett Indian Tribe at all costs.

Decades of fair housing laws have outlawed overt racial discrimination in housing so Charlestown uses a more subtle approach: Charlestown fights every effort to create more affordable housing to the death.

When Cathy and I moved to Charlestown in 2001, we learned the code words the town uses to prevent “people from Providence” from ruining “Charlestown’s rural character.”

Charlestown opposes affordable housing for families and especially those with school-age children. The town has repeatedly asked the state to exempt Charlestown from the state’s affordable housing laws because we are somehow special.

An even more hardcore form of institutional racism is expressed in town attitudes toward the Narragansett Indian Tribe whose members constitute Charlestown’s largest minority group at 2.3%.

Long-time Charlestown residents have used the same “people from Providence” code when referring to the Narragansetts although sometimes, a disgusting racial epithet is used instead of “people.”

I can’t find a time when Charlestown was NOT in conflict with our Tribal neighbors. 

For example, there’s the fight over whether the Tribe can receive the old Camp Davis land as compensation for native sites destroyed in the Route 95-195 reconstruction project. Charlestown succeeded in getting state DOT to require the Tribe to cede its sovereignty rights over the land, knowing that was a deal breaker. 

At present, there are at least two pending claims of Charlestown Police misconduct filed by members of the Narragansett Indian Tribe. The complainants both allege discriminatory treatment by CPD. 

Narragansett leaders like Randy Noka, shown above, were the first in
Charlestown to stand in opposition to plans to drain Charlestown water
for the now-defeated Invenergy power plant proposal.

Both claims allege Charlestown took sides in an internal Tribal leadership dispute favoring former Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas’s faction.

In the federal civil rights case, Bella Noka charged she was denied police protection when she tried to attend a tribal meeting and was threatened with bodily harm. 

Domingo Monroe, Sr. filed a claim for damages for police brutality, alleging that when he tried to attend a tribal meeting, he was blocked, tasered and arrested by CPD.

Ironically, these two leaders come out of the dissident faction that were vital allies to Charlestown in the successful fight against a deal that would have allowed Invenergy to take water from the aquifer all of us in Charlestown use.

Charlestown’s guiding belief is that it has complete control over the Narragansett Indian Tribe. Charlestown is committed to blocking any action by the Tribe that does not have the Town’s expressed prior approval.

The guy in charge of carrying out that policy is attorney Joe Larisa who is paid a minimum of $24,000 a year as Charlestown’s special counsel for Indian affairs.

His sole responsibility is to watch and fight against any activity by the Tribe to exercise its sovereign rights as a federally-recognized Indian nation. Tribal leaders have called him a racist.

Larisa rarely lets any opportunity go by where he can remind the Tribe that their rights were greatly abridged by the 2009 Carcieri v. Salazar US Supreme Court decision.

This decision originated in a Charlestown lawsuit to block the Tribe from putting 31 newly purchased acres in trust with the Interior Department for use as senior citizens affordable housing. The Charlestown plaintiffs were convinced this was a Narragansett trick to build a casino.

The Carcieri case started with the Town's fight to prevent this planned
senior housing project from being completed. The town thought the
Tribe planned to build a casino here.

As the case worked through the courts, the state took it over and former Governor Donald Carcieri became the lead plaintiff. 

The issue became a much larger one than the fate of the proposed senior citizens affording housing project and became a broad struggle over tribal rights.

In Carcieri v. Salazar, the Supreme Court majority ruled that Congress didn’t clearly state that all Indian tribes were covered by the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. They ruled the IRA only applied to tribes that were federally recognized in 1934. Forget about the 14^th Amendment and the motto “Equal Justice Under Law” carved over the portico of the Court.

This is over the front entrance to the Supreme Court.

As a result, the Narragansetts and 500 other tribes federally recognized AFTER 1934 do not have equal protection under law. 

Each year, Congress considers a “Carcieri Fix” to clarify Congressional intent. According to Joe Larisa’s invoices to the town, he spends most of his time monitoring the “Carcieri Fix.”

Charlestown’s ingrained institutional racism against the Narragansetts goes back to the time right after the founding of the state.

Governor Gina Raimondo recently signed an Executive Order dropping “Providence Plantations” on state documents because the state’s official name (Rhode Island and Providence Plantations) evokes memories of slavery.

She suggests a public vote on a Constitutional amendment to officially change the state’s official name. The RI Senate has already passed a resolution to do just that by unanimous vote.

RI Speaker of the House Nick Mattiello was asked for his views on the issue and said he had no idea that slavery had existed in Rhode Island.

However, Rhode Island was deep into the slave trade, including many of the state’s oldest families (e.g. the Brown family of Brown University fame). 

Indeed, the majority of slave ships in British North America were Rhode Island based, especially in Newport; they trafficked around 100,000 Africans despite a 1652 law that abolished African slavery in the colony, a law rarely enforced.

Beth Comery addressed Speaker Mattiello in an article where she suggests Mattiello walk down Smith Hill from the Capitol to the graveyard next to the Episcopal Cathedral. There he can see the graves of the slaves of the prominent Chace family (see photo, left).

Charlestown was a major part of the “Providence Plantations” though in the 1700's what we now call "South County was then called "Narragansett Country" and stretched from Wickford through Westerly.

Charlestown’s low lands were divided up into large plantations run by Charlestown’s founding families and dependent on slavery of Africans, indentured servants and especially Narragansetts.

By 1755, one out of every three residents of "Narragansett Country" were slaves, again despite the 1652 anti-slavery law.

In 1675, Massachusetts and Connecticut militias slaughtered many members of the tribe in the Great  Swamp Massacre. The site is off Route 2, just across the line from Charlestown. Captured survivors of the Massacre were enslaved on Charlestown’s plantations.

The Great Swamp Massacre, 1675

Though the Tribe continued to hang on to its identity and a small portion of its lands, the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations declared in 1880 that the Narragansetts no longer existed and “detribalized” them.

Today, the Trump Administration calls that process  “deinstitutionalization” and is attempting to do this to the Mashpee Wampanoags but has been stymied by a federal court challenge.

In 1882-4, “detribalization” led to a land grab by Charlestown’s ruling aristocracy, leaving only two acres remaining to the Narragansetts. Rhode Island courts rejected challenges by the Tribe to these land takings.

In the 1970s, the Narragansetts organized to get their land back. My first experience with the Tribe was as a callow youth in 1974. I was sent by the Office of Community Affairs of the Catholic Diocese of Providence to do on-site training for the Tribe’s community organizer, the late Sis Brown. 

Sis told me then they were going to get that land back and in 1975, the Tribe filed suit to do just that.

This led to the 1978 settlement agreement that formed the Tribe’s 1800-acre core homeland. On April 11, 1983, the federal government officially recognized the Narragansett Indian Tribe.

Many newly recognized tribes decided gambling was the fastest route to prosperity leading to a rush of bingo parlor construction and, of course, lawsuits. Eventually, Congress passed the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to regulate this new industry. Indian gaming generated $100 million a year when that law was passed and has grown to more than $26 billion year now.

Charlestown's biggest nightmare

In the years following its federal recognition, some Narragansetts expressed an interest in a bingo parlor, to Charlestown’s ever-lasting horror. In 1992, the Tribe even proposed a Foxwoods style casino on its lands but were precluded from that by the 1978 settlement agreement.

So that never happened. The Tribe gave up on the idea of building any gaming facility in Charlestown 30 years ago but did try to win approval for a casino in West Warwick just off I-95. In 2006, voters rejected that proposal by a 2-1 margin.

The Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) has never stopped using the specter of a casino in Charlestown to stir up fear and anger against the Tribe even though  the Tribe gave up on that idea over a generation ago, not to mention a Charlestown casino makes absolutely no sense.

So why is Charlestown still at war with the Narragansett Indian Tribe? As we learn from the history of town and tribal relationships, the central issue for the town is control over every inch of land. The Tribe’s central issue is sovereignty.

The Carcieri decision gives Charlestown the edge. However, that advantage is as tenuous as that decision. Nearly all of the efforts toward a “Carcieri Fix” have actually been bi-partisan. They failed largely because (a) Congress doesn’t work very well and (b) so far, this issue never made it high enough on either Party’s priority list to warrant a big push. But that could change.

Meanwhile, relations in Charlestown continue to fester.

We don’t need to wait for Congress to begin the process of reconciliation. People of goodwill in Charlestown need to call for an end to the hostilities and demand a serious effort to find common ground.

A good start would be to cancel our retainer agreement with Indian fighter Joe Larisa whose continued presence is an impediment to any hope of reconciliation.

We are not immune to what is happening in the rest of the country. Indeed, we have our own long-overdue responsibility to end our own institutional racism. I doubt it will be easy or neat but I also believe it is our duty to try, no matter how difficult and complicated it may be.

Narragansetts receive almost $400K in federal funds to develop affordable housing

Will this spark more hostility between the Tribe and Charlestown town government?

By Will Collette

The ruins of the affordable housing project that spurred the Carcieri
v. Salazar Supreme Court decision. (RI Monthly photo)

On February 18, Trump’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson announced $655 million in Indian Housing Block Grants to tribes across the country.

Carson claimed “…Trump and HUD are committed to providing our Native American Tribes with the tools they need to create better, affordable housing opportunities for their families…”

HUD's accompanying table shows the Narragansett Indian Tribe’s share will be $392,507. At this writing, I do not know what the Tribe’s plans are for the money.

But a couple decades ago, it was an attempt by the Tribe to build senior citizens’ affordable housing that spurred Charlestown to file a lawsuit that eventually morphed into the Carcieri V. Salazar Supreme Court decision, issued on February 24, 2009.

In that decision, written by the Court’s most conservative members at the time – Justices Thomas and Scalia – ruled against the Narragansett. 

That decision used the widely criticized reasoning that Congress was unclear when it passed the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act whether that law would apply to tribes recognized as such by the federal government AFTER 1934, notwithstanding the Constitution’s equal protection under law principle. That decision harmed more than 500 tribes across the US.

So when I read about this new affordable housing grant, I couldn’t help but think, “Here we go again” since Charlestown’s ruling party, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance, has the same attitude about the Narragansetts as did those Charlestown plaintiffs who launched the Carcieri case.

That attitude is that the tribe cannot be allowed to exercise its sovereignty by making any land use decisions without the expressed approval of the town. 

Now we know more about why the Camp Davis deal went sour

Tribe rejected deal conditioned on yielding sovereignty

By Will Collette

For a time, it looked like the Narragansett Indian Tribe’s lands in Charlestown would be greatly enlarged and existing gaps in the 1978 borders of Narragansett tribal lands would be filled in.

The state of Rhode Island had offered the Tribe three parcels of land, two of them in Charlestown, as compensation because the Route 95 Providence Viaduct project in downtown Providence had improperly disturbed the site of an ancient Indian village.

Under the agreement, the state would turn over the 105-acre abandoned Camp Davis property (off Route 2) and the smaller nearby Chief Sachem Nighthawk property, as well as an important Salt Pond Archaeological Preserve in Narragansett to the Tribe.

But recent news reveals that this land transfer has come completely off the rails. The Narragansett tribe has filed suit in US District Court against the Federal Highway Administration seeking to block further construction on the I-95 project because RIDOT violated the land transfer agreement.

The Providence Journal reports the Tribe cites actions by RIDOT that began about eight months into the negotiating process when DOT demanded the Tribe waive its sovereignty rights over the use of the property.

Because the Tribe refused the state demand, RIDOT filed notice on February 15 that it intended to cancel the land transfer offer. On March 20, RIDOT filed THIS REPORT explaining why it decided to pull the plug on negotiations.

Charlestown taxpayers pay more to fight the Narragansett Indian Tribe

New bills from town’s Indian fighter shows cost spike

By Will Collette

"Circle the wagonss!!!!"

For years, even before there was a Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party), Charlestown’s landed gentry have dragged the town into seemingly endless conflict with the Narragansett Indian Tribe. 

They’ve never gotten over the Tribe’s 1975 effort to gain back the land that was stolen from the Tribe by some of the old-name families in Charlestown and the settlement agreement that gave the Tribe the core of the lands they own in Charlestown.

Since the settlement, town leaders have taken every action they can to prevent the Tribe from doing anything that might bring some measure of prosperity to tribal members. Though their total war against the Tribe is cloaked as opposition to a casino in Charlestown, the town actually worked to block the Tribe from getting a casino elsewhere which would have been in their self-interest, as well as Charlestown’s. But if the Tribe had built the casino they proposed in West Warwick or bought Twin River in Lincoln, they would have gained economic power that some here in Charlestown find intolerable.

The RI Shoreline Coalition (now called RI Taxpayers) and the nascent CCA Party have turned their animus toward the Tribe into a science as well as an obsession.

This is how the town initially "complied" with my open
records act request for copies of Larisa's bills

And we, as taxpayers, get to pay for it. The town retains a special counsel for such matters, “Injun Joe” Larisa, who receives a base retainer of $24,000 a year plus expenses, plus additional charges if he has to do more than just read articles on-line.

I had to fight the Town and Larisa just to get the town to reveal Larisa’s bills. At first, the Town sought to meet its obligations under the state’s open records act by sending me bills with everything blacked out (see sample, right). But on appeal, the town (and Larisa) realized that while they may think they are simply protecting state secrets, the Attorney General was going to give them a spanking.

It used to be that Larisa turned in his bills every two months like clock-work, but that changed when I would actually publicize what was in those bills. The interval changed and just now, the Town has turned over six months’ worth of Larisa bills that cover July through December 2014. Click here to see those bills.

Charlestown Short Takes

• DiLibero looking for work
• Sale pending for General Stanton Inn
• RI Monthly features Chief Sachem Thomas
• Larisa still tracking the Tribe
• Edward Tall Oak speaks at Yale conference on enslavement of Indians
• Buzzfeed on Rhode Island
• Charlestown’s ranking in Executive Compensation
• South County Hospital’s rating for quality
• Why do Adrian and Gillian Bayford want to give you a million dollars?

By Will Collette

DiLibero competes for Cohasset gig while Areglado campaigns for Czar of Civility

Areglado, Pontiff of Politeness

Former Charlestown Town Administrator Bill DiLibero, target of the CCA Party’s “Kill Bill” campaign, is a finalist in the competition to become Cohasset, Massachusetts’ next town manager. Among the other competitors are Grady Miller who was ousted as Narragansett town manager around the same time the CCA Party purged Bill, and Steve Hartford, who recently departed as Westerly town manager under a cloud.

The “Kill Bill” campaign ironically featured personal attacks by current Chariho School Committee member from Charlestown Ron Areglado. Areglado has been getting some press lately for his “civility” campaign at Chariho which would ban Chariho School committee members from engaging in the types of conduct that he, his wife Maureen and CCA Party colleagues flamboyantly practiced, and not just during the “Kill Bill” campaign. 

Just go back to the video of the first Whalerock wind turbine Zoning Board hearing to watch and listen to Ron Areglado personally attack ZBR member William Meyers. Click here for the video which, unfortunately, is not indexed. However, Areglado is the first person to speak from the podium.

RI Department of Transportation ready to turn over more than $8 million in properties to Narragansett Indian Tribe

Awaiting Tribal action

The existing Viaduct is falling apart and has been for years

By Will Collette

I have acquired the final list of properties bought by the Rhode Island Department of Transportation to meet the terms of the “Programmatic Agreement” for its construction of the Providence Viaduct Bridge Replacement Project. 

The Viaduct project will deal with one of the city’s worst and most dangerous stretches of road. The list includes four properties, two in Narragansett and two in Charlestown with a combined value of $8,253,290.

One of the four properties is the former Camp Davis off South County Trail. The 105 acre campground was purchased by DOT last May from the Providence Boys and Girls Club for $1,650,000.

These lands will be deeded to the Tribe’s Historic Preservation Office, headed by John Brown, on behalf of and for the benefit of the Narragansett Indian Tribe.

Camp Davis Land transfer still stalled

Charlestown continues to plot strategy on state plan to grant land to the Narragansetts

By Will Collette

There has been lots of behind-the-scenes activity on the quietest big issues brewing in Charlestown. 

With no fanfare, the state Department of Transportation bought the 105-acre Camp Davis property from the Providence Boys and Girls Club for $1,650,000 with the intention of giving the land to the Narragansett Indian Tribe. 

The land transfer is compensation to the Tribe for the state’s disturbance and paving over of archaeological remains during the Providence I-95 viaduct project.

The town mobilized its on-call Indian fighter, former East Providence mayor Joe Larisa, who has spent the largest portion of his time over the past several months working on a way for the town to stymie this transfer.

Although the land would be under the jurisdiction of the Tribe’s historic and cultural office, not its housing and development office, the town has routinely treated any action by the Tribe as a hostile act.  

What it costs Charlestown taxpayers to wage endless war against the Narragansetts

And for what purpose?

Camp Davis: the next battleground in the CCA Party's
war on the Narragansetts?

By Will Collette

The Narragansett Indian Tribe has had a hard time with the white settlers since the Great Swamp Massacre in 1675 when Massachusetts and Connecticut militias nearly exterminated the tribe. 

The tribe’s lands were taken and divided up among the white settlers and many of the surviving tribe members were sold into slavery. 

The tribe kept its traditions and identity alive against all odds and, in the 1970s, they fought to win back at least a little of what they lost, by winning federal recognition that they exist and by bringing suit to reclaim nearly the entire land mass of Charlestown. 

That lawsuit resulted in the RI Indian Lands Settlement Act and Joint Memorandum of Understanding that gave the tribe the bulk of its present tribal lands in Charlestown on the pledge they would accept restrictions on that land, among them being no gaming establishments without the town’s approval.

In recent years, Charlestown taxpayers have paid more than $300,000 to the ethically-challenged, controversial ex-East Providence mayor Joe Larisa to serve as “Town Solicitor for Indian Affairs” to fight the Narragansett Indian Tribe on anything the Tribe wants to do. 

He pursues that task with zeal, earning him the label of “racist” by tribal elders and leaders.

RIDOT buys Camp Davis for $1,650,000

Land transfer to the Narragansett Indian Tribe still pending….Charlestown’s next move a closely held secret

By Will Collette

Screen shot from the Westerly Sun real estate section

As you learned in Progressive Charlestown first, the state Department of Transportation is in the process of carrying out a “land swap” with the Narragansett Indian Tribe. 

This transaction is  compensation for the state’s disturbance of an important Narragansett archaeological site – an ancient village near the head of Narragansett Bay – due to the I-195 relocation and building of the Providence Viaduct.

RIDOT plans to transfer the 105 acre campground formerly owned by the Providence Boys and Girls Club to the Tribe once terms for the future uses of the land are negotiated and approved.

RIDOT completed the purchase of the land from the Boys and Girls Club for $1,650,000. 

Charlestown appraised the land at $1,692,800, so RIDOT saved $42,800. Charlestown will lose no tax revenue since the non-profit Boys and Girls Club paid no tax; neither will RIDOT nor the Narragansett Indian Tribe.

However, Charlestown does seem poised to spend some tax money on lawyers, because nothing makes the Charlestown Citizens Alliance Party which controls Charlestown government, more crazy than something good happening to the Tribe. 

Town mum on Camp Davis land transfer to Narragansett Tribe

No comment on Friday meeting with RI Transportation Department

Camp Davis (orange wedge) currently bisects
Narragansett tribal lands (purple). Town owned lands are in yellow

By Will Collette

Last week, I reported that the state Department of Transportation was acquiring the old Camp Davis property off South County Trail from the Providence Boys and Girls Club. 

RIDOT intends to transfer ownership of that 105 acre parcel to the Narragansett Indian Tribe in a land swap/compensation deal that offsets RIDOT’s disturbance of an ancient, buried Narragansett village by the I-195 relocation project in Providence.

According to Rep. Donna Walsh, RIDOT would attach use restrictions to the land, but those restrictions had not been negotiated.

The Town of Charlestown had its first opportunity to officially hear about the plan at a meeting on Friday, May 24. The town delegation included Charlestown’s Special Counsel “Injun Joe” Larisa who is on a monthly retainer of $2,050 just to sit and wait for the opportunity to oppose anything that might be of benefit to the Narragansett Indian Tribe. Charlestown has paid Larisa more than $300,000 since 2007 to fight the Tribe.

He bills the town extra – at $130 an hour – when he actually has to do anything.

Narragansett tribal leaders have called Larisa, and the Charlestown Citizens Alliance Party who are Larisa’s chief sponsor, racist for their actions against the tribe.

SCOOP: Narragansett Tribal lands about to expand by 105 acres

RI Transportation Department in negotiations to hand over Camp Davis to the Tribe

By Will Collette

Fasten your seat-belts  Charlestown, we’re about to go on yet another bumpy ride. I have confirmed that the RI Department of Transportation has acquired Camp Davis from the Providence Boys and Girls Club and is in the process of transferring the 104.9 acre site to the Narragansett Indian Tribe.

RIDOT’s acquisition is not yet reflected in Charlestown’s tax assessor database.

View Narragansett Tribal Lands and Camp Davis in a larger map. Land marked in purple are existing Tribal lands. Yellow means town ownership. Camp Davis is marked in orange. NOTE: These representations are approximate renderings simply to give you an idea what lands are in play in this transaction. See also the larger scale map at the bottom of this article to see the land in broader context.