Catherine Robinson Hall, far right, pictured during a Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council meeting on June 13, 2023. Robinson Hall resigned from her position earlier this month. (Nancy Lavin/Rhode Island Current)
Rhode Island’s embattled coastal regulatory agency has lost another appointed council member, leaving three open seats on a panel that has struggled with attendance woes and vacancies for years.
Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council Chairman Ray Coia announced at the agency’s May 28 meeting that council member Catherine Robinson Hall was no longer serving on the council, having submitted her resignation letter to the governor’s office earlier this month.
Robinson Hall, a former Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) staff attorney who now works as a coastal policy professor at Williams College, was appointed by Gov. Dan McKee in June 2022 to fill an empty seat on the 10-member council. Her term expired in January, though she has continued to attend and vote in council decisions while being considered for reappointment, a common practice among appointed boards and commissions.
Her departure comes amid mounting cries to reform, or even abolish, the politically appointed volunteer council. The turning point for many critics came in 2020, when the council granted a Block Island Marina expansion in an alleged backroom deal, though the move was later overturned by the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
Concerns have multiplied in the intervening years. Council approvals on offshore wind projects prompted an advisory fishing panel to resign en masse in September. Earlier this spring, the council began review of a petition from a North Kingstown country club seeking after-the-fact permission to put up a seawall along Narragansett Bay. Critics countered that the council should have rejected the application altogether, since the Quidnessett Country Club owners violated state and federal regulations by building the wall without asking for requisite approvals first.
In her May 22 letter obtained by Rhode Island Current, Robinson Hall said she was not interested in being reappointed, instead giving notice of her resignation effective immediately. She cited work and time with family as reasons for her decision.
Someone defaced a sign at the 40 Steps at the Newport Cliff Walk with a sticker to register their unhappiness with the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council. (Janine L. Weisman/Rhode Island Current)
‘A big loss’
Robinson Hall was hailed by coastal advocates like Save the Bay as the “ideal candidate” at the time of her June 2022 appointment. A graduate of Vermont Law School, she worked for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management for 10 years, rising to the level of deputy chief legal counsel. She has since served as a professor in the marine studies program at Williams College-Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies since 2002, while running a small private practice in her native North Smithfield.
During her two years on the council, she was vocal about the need to abide by state coastal regulations and rules, and at times broke with her fellow council members in decisions on oyster farms and public shoreline access.
“She was someone who followed the rules and the procedures very closely,” Topher Hamblett, executive director for Save the Bay, said in an interview. “That’s a big loss. It hurts the council’s reputation and credibility.”
Yet Robinson Hall in an interview on Wednesday said her decision not to seek reappointment had nothing to do with the political nature of the council, or disagreements with fellow members.
“I think everybody on there has an obligation to know the facts, study the material and apply the facts to the law and regulation,” she said. “That’s what I committed to do when I was appointed. I think I fulfilled that to the exact degree.”
She and Hamblett each fretted over what her departure will mean for the council’s ability to meet its six-person quorum requirement. The panel has gone without a full roster of 10 for at least as long as Gov. Dan McKee has headed the state, likely longer, Hamblett said.
Long running council vacancies have forced the panel to cancel meetings and delay critical decisions as recently as last year due to inability to get at least six members to attend a meeting.
“Here we go again,” Hamblett said, referring to the risk of open seats forcing the council to cancel meetings due to quorum requirements.
Governor ‘in the process’ of seeking candidates
Robinson Hall called the pattern of council vacancies “ridiculous,” noting her long standing desire to serve on the panel.
“I don’t know what the problem is,” she said. “There must be others like me with a desire to serve.”
She continued, “It’s an honor to be able to work in any form of public service, especially relative to the coast, which is the most under siege natural resource in the world and particularly in our state.”
Olivia DaRocha, a spokesperson for McKee’s office, said in an email Wednesday that the governor is “in the process of identifying qualified candidates” for the open council seats. She did not specify how many or when potential appointees would be named.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are considering abolishing the appointed council altogether, restructuring the regulatory body as an administrative agency similar to the DEM.
Companion bills sponsored by Sen. Victoria Gu, a Westerly Democrat, and Rep. Terri Cortvriend, a Portsmouth Democrat, remain under review by committees in their respective chambers following public hearings in March and April. However, advocates, including Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, have rallied their supporters to pressure lawmakers to take action on the bills, organizing a press conference at Save the Bay’s Providence headquarters on May 22.
The potential for renewed quorum issues amid Robinson Hall’s resignation only adds to the case for reform, Hamblett said.
However, even if lawmakers approve the CRMC overhaul, Hamblett maintained the need to fill open council seats. Getting rid of the appointed council requires not only state approval, but also signoff from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which could take several months at minimum.
Robinson Hall declined to comment on the pending state legislation, explaining that she has purposefully tried to avoid the political debate over the regulatory agency. However, she reiterated comments made in her resignation letter over the expertise of the agency’s staff.
“They’re exceptional at what they do, so it feels exceedingly odd when they don’t have the opportunity to make decisions,” she said.
Coia and Jeff Willis, CRMC executive director, both declined to comment on the state legislation proposing to get rid of the appointed council.
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The post Amid calls to reform politically appointed CRMC, another member resigns appeared first on Rhode Island Current.