Coventry town council continues contentious meetings about Johnson’s Pond, town charter

COVENTRY, R.I. (WLNE) — One contentious Coventry town meeting earlier in March led to another.

Coventry Town Council members, going head to head about who, and what, documents have the final say in when it comes to governing the town, and the pond within its borders.

“People like to hang their hat on the charter when it suits them. But your charter is not the end all, be all,” said Coventry Town Councilor Stephen Angell.

ABC6 first reported the exchange earlier in March between Town Solicitor Stephen Angell and the board during which Angell said “I’ve never been disciplined, and I don’t intend to be.”

This was in regard to requests for detailed information on the financial transactions pertaining to Johnson’s Pond since Angell became the town solicitor.

But District 3 council member James LeBlanc countered that after a meeting with a former charter review commission chair where he found “Some of those items where the supreme court rulings and or state law have made some of our charter language null and void, we can update that, so we actually can hang our hats  on the charter.”

LeBlanc then proposed an amendment to the councilors’ contracts updating clauses pertaining to the forfeiture of office.

“I’m going to emphasize it says that a council member shall forfeit office if the member, and then number two, violates any express provision of this charter,” said LeBlanc.

District 5 councilman Scott Copley referenced the charter when questioning the town council president’s refusal to disclose unredacted financial documents about Johnson’s Pond to the rest of the council and directly asked: “President (Hillary) Lima, did you know that you were violating the town council charter by doing that?”

It was a question that went unanswered, but it wasn’t unpredicted.

President Lima confronted councilman Copley in their March 11th meeting, saying in part quote: “There’s clearly a larger issue because, yes it’s no secret there were efforts to whip votes to get rid of Stephen here before tonight, and I heard there were efforts to whip up votes to get rid of me as well, so, there’s a larger issue here, and we need to get it all out on the table.”