To the Editor,

The Rhode Island Supreme Court found that RIAC, the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, took $4.1 million from The Parking Company when RIAC occupied Garage B at T. F. Green Airport from August 2, 2004, through March 11, 2006.

The Warwick Beacon reported on October 26, 2006, that the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that the taking was unconstitutional.

The April 2010 Yale Law Review chronicles that the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation (then called the EDC) seized The Parking Company’s Garage B during the hard times after 9-11.  Passenger counts at T.F. Green were off 25% and RIAC needed the cash cow parking garage that was leased to Mr. Skeffington and his partners – a private venture.

As noted by the Law Review’s Editor, Zackary Hudson, they locked Mr. Skeffington’s employees out of the garage without notice.  EDC had secretly gone to Superior Court to seize the property under a quick take provision of the EDC Enabling Act. When Mr. Skeffington’s employees showed up the next day, RIAC people were sitting in the booth collecting the money.

Mr. Hudson pointed out in the Yale Law Review that this was:

“An example of the most egregious form of process abuse perpetrated in the name of the eminent domain power.”

RIAC, through the action of its parent, EDC, chaired by Governor Carcieri, was quietly seizing millions from The Parking Company.

Mr. Hudson is not a wacko liberal. Having graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, he earned his Gold Dolphins, the Submarine Warfare Insignia, serving aboard the Rhode Island/Connecticut-built fast attack sub, USS Santa Fe. The Dolphins motto: “Life is simple - either you’re qualified or you’re not!”

Then Mr. Hudson decided to pursue Law. After Yale Law School, he clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts and then Brett Kavanaugh in the D.C. Circuit Court. His writings drip with conservative credibility.

He reported that the Rhode Island Supreme Court noted:

“‘(The) travel of this case discloses that RIAC and (its parent) EDC’s conduct was motivated by economic advantage in contravention of the EDC statute and well-settled precedent on the issue of public use.’”

During the condemnation hearing review, the hearing justice asked EDC’s counsel:

“What happens the next day once you have the [the garage]?”

Counsel responded:

“‘[We will ask the Parking Company] to vacate [the premises]’ … (if negotiations fail.) ‘According to the statute it becomes EDC’s right to occupy that garage and run it. That’s what would happen.’”

Dear reader: this statement stopped me in my tracks. I can’t get it out of my mind. 

Remember, the EDC, now called the Commerce Corporation, is chaired by the Governor. The then-Governor Carcieri chose to quietly seize millions from The Parking Company.  He also brought us the 38 Studios disaster. And he overrode the Statewide Planning Council and poured $30 million into the Interlink at the last minute to make that albatross fly. It is now awash in debt and RIAC envisions another $70 million in private debt to build a cargo facility for seven planes per day. That is $10 million per plane. It is not financially sustainable.

The environmental assessment for the proposed South Side Air Cargo Terminal will be upon us in two weeks. Here RIAC will reveal its already published plan to abandon city streets south of the proposed terminal to build a noise berm that might reduce the new noise for a few homes by five percent or so. The berm will do nothing about planes taking off or landing. And it may trap bad air on the wrong side where the people live.

The City needs to follow Mr. Hudson’s well-articulated simple advice and say “No” to the Governor and RIAC.

The Commerce Corporation does not have the power to condemn these streets. A RIAC/Commerce seizure by the Governor would be unconstitutional as shown in the previous Supreme Court decision. They need to go before the City Council and the people of Warwick to seek out an abandonment.

The City Council must make a fundamental decision: Should these streets remain public to let people enjoy what has become a park of sorts, a natural buffer zone between the runways and the homes of Warwick citizens that RIAC chose not to buy out in the 2000s?

Or should the City Council choose to abandon those streets – after a public hearing -- and abandon neighbors all over the City who rely on the City Council to keep things fair and sane?  Must we consent to aggressive development by RIAC and the Governor to create a few warehouse jobs, leveraging RIAC’s extraordinary debt by a third, and subjecting us all to more noise, watershed problems, and bad air from the airport?

My Councilperson has told me “No!”  Hopefully, others will listen to reason too.

Richard Langseth

Warwick