Town Delays Action on Proposed Town Manager Probe

The fate of any sort of investigation into Narragansett Town Manager Grady Miller’s actions will have to wait at least two weeks, as the town council voted on Monday night to continue the matter to its April 2 meeting.

At issue is whether Miller acted inappropriately in shifting $3,000 for the Narrow River Preservation Association from the special appropriations budget to the wastewater budget for the 2011-12 budget.

Council president Glenna Hagopian put the matter on the agenda for Monday’s meeting, asking the town solicitor for a review of the budget shift. She also made the most critical remarks of Miller at the meeting, and in several memos she authored before the meeting.

“I found this troubling and confusing,” she said. “The expenditure was over $2,500 and did not come before the council.”

Hagopian noted that the contribution also clashed with the council’s instructions for the 2011-12 budget, namely, that all fees to non-human service non-profits be severely curtailed.

However, Miller fired back at the accusations, reading from a two-page prepared statement.

He noted that Hagopian first asked him about the issue on Feb. 15, also inquiring about the reimbursement of travel expenses for three candidates for the open Parks and Recreations director job.

When asked for evidence by Hagopian on Feb. 27, Miller said he provided her and the rest of the council with the relevant information that same night, shortly before a Town Council meeting.

The documents Miller provided to the council on Feb. 27 were given to reporters after the meeting. (SEE ATTACHED PDF.)

However, the documents were unavailable to the public, Hagopian explaining that she did not want to violate Miller’s privacy rights. At the request of councilor Christopher Wilkens, Miller said he had no problem with the memos and other information being posted on the town website.

Without the information available to the public, the council voted 5-0 to delay any decision on the matter until a meeting in two weeks.

Deb Kelso, the director of the Narragansett Chamber of Commerce, drew light applause from the crowd following her remarks about the unavailable information.

“We only know one side of the issue, and that’s your side,” she said, addressing her remarks to Hagopian. “I’m going to ask that you put this decision off until the next council meeting and give us a chance to read Mr. Miller’s response.”

“It seems to me that the general public is in the dark about what is going on, resident Al Alba said earlier.

The documents consist of budget worksheets, and memos to and from Miller, the council, town engineer Jeffrey Ceasrine and town Finance Director Donald Goodrich. In the budget sheets, under the professional services category, $3,000 of the $25,000 is earmarked for “NRPA water testing funding.”

The council approved the 2011-12 budget on June 6, 2011 by a 5-0 vote.

Miller said after Feb. 27, he did not hear back from Hagopian or anyone else on council about the matter until it appeared on the agenda for Monday night. The matter was put on the agenda on Tuesday, March 13.

Miller also noted that contrary to Hagopian’s claim that the town already tested water, this only applied to drinking water. He said NRPA was the only group doing consistent testing of Narrow River.

In memos to Goodrich, who questioned the appropriateness of using water fees to pay for the $3,000, Miller wrote that he considered it a valid use of the funds. Miller cited the need to determine whether septic systems in the nearby area were contributing to contamination of the river.

Miller said that during the budgeting process, Ceasrine agreed with him that a proper place to pay for the testing would be from the wastewater budget. Miller noted that both South Kingstown and North Kingstown contribute to NRPA, with North Kingstown also paying from its water budget.

Following the meeting, he said it also fit in with the town’s general budgeting practices, as in recent years the town had attempted to more accurately shift donations and contributions to the appropriate municipal department budgets.

“I thought this was a dead dog to tell you the truth,” Wilkens said.

Wilkens criticized Hagopian for bringing the matter to an agenda and not discussing it with Miller in an executive session, and for also not including Miller’s memos defending himself in the packet for Monday’s council meeting.

He noted that the allegations of the impropriety were now out on the Internet, and would follow Miller to any other job.

“If you want to fire the guy, fire the guy,” he said. “I would have preferred that this be taken to executive session, discussed there and taken back.”

Hagopian countered that she did not want a repeat of the last session when the council discussed Miller’s job performance. (For background, read our prior article .)

Residents speaking about the request to have the solicitor review the incident went in wildly different directions with their comments.

Tony Columbo, the president of the Mettatuxet Improvement Association, told Hagopian she had “courage to bring this forward” and questioned why a volunteer organization needed the money. “Why do they need $3,000 for testing Narrow River?” he said. “I’m very upset.”

Several members of NRPA objected to Columbo’s statements, noting that the money went toward the actual environmental tests performed on the water.

Columbo said that his own organization had never received money from the council, nor had they asked.

“We don’t go looking for money, but if it’s there, you’re damn right I want some of it,” he said. “I’m a little upset that our organization was slighted in this process, and we do more for anyone else in this town.”

Dennis Lynch, a Narragansett resident, said he was hopeful the council wouldn’t get bogged down in a discussion of “technicality after technicality.”

“Right now, it sounds like we’re going to have a lot of time and energy and newspaper articles about the ‘appropriateness’” of the funding, he said.

He then defended Miller.

“I think he’s the top guy in managing a $50 million budget for the town of Narragansett … You need to find a way over and above what was the right technical label for the category.”

Meg Rogers, the chairwoman of the Narragansett Republican Town Committee, chastised the council for its actions.

“We don’t have sufficient information to gauge this, but you’ve put the taxpayers and Mr. Miller in an untenable position,” she said. “Now that you’ve levied the charge, there isn’t a way for us to accurately defend Mr. Miller.”

She added, “This is really making a mountain out of a molehill. This seems to be a minor bookkeeping error. It seems so miniscule that it literally blows my mind … What is our legal exposure going to be if Mr. Miller is fired?”