The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) has struggled for years to meet its six-person quorum requirement — including waiting an hour for enough council members to show up before finally canceling its most recent meeting on Aug. 26.
Ironically, the canceled meeting’s agenda included first steps in reducing the number of council members needed to constitute a quorum to four people, based on a new state law. The CRMC is scheduled to try again on Tuesday to begin the rulemaking process that cuts its quorum minimum and also the total number of council members from 10 to seven under a new state law.
Legislation approved by the Rhode Island General Assembly on its final day of the 2025 session and signed into law by Gov. Dan McKee on June 30 mandates the restructuring and new professional qualifications for council members by March 1, 2026. The reduction in quorum from six to four people follows that timeline.
Three of the 10 council seats are unfilled, meaning that if more than one member does not attend a meeting, the council does not have a quorum.
Acknowledging the challenges the CRMC has faced challenges finding members already, the new state law also gives some flexibility, letting existing council members continue to serve beyond the March 1 deadline if the new panel has not been appointed.
Coastal watchdogs are keeping a close eye on the transition, worried that, if executed improperly, it could expose the agency to even more lawsuits.
“The concern is if they were to start conducting business meetings with only four members present, any party subject to a decision that didn’t go their way would have a very easy case to make in court that the CRMC was operating outside of what they are allowed to do statutorily,” Michael Woods, chair of the New England chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, said in an interview on Monday. “They already get sued enough of the time.”
Laura Dwyer, a spokesperson for the CRMC, declined to comment.
Woods also submitted a letter to the CRMC on Sept. 5 outlining his concerns.
The controversial coastal regulatory panel has been plagued by lawsuits challenging its decisions, with aggrieved parties winning court-ordered do-overs because the council did not follow its own rules.
Devil in the details
If the agency tries to proceed with meetings with four members present before all seven are confirmed, the CRMC would be breaking its own rules, making them an easy target for legal challenges, advocates say.
Also of concern to Jed Thorp, advocacy director for Save the Bay, is the appointment of new members. While the law says all seven new members must be seated for the quorum change to take effect, Thorp fears that if at least four new members are confirmed, the council might forge ahead with meetings anyway — again, violating their statutory mandates.
In fairness, no one at the CRMC has stated that this is their plan or intent, Thorp acknowledged.
“I’m not assuming ill intent on the part of the council,” Thorp said. “We just want to be clear and make sure everybody’s on the same page about when this takes effect.”
He continued, “Because we have this track record and history of seats not being appointed as they should be, I don’t have a high level of confidence that the letter of the statute will be followed without prompting.”
McKee’s office, which is in charge of nominating council members to be confirmed by the Rhode Island Senate, did not immediately respond to inquiries for comment on Monday.
Greg Pare, a spokesperson for Senate President Valarie Lawson, and Larry Berman, a spokesperson for House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi, responded jointly in an email Monday.
“Agency rulemaking is a core executive function,” they said. “We leave it to CRMC to follow the detailed statutory process within the Administrative Procedures Act to develop rules in light of the statutory changes that were passed by both the House and Senate and signed by the Governor in June 2025.”
The coastal regulatory agency has faced mounting public scrutiny, including over its failure to bring sanctions against Quidnessett Country Club for a seawall built without permission along the property line. State regulators issued warnings to the North Kingstown country club more than two years ago, but the 600-foot-long rock wall remains, and fines or other penalties have yet to be imposed. Instead, the council has given multiple deadline extensions to the country club to come up with a plan for removing the wall and restoring the shoreline to its natural state.
Thorp and Woods both urged lawmakers to take more sweeping reform measures, backing legislation that, if passed, would have abolished the politically appointed council and reshaped the agency as an administrative body, akin to the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. The pair of bills failed to advance out of legislative committees for a third consecutive year amid cost concerns cited by legislative leaders.
Lawmakers opted on more modest changes to council membership and reduced the quorum as a compromise that supporters said would bring more professionalism. The law requires the CRMC to begin the rule change process within 30 days, but does not set a deadline for when the new rules have to be finalized.
Dwyer did not respond to questions regarding the schedule. The Tuesday hearing offers a chance for in-person public comment on the revised rules, with written comments accepted through Sept. 30.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
