09/05/09 - Champlin’s Marina filed its final briefs this week in the state Supreme Court, in preparation for oral arguments scheduled for September 29.

The marina argues that the Supreme Court should affirm Superior Court Judge Netti Vogel’s ruling granting an expansion along the lines of a Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) subcommittee recommendation.

The recommendation allows a 3-acre expansion 195 feet farther out in the Great Salt Pond; the marina had originally asked for 4 acres, 240 feet out in the pond.

To send the matter back to the CRMC for another vote, which the objectors argue Vogel should have done, “would likely extend Champlin’s administrative agony over the next several years,” the marina’s lawyers write.

The expansion matter has been dragging on for nearly seven years. The council subcommittee spent two years and 23 hearings on the application.

The full CRMC denied the expansion via a tie vote in February 2006. The marina appealed, and in February of this year Vogel reversed the denial and allowed the expansion.

Vogel retroactively disqualified the votes of CRMC Chair Michael Tikoian, Vice Chair Paul Lemont and former council member Jerry Zarrella for alleged bias and ex parte communication (discussion outside the official record). By doing so the judge changed the final vote on the expansion to 4-3 in favor of the subcommittee recommendation.

The objectors, including the town of New Shoreham, the Committee for the Great Salt Pond, the Block Island Land Trust, the Block Island Conservancy and the Conservation Law Foundation — joined by the CRMC — all appealed to the state Supreme Court to reverse the Superior Court action.

Marina’s position

Champlin’s argues that only the town and the CRMC have standing on the issue, and that other parties do not.

CLF and other intervenors, the marina contends, “have no other interest in this case but to drag the Champlin’s matter out for as long as they possibly can, prevailing, not on the merits, but by attrition.”

The marina points out that since Zarrella, Jerry Sahagian, Tom Ricci and Joe Shekarchi all left the council, only one member remains who actually voted in favor of the expansion, Raymond Coia.

“Champlin’s opponents now seek a remand, attempting to drag Champlin’s back for another round of hearings…. Any such remand — as the [objectors] well know — would be to a council which has lost all but one of the members who supported the recommendation before.”

The marina also argues that Vogel’s support of the subcommittee’s recommendation was “supported by reliable… substantial evidence of the record,” and that there was “sufficient evidentiary basis” to disqualify the votes of both Tikoian and Lemont.

“Neither bothered to show any impartiality in this matter,” the marina’s lawyers argue. They point to Tikoian’s “numerous interjections with the subcommittee members to swing them around to [100] feet of expansion,” presenting a plan to the governor that hadn’t been submitted in evidence and “misrepresenting” it as a compromise. Lemont, the marina says, made clear in testimony his support for a smaller 100-foot plan favored by the town. The marina also points to his efforts to introduce an alternative plan put together by CRMC engineer Dan Goulet.

The marina also questions why the CRMC itself appears to reversing its stance on Zarrella. Champlin’s points out that the CRMC and the town “were only too happy to have [Zarrella’s] vote vacated. But it is incredible for the CRMC at this time to include… in its recitation of errors by Justice Vogel” the disqualification of Zarrella.

It asks why the council appears to give more credence to some of its members and not to others.

“The [CRMC] has yet to provide any reason why the votes of the five members of the council in favor of the recommendation have been so completely devalued in favor of those who voted against it. If anything belies the supposed presumption of integrity supposedly enjoyed by the agency, it is this total disrespect shown to the votes of the five council members supporting the recommendation, as well as the total lack of weight shown to the [Department of Environmental Management Water Quality Certificate] even by its director.”

DEM Director Michael Sullivan is a voting member of the CRMC; he voted against the expansion.

The marina says the certificate issued to it from the DEM allowed for a total of no more than 300 boats, or 75 more than they currently can hold.

Finally, the marina argues that Vogel “did not abuse her discretion” in declining to remand the matter back to the CRMC for another vote.