In the fire brigade district, the right to vote depends in part on property ownership.
NARRAGANSETT – In June 2019, a resident of the district was denied voting rights at the annual meeting of the Bonnet Shores Fire District (BSFD), which hosts the local elections. The reason? Her name was not on the title deed of the house where she lives with her husband.
“I was denied a vote by [then-BSFD Clerk] Matthew Mannix, ”said Melissa Jenkins, who is currently part of a lawsuit suing the county over its electoral laws. “My name is not on our land deed, although my husband and I jointly own the house and pay taxes together.
“That seemed wrong to me,” Jenkings continued. “Many neighbors shared this experience – some have fiduciary properties, others are adult children or spouses of the notarized owner, others are long-term renters, all of whom have been denied voting.”
At the time, Mannix was on the ballot for re-election to the BSFD clerk’s post. He recently resigned from office.
“To vote in the Bonnet Shores Fire District, which is a domestic not for profit and not a public entity, a person must own real estate within the boundaries of the Fire District,” Mannix said when asked for comment. Melissa Jenkins doesn’t own any property in the Fire District, and when she tried to illegally get a ballot at the Fire District’s 2019 annual meeting, I told her she couldn’t get one because she wasn’t on the voting list. This rule has been in place for decades. I didn’t create the rule. As the secretary to this annual meeting, it was my job to enforce this rule. “
“Apparently Melissa Jenkins doesn’t think this rule applies to her,” Mannix continued. “As for the role of the secretary in briefing voters in the assembly, she completely misunderstands that role. It is the secretary’s job to screen voters who are voting by proxy at the annual meeting [BSFD] Statute.”
The former BSFD official said the rule “may change in the future” but was followed in the 2019 election.
The electoral law comes from the fire district’s nearly a century-old statute, which contains the following wording and requires a minimum of ownership within the district in order to be able to vote:
“Every company, corporation, unincorporated association and every person, regardless of gender, under the age of eighteen who own property in this district worth [$400] Beyond all encumbrances that are a discount with a simple fee, a discount for the life of a person or an estate or an estate whose transfer, if documentary, must be recorded for at least 90 days, have a right to vote at all meetings of the company thereafter. ”
Under this condition of the district bylaws, those who rent in the neighborhood, own property in a trust, are adult children of parents whose names still appear on the title deed, and spouses may not be able to vote in local elections .
A semi-autonomous neighborhood, BSFD, which was chartered and approved by the RI General Assembly (RIGA) in 1932, includes, according to its charter, all land between the east line of Boston Neck Road and Narragansett Bay from the current Bonnet Liquors to the Nardolillo Funeral Home. BSFD is part of Narragansett but road ownership is controversial in this area as its charter refers at various times to “existing private roads” and later to “public highways” in connection with canal maintenance. The BSFD has the ability to choose its own council, clerk, tax auditor and collector, as well as fire and police personnel.
The district can also draw up its own regulations and budgets. Fire District residents pay taxes to both the BSFD and the City of Narragansett, and the Fire District has received grants from the state as a quasi-parish.
BSFD is also home to Bonnet Shores Beach Club at 175 Bonnet Point Road. This is where non-residents can purchase beach cabanas, some of which are very small, which some have referred to as “closets” or “bathrooms,” and according to the BSFD -Charter legally to vote in BSFD elections while full-time residents of the district, such as Jenkins, are turned down. The district’s statutes do not specify whether the ownership requirement for voting concerns residential properties, i.e. commercial properties such as condominiums are valid property under the district’s voting rights.
“However, the BSFD elections allow many non-residents to vote, including owners of non-residential BSFD properties,” said a lawsuit filed by a group of BSFD residents challenging the district’s electoral laws as unconstitutional. “That number of non-residents number in the thousands, including over 4,000 beach club bathhouse or cabana owners at neighboring Bonnet Shores Beach Club.”
The BSFD complaint was filed last March by Jenkins and other BSFD residents, who first appealed to the Rhode Island State Department office. On August 22, 2019, Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea sent a letter to the chairman of the BSFD, Michael Vendetti, noting that the current distribution of voting rights under the BSFD charter was unconstitutional and set a precedent for one such a finding in Rhode Island in 1981 cited the Flynn v. King, which included the 1959 statute of the West Glocester Fire District which provides that in order to be eligible to vote and hold office, one must be the owner of taxable property within the district. The Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that the provision “denies other qualified voters the protection of equal opportunities”.
“I encourage you to review your charter and make any necessary changes to ensure that it does not conflict with the above decision,” wrote Gorbea. “As the state’s chief electoral officer, it is my duty to ensure that all eligible voters have the right to vote in elections that affect their daily lives. It is of vital importance that no BSFD resident is deprived of their right to vote in any election. ”
On October 16, 2019, the BSFD District Council held a meeting at which District Council member Anita Langer requested that the BSFD Charter be approved in accordance with the Foreign Minister’s letter to Flynn v. King adapt. Langer stated that the right to vote should be linked to the place of residence “because the current tax liability is unconstitutional”. However, her application did not receive a second.
Now the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island (RI ACLU) has filed a “Friend of the Court” brief in support of the plaintiffs, which states that the BSFD electoral law is a form of classicism.
“By restricting voting rights to certain ‘property owners’, the BSFD is following a long, rightly discredited history in this country and state by restricting voting rights to a preferred class,” reads the RI ACLU brief. “The history of voting rights in the United States is a history of power. It reflects who is in power at a given point in time and who is kept out. ”
“In the past, these findings were tied to wealth, race and gender,” the letter continues. “That they have been recognized in the past is no reason to confirm their continued use in Rhode Island.”
The letter describes the BSFD’s restriction of voting rights to property owners as “a return to earlier, long-discredited ideas about who is entitled to participate in our state and local government”.
“The Bonnet Shores Fire District charter seems trapped in a time warp that has ignored the evolution of voting rights in the United States and Rhode Island since it was first adopted in 1932,” concludes. “This relic of a time of widespread disenfranchisement is unconstitutional and cannot last.”
BSFD legal advisor Thomas M. Dickinson has reportedly stated that the fire department is not a government agency and instead operates much like a neighborhood or condominium association. When Dickinson was recently asked for clarification, he declined to comment.
The BSFD annual meeting and local elections took place Thursday evening, with a group of BSFD running, some of them not on the ballot, based on voting the district’s electoral laws with the Foreign Minister’s recommendation. Until the laws are changed or the court decides the case, the charter’s laws remain in place.
“Without changing the voting rules, I can’t vote again,” Jenkins concluded.
A hearing on the case is scheduled for September 21 in the Washington County Superior Court.