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On Your Dime: Legal battle over Woonsocket mayor's ouster cost taxpayers $150K


Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt speaks with NBC 10 I-Team's Tamara Sacharczyk on what it cost taxpayers to remove her from office last October. (WJAR)
Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt speaks with NBC 10 I-Team's Tamara Sacharczyk on what it cost taxpayers to remove her from office last October. (WJAR)
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Woonsocket taxpayers spent six figures in last year’s legal battle to remove Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, who was re-elected a month later.

The new figures were obtained by the NBC 10 I-Team months after we initiated a records request which led to an appeal after the former solicitor only fulfilled a portion of our request, saying additional legal receipts did not exist.

Receipts provided by the new city solicitor show the removal proceedings cost taxpayers at least $146,820 in legal representation for the mayor, city council, and city employees, who were subpoenaed as witnesses.

The city council’s representation cost over $36,000, according to a bill of $20,680 from law firm Gidley, Sarli & Marusak.

Former Councilwoman Denise Sierra also had her own representation, tacking another $15,112 onto the total cost with Attorney Joseph Larisa.

Several bills from Attorney Tamuleviz, who represented five city employees, show another $9,550 in costs.

Mayor Lisa Badelli-Hunt’s defense cost $101,478, according to receipts from Attorney Anthony Traini who worked with Attorney Michael Lepizzera Jr. and Attorney Scott DeMello.

Baldelli-Hunt says her bill was the highest because her attorneys worked the most, spending 232 hours defending nine charges.

"My attorneys had to go through two years of council meetings and years of legislation to defend illegally drafted legislation, which even the city council acknowledged the faultiness of,” she said. “Keep in mind, every expense is due to the city council’s actions; they put the hearing in motion.”

Badelli-Hunt told the I-Team the true cost of the removal process is even higher than the legal receipts reflect.

“Right now, we’re up to $167,139.15, and that is not counting the hours, which equates to dollars, for the employees who needed to go through documents to pull the documents necessary for the hearing,” she said. “This is a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

REMOVAL PROCEEDINGS

Former Councilwoman Denise Sierra triggered the removal process last fall by filing a complaint against Baldelli-Hunt, accusing her of violating the city charter by vetoing a council-approved collective bargaining agreement with the police union.

Baldelli-Hunt argued the mayor is listed as the city’s chief administrative officer and the contract was illegal.

The complaint also accused Baldelli-Hunt of ignoring directives and making decisions without city council approval, allegations the mayor denied.

Another subject of contention was a dog pavilion.

The council authorized more than $11,000 to build a pavilion at the city’s animal shelter, but Baldelli-Hunt had it built at the River’s Edge Recreation Complex instead, saying the proximity of the sewage-treatment plant and the animal shelter made it impossible to build there.

The mayor denied the allegations against her but was later found guilty by the city council and was removed from office.

At the time, it was already well known Baldelli-Hunt was running unopposed in the November election, where she was later elected back into office.

TAXPAYER MONEY TAKEN

With the entire ordeal costing taxpayers nearly $150,000, we asked former City Council President Dan Gendron if he would have done anything differently.

“Am I happy about the money? No. What I have done it any differently? I don’t think I had an option,” he said.

Gendron defended the actions of the former council in going forward with removal proceedings.

“Our charter, which is the law of Woonsocket, states very clearly that if charges are brought against an elected official, there is not a choice,” he said. “It’s an actual decision that’s already made and accounted for.”

Gendron called it a matter of law, saying he was doing his job. “I think that my message to the taxpayers will simply be that you elected me and you elected six other councilors to follow the charter.”

Gendron was voted out office in November following the mayor’s removal.

“I was thrust into the position of mayor and I did not take any pay for the two months that I was there,” he said. “I subsequently was unelected from my seat on the city council. What was the upside for me not following the charter? I would’ve been better off violating the charter the same way the mayor did, but I chose to do what I was elected to do.”

Within the legal receipts, Gendron still questions why the city covered the legal representation for city employees called as witnesses.

An email he produced from the former city solicitor shows that request was initially denied, which would have left city employees to pay for their own representation.

Legal receipts obtained by the I-Team last week show the city eventually covered the attorney fees in December.

Mayor Baldelli-Hunt says all the legal fees could have been avoided.

“This was orchestrated," she said. "This was a fraud on their part so they could accomplish what they wanted for a nine-week period, costing at least $167,000 to the taxpayers, and here we are today with me back in the office.”

The mayor also says residents expressed their feelings on the legal proceedings in November, when she was re-elected.

“People recognize that their voices were silenced and that their vote was stripped, and they took care of business on November 8th, when they sent a message right back to them," she said.

CITY CHARTER

Woonsocket is the only city in Rhode Island with a charter that allows a city council to remove a sitting mayor, essentially giving them more power than any other city council in the state.

Baldelli-Hunt says that is something the city is now working to change.

"I think it’s very unusual,” she said. “That’s why we are finalizing a charter review commission, it’s something that needs to be done every 10 years and we are due. We are being very cautious as to who we put on; we want to make certain we have some very legal minds attached to this commission because we need to get it right because it’s not right now.”

The mayor says when questions arise over the removal of an elected official, voters should have the final say.

“If you want to remove somebody from office, you go to the polls and the residents vote to remove that person from office if they see that there’s something that they did that’s egregious that should allow them to be removed,” Baldelli-Hunt said.

Gendron says the removal process in the city charter dates back to 1957 and changing it would ultimately be up to voters.

“For the people who found this distasteful, you have the ability to see that charter change, but I don’t think there’s a reason to change the charter,” he said.

Now that she’s back in office, Mayor Baldelli-Hunt is looking toward the future, which includes changing a provision that cost taxpayers a lot of money.

"People always have a right to try and move forward with removal, but not in the way that it happened," she said.


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