By Alex Nunes — The Rhode Island ACLU says the fire district’s lawsuit is targeting a Westerly resident fighting for a public shoreline right-of-way in a move to discourage public participation in the dispute.

By Alex Nunes — Advocates for coastal access point to the town’s tepid pursuit of beach rights-of-way, questionable changes to boat mooring policies, and highly restrictive parking rules in exclusive shoreline areas. Now access advocates say the general public faces a newer threat: Westerly’s own town solicitor. They say his past actions in shoreline access matters continue to raise doubts about whose interests he’s serving in critical ongoing legal cases.

By Ryan Blessing — A public hearing on whether Westerly’s Spring Avenue extension should be designated a state public right of way is expected to begin in late June.

Newport’s Friends of the Waterfront are calling on the city to investigate whether The Mooring restaurant’s recently approved plans for its parking lot encroach on public access to Newport Harbor.

By Brian Amaral — Rhode Island lawmakers could actually redefine the rights of the “shore” further landward than the law does now, said Michael C. Blumm, professor at the Lewis & Clark Law School

By Antonia Noori Farzan — Ben Weber started working for his father's construction company when he was a teenager. So a few years later, when a security guard at Fenway Beach in Weekapaug tried to tell him that he wasn't supposed to be there because it was private, he knew the solution was to find a public easement.

By Brian Amaral — An April 1939 plat map, unearthed by attorney Michael Rubin, shows that a blocked off path on Weekapaug Point used to be accepted as a public right-of-way

By Alex Nunes — A special fire district says it owns a contested path to the ocean and that it can block the public from using the trail. Now a retired Rhode Island assistant attorney general has joined shoreline rights activists to try to open the path up to the public.

By Alex Nunes — A State House commission set up to study access to Rhode Island’s shoreline will take one of its meetings to South County later this year to get public comment from communities where disputes over beach access have been most contentious.

By Brian Amaral — A new Rhode Island House study commission looking into the hotly contested subject of shoreline rights will meet for the first time Aug. 26 at the State House, according to the office of House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi.

By Alex Nunes — State lawmakers are taking another step forward in their plans to examine shoreline access in Rhode Island with appointments to a new House commission.