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 Brian Amaral — “This lawsuit is about two things: property rights and abuse of government process for political gain,” Weekapaug Fire District moderator Bob McCann said of the would-be shore access path in Westerly

By Alex Nunes — The increasingly litigious shoreline fire district wants to end a state review that could result in a new beach right-of-way being designated in Westerly.

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 Alex Nunes — The Westerly-based fire district, a taxing entity with government authorities but no fire department, had blocked information on its website from public view.

By Alex Nunes — The Weekapaug Fire District has filed a motion in Rhode Island Superior Court, asking a judge to find the town of Westerly in contempt of a decades-old agreement that covers use of a road known as the Sand Trail that runs down the middle of the Quonochontaug Barrier Beach.

By Ryan Blessing — The Watch Hill Fire District and Watch Hill Conservancy fired a legal salvo Thursday over the Westerly Town Council’s attempts to designate a right of way on Fort Road, the popular access route to public lands on Napatree Point.

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.

By Ryan Blessing — In tackling whether two streets in Watch Hill are considered public rights of way, the Town Council had both an easy and a hard time. After some discussion and a consensus among members Monday, the council first voted unanimously in support of the state Coastal Resources Management Council's designation of Everett Avenue as a right-of-way.

By Alex Nunes — A legal battle over a contested right-of-way to the beach in Westerly has become a flashpoint in the debate over shoreline access.

By Alex Nunes — The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council Rights-of-way Subcommittee will meet Tuesday about a contested path to the shore in Westerly that’s become emblematic of the debate over shoreline access in the Ocean State. If designated public, the path would open a long-closed gateway to one of the most inaccessible, undeveloped beaches in the state.

By Jason Vallee — The Rhode Island Attorney General has returned an opinion to the Coastal Resources Management Council supporting and strongly advising the council to approve and designate Spray Rock Road as a public right of way to the Westerly waterfront.

By Alex Nunes — Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha is getting involved in a closely-followed case over a contested right-of-way to the shore in South County.

By Alex Nunes — Voters following the 2022 elections in Westerly are witnessing something they haven’t seen in years. Candidates are widely promoting their support for public access to Rhode Island’s shoreline.

By Cynthia Drummond — … An issue that has elicited some of the strongest public engagement in Rhode Island in recent years, access to the shoreline in coastal towns, including Westerly, has been the subject of in-depth coverage by ecoRI News.

By Frank Carini — … “They have a guard posted to be sure no one walks across the walkway to the beach,” he wrote. “Next to their beach entrance is a public right of way that is blocked by a fence. … It is on town property designated as a road on older town plats.”

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 Dale Faulkner — On a night when they were not even scheduled to discuss the topic, members of the Town Council heard from citizens …