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 — 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 disclosure contradicts characterizations of an agreement made public in July by Rhode Island U.S. Senator Jack Reed.

By Alex Nunes — Council President Edward Morrone had been under scrutiny for his ties to private interests in the Watch Hill community as disputes over shoreline access became a focal point for the Westerly Town Council.

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 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 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 Alex Nunes — The story of shoreline access in many parts of Rhode Island is one of haves and have nots…

By Alex Nunes — Rhode Island boasts of its nearly 400 miles of shoreline, yet the state’s eight public saltwater beaches border less than seven miles of that waterfront…

RHODE ISLAND ETHICS COMMISSION Advisory Opinion No. 2020-51 Re: Richard Constantine … It is the opinion of the Rhode Island Ethics Commission that the Petitioner, a member of the Westerly Planning Board …