01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, March 13, 2007

By Maria Armental

Journal Staff Writer

CHARLESTOWN — Meeting behind closed doors, the Town Council last night approved a new contract for the town solicitor, extending his duties to cover all but Indian affairs.

The vote, read into the record when the council reconvened in public, was 3-0.

Council President Katharine H. Waterman removed herself from the discussion, citing concerns over whether discussing the contract in closed session would violate the Open Meetings Law.

Council Vice President Harriet A. Allen did not attend the meeting.

Councilmen James M. Mageau, John O. Craig, and Bruce W. Picard later voted 3-0 to seal the minutes of the closed session, which included discussion of the landfill litigation, the solicitor’s contract and a review of the performance of Town Administrator Edward M. Barrett. Waterman abstained.

The solicitor, Robert E. Craven, of Providence, will be paid a $72,000 annual retainer — $6,000 a month — and will handle prosecutions and serve as the probate judge and legal counsel to the town’s Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Review. Litigation, depositions and arbitration would cost extra, Craven said.

The salary approved reflects a 5.3 percent increase in his monthly retainer, previously $5,700, for Craven’s additional duties with the Planning Commission after lawyer Peter D. Ruggiero resigned in late January. Ruggiero, now Jamestown’s solicitor, had previously served as the town solicitor and counsel to the Planning Commission.

The contract is retroactive to Craven’s appointment on Jan. 11.

Craven and Mageau said that the contract is expected to save the town thousands of dollars.

“The previous solicitor was paid for all matters, all the time spent involving pending litigation,” Craven said last night after the meeting.

“I offered to the town I would only charge the town over and above the monthly stipend for” depositions, arbitration and litigation, Craven said.

The Town Council will review Joseph S. Larisa’s contract next Monday. Larisa, who represents the town in legal disputets, , came under fire last month when Mageau criticized Larisa’s billing the town for news conferences and media calls. Larisa’s salary is being paid with state money.

During the closed session, Mageau, Craig and Picard also voted 3-1 — with Waterman voting against — to rate Barrett “exceptional” in his performance review and also to accept a draft agreement with the state Department of Environmental Management over the landfill litigation.

The draft agreement has not yet been made public.

Next Monday, the council will take up its regular agenda — including calls for the resignations of Waterman and Allen for their role in the new police station construction, and of the town administrator and town solicitor for alleged violation of the Town Charter; and for the removal of Faith LaBossiere, chairwoman of the Mud Cove ad hoc committee, also for alleged violation of the Town Charter.

The meeting, originally scheduled for 7 p.m. yesterday, had to be postponed after town officials learned the meeting was never advertised in a local newspaper.

Also on the agenda will be a report from the state auditor general on the police station construction project. The report — not an audit — found that the town violated the Town Charter in spending $257,330 without voters’ approval.

Voters had approved spending $3.3 million. To date, the town has spent $3.9 million, $606,898 more than originally approved. Approximately 58 percent or $349,568 of those excess costs were funded by federal grants.

Mageau said he intends to forward the report to Barrett and Craven “and we will ask the U.S. Attorney to open an investigation under the RICO [Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organization] Act.”

Moreover, he said, he will ask Waterman and Allen — who voted in favor of some of those expenditures now under scrutiny — “to recuse themselves from any further discussion about the audit.”

“If they do not voluntarily recuse themselves, I will take them before the [state] Ethics Commission,” Mageau said.

marmenta@projo.com