01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, March 20, 2007

By Randal Edgar

Journal Staff Writer

CHARLESTOWN — Joseph S. Larisa Jr.’s legal work might be expensive, but to residents who believe the Narragansett Indian Tribe is jockeying for position to build a casino in town, the extra dollars are well spent.

Last night, more than a hundred of those residents showed up at a Town Council meeting to oppose a recommendation that Larisa’s pay be cut.

The recommendation came from Town Administrator Edward M. Barrett, and going into the meeting it had the support of at least one council member — James M. Mageau.

But with Larisa there to explain his work, and the residents there to cheer him and just about anyone who supported him, the council — Mageau included — voted unanimously to retain Larisa at the old rate.

“I was very grateful for the support of the people,” a relieved Larisa said after the vote.

Barrett and Mageau said repeatedly that the issue was purely one of watching dollars and cents, but in a town where the notions of decorum, unity and trust have recently seemed as foreign as a visitor from Mars, residents didn’t buy it.

“A no vote for Mr. Larisa’s retainer will be taken by many of us here, by many of us here, as a yes vote for a casino,” John Goodman, a frequent critic of the current council, told the council.

Council President Kate Waterman criticized Barrett, hired in December on a 3-to-2 vote, for making the recommendation without doing more homework.

“I am uncomfortable with someone who is new to the town [making] such an astonishing suggestion without doing research or asking anyone on the council or talking to Mr. Larisa about it,” she said.

Councilwoman Harriett A. Allen also chimed in, prompting Barrett to reply that he focuses on every cost to the taxpayer.

“I don’t overlook anything, ma’am,” he said.

Barrett’s proposal would have reduced Larisa’s $2,000-a-month retainer to $300 while still paying him $130 an hour for litigation. Mageau, arguing for the move, said that when one looks at Larisa’s work from July 2006 through January, he was paid $14,350 for 21.25 hours of work.

“That translates into $675 an hour for non-litigation work,” he said. “Now I don’t know that that is such a terrible thing for Mr. Barrett to question.”

Larisa, in a lengthy address to the council, said his normal billable rate for handling Indian affairs is $225 to $300 an hour. He said he has billed $206,000 for 1,260 hours worked on behalf of Charlestown since 2003, of which $40,000 was covered by the governor’s office because the legal issues in Charlestown were also of concern to the state. The hourly cost to Charlestown, therefore, was less than $132 an hour, he said. He also cited $60,000 in back taxes that he got the Tribe to pay for its headquarters, which means his net cost to the town has been less $85 an hour.

“In light of all those factors . . . I think it’s a pretty good deal for the town,” he said.

Larisa said he wants to keep working for the town while a decade-long battle over whether the U.S. Department of Interior can take the tribe’s land in Charlestown into trust on behalf of the tribe continues in federal court. Trust status would make the land exempt from state and local laws. He also cited talk of revoking the so-called Chafee amendment, which requires the Narragansetts to win state and local voter approval before opening a casino or any sort of gambling hall.

“We will have a very persuasive case on the Chafee amendment” should lawmakers try to repeal it, he said.

redgar@projo.com