How to make officials care about public records reform? Wait till their requests are denied.

By: Nancy Lavin | Rhode Island Current | September 23, 2026

Ralph Mollis is no stranger to Rhode Island’s Access to Public Records Act. Which might be why Mollis was not expecting to encounter resistance when North Kingstown submitted records requests to two quasi-public state agencies involved in reviewing the now-paused sludge processing project in Quonset Business Park.

But Quonset Development Corporation and the Narragansett Bay Commission refused to provide all or most of the internal emails, project documents and other materials North Kingstown, through outside law firm Desautel Browning, asked for in May. The quasi-public agencies cited confidentiality protections in the state law as reasons why certain portions of Desautel Browning’s request cannot be fulfilled, or at least not without hundreds of hours of staff time and thousands of dollars.

But the problem of a vague and loophole-ridden public records law persists, despite repeated attempts to rectify it.