No “Reset Button”: Colasante Escalates Council Discord, Seeks ACLU Opinion

By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA
November 3rd 2023

RICHMOND – Appearing on the Oct. 25 edition of the talk radio show “#InTheDugout,” Town Councilor Michael Colasante, accompanied by political ally Louise Dinsmore, doubled down on Colasante’s behavior at the Oct. 17 Town Council meeting and told host Mike Stenhouse that he had requested an opinion from the American Civil Liberties Union on whether his rights had been violated by council President Mark Trimmer.

The Oct. 17 Council Meeting

During the public forum of the council meeting, Colasante recused himself from the council and walked to the podium. Trimmer told Colasante he had three minutes to speak, but when he began to attack fellow councilor Samantha Wilcox, Trimmer stopped him. Colasante initially refused to leave the podium, even when asked to step down by Police Chief Elwood Johnson, however, he eventually stepped away, handing his written statement to his wife, Kathryn Colasante, who read the rest of it.

In a response to a story about the meeting on the Beaver River Valley Community Association Facebook page, Colasante posted the text of his statement, in which he said he wanted to “reset” the discussion and work with his fellow councilors, a position he reiterated on the radio show.

“I just basically wanted everybody just to hit the re-start button. The reset button,” he told Stenhouse.

However, after expressing his desire for reconciliation, Colasante recounted a litany of grievances against council Trimmer, Vice President Richard Nassaney and Wilcox.

Dinsmore added her own comments.

On Nassaney:

“He was endorsed as a Republican, however circumstances were such that he was, you know, a chameleon, in that he was claiming to be part of our slate and part of our values, but in reality, he was working against our slate.”

On Wilcox:

She aligns herself with people like Megan Cotter and Jessica Purcell and Uprise Rhode Island.”

Stenhouse interjected,

“So pretty far left, then,”

Dinsmore:

“Yes.”

Efforts to stimulate economic development, Colasante alleged, have been repeatedly stymied by left-leaning conservationists, who support the preservation of open space, increasing the burden on taxpayers.

“The town is actually going out to bond that the average taxpayer now is on the hook for to buy this land to take it off the tax roll, so we use our hard-earned money to buy the land, then it’s off the tax roll. Now it’s tax exempt,” he said, in a rambling narrative.

Were Colasante’s Rights violated?

Stenhouse played a recording of the portion of the council meeting during which Colasante claims his right to speak was denied.

But Colasante’s argument is disputed by Town Solicitor Karen Ellsworth in a legal opinion requested by Trimmer and sent to council members on Oct. 20.

In an interview on Friday, Ellsworth stated that Colasante could recuse himself from a vote, but not from the council.

“He said ‘I want to recuse myself,’ but that’s not what ‘recuse’ means,” she said. “Recuse means not voting. What was he going to vote on?”

Ellsworth also noted that Trimmer had not been acting improperly when he asked Colasante to step down.

“The person presiding over the meeting was in his rights to ask the police chief to escort him from the room,” she said.

Insisting, during the radio interview, that as a councilor he had a right to speak in public forum, Colasante accused Ellsworth of intimidation.

“I’ve been dealing with attorneys for decades and decades now, and they like to intimidate people,” Colasante told Stenhouse. “The bottom line is, when they say ‘this is my opinion,’ my famous line is ‘you’re correct. It’s just your opinion.’ … “It’s just her opinion, and she’s going to side with the Town Council because she feels that the other two councilors are in her court, and it allows her to keep ringing the cash register for herself.”

Asked about Chief Johnson’s request that he leave the podium, Colasante said he had been in communication with the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office, in addition to the ACLU, regarding the role of the police.

“The first step is seeing what the ACLU has to say, and I think it’s going to be in our favor, and then actually, going to the Attorney General’s office and actually getting some of our state reps to maybe propose legislation, all right? that will finally, all right? take care of this issue and address it.”

Reached two days after the council meeting, Johnson said,

“My role at those meetings is that I’m a police officer, there to keep the peace. I make sure there are no disruptions. During that meeting, the President asked a person to stop speaking.”

However, Stenhouse saw the incident differently, suggesting that the ACLU sue the Richmond police, “so that we can force a judgment. I’m not trying to be mean here, but it’s two things: can people be denied their First Amendment rights, as Louise [Dinsmore] said, and can police be complicit in that when there is no disturbing of the peace?”

Johnson noted that it had not been necessary to escort Colasante from the council chambers.

“We didn’t have to go there, because the person returned to their seat. I treat people civilly,” he said.

But in the radio interview, Colasante described an exchange he had with Johnson in the Town Hall parking lot after the meeting.

“Before the chief got into his cruiser, he came up to me and he actually shook my hand and he said, ‘Mike, thank you very much for being such a gentleman in the way you handled that.’ And I just said to him, ‘well, you know, Chief, look, I didn’t want to be contentious, I am a gentleman, I wanted to handle it appropriately, but the next time it’s not going to go that way. I’m telling you right now.’ I said ‘so I’m giving you a heads up, all right? that it will not go the way it went this time around, so you’re going to have to make a decision beforehand as to what you’re going to do.’”

Will There be More Disruptions? Probably.

“I don’t think that there’s anything anyone can do about behavior that is not civil,” Ellsworth said. “The incivility is going on, on a regular basis, and not just from one person, and I think that’s the basis of the problem.”

Trimmer also seemed resigned to dealing with continued incidents, all planned, he said, as part of a coordinated effort that he called “Operation Disruption,” to interfere with Town Council business.

“I don’t believe anything will change as a result of a legal decision on the solicitor’s part,” he said. “This was all part of Operation Disruption, part of a plan to get reelected. … It’s a planned operation to disrupt and discredit anyone on the council who isn’t them.”