The Vaillancourt Saga Ends With Dismissal

By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA
January 31st 2024

RICHMOND – At a special meeting Tuesday, members of the Town Council voted to terminate Electrical Inspector Jeffrey Vaillancourt. The council also voted to hire Christopher Zangary as the new Town Solicitor, replacing longtime solicitor Karen Ellsworth. Allan Fung was the only other applicant for the solicitor position.

Vaillancourt Fired

This was the third special meeting the council had held to discuss complaints about Jeffrey Vaillancourt, but this time it was the last, concluding with Vaillancourt’s dismissal, which took effect immediately.

Councilor Michael Colasante, who prompted a complaint to the Rhode Island Ethics Commission when he declined to recuse himself from previous discussions of Vaillancourt’s performance even though Vaillancourt was doing electrical work for him at the time, recused himself from Tuesday’s vote. Council President Mark Trimmer, Vice President Richard Nassaney and councilor Samantha Wilcox voted in favor of Vaillancourt’s termination, and councilor Helen Sheehan abstained.

The Complaints

The town has received numerous complaints about Vaillancourt’s conduct, which has been variously described as aggressive, rude, unethical and unprofessional. In addition, and of great concern to the council, was a growing perception that he might deter businesses from opening in Richmond.

The saga began last March when council member Michael Colasante, with support from council President Mark Trimmer and councilor Helen Sheehan, rejected the recommendation of then Town Planner Shaun Lacey to hire Michael Rosso and instead, at the next council meeting, voted to hire Jeffrey Vaillancourt, the owner of Amity Electric and a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for a council seat in 2022.

Town Administrator Karen Pinch has received complaints about Vaillancourt from the Washington County Fair and Pasquale Farms, as well as Twisted Pizza and other businesses. Administrators for the fair have banned Vaillancourt from the fairgrounds. The two most recent written complaints, one sent to Pinch in December and the second sent in January, echo previous complaints. The second complaint, which was confidential until it was revealed during the council meeting to have come from a representative of The Preserve, asked that Vaillancourt not go to that property. Several of the complaints also describe Vaillancourt as attempting to get additional work for his own company from the businesses he was inspecting, which would constitute an ethics violation.

Vaillancourt supporters, including Colasante, accused Pinch, Lacey and other town officials of being unfair to Vaillancourt. At the August 29 special council meeting, Colasante stated,

“Right off the bat, he didn’t like Mr. Vaillancourt, because it wasn’t his pick,” he said referring to Lacey. “It wasn’t his choice. It wasn’t who he wanted in that office. It’s not up to Mr. Lacey or any department head to say ‘this is my pick’. Again, the Town Council, all right? the town charter, hires and fires.”

Colasante has continued to push to remove hiring and firing authority from Pinch and transfer it to the council, but the Vaillancourt debacle, which lasted nearly a year, is not expected to bolster his case.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Vaillancourt repeated the accusation that he had not had the support from the Town Administrator.

“I feel that although I was hired by the Town Council to do this job, it was under protest by others,” he said. “It’s a fact.”

Pinch responded,

“Can I just make a statement for the record?” she asked Trimmer. “When that position came open, I encouraged Jeff to apply. I was not in the interviews, I was not the one that made the recommendation for another electrical inspector, so it’s not a personal thing for me. … I didn’t solicit any of these complaints. They all came to me. They all had a pattern, most importantly, that Jeff was trying to solicit business for himself. I feel like, every other time we’ve talked about it, I’m the bad guy. It’s not Jeff taking responsibility but the complainant’s the bad guy, I’m the bad guy, everyone’s the bad guy but the person who’s taking responsibility for his actions.”

The temperature in the council chamber rose again by several degrees, when Vaillancourt stated that he had recorded his supervisor, the town’s Building Official, Anthony Santilli, without Santilli’s knowledge.

“I don’t like people taping me,” an angry Santilli said from the audience.

“I wasn’t taping you,” Vaillancourt replied. “I was covering myself.”

Vaillancourt apologized, but he continued to defend his actions, saying he had felt “attacked.”

Some council members, including Nassaney, said that with Vaillancourt banned from several establishments, the town would need a second electrical inspector.

“We have to go out and hire another inspector… because a lot of business owners don’t feel comfortable with you being there,” he told Vaillancourt.

Trimmer said the bottom line, for the town, was that Vaillancourt’s reputation would not attract new businesses.

“We cannot use you at the largest event in town, we cannot use you at the two largest taxpayers in town, and new businesses – we’re desperate,” he said. “On the one hand, we’re saying we want economic development in this town, we want businesses to come in and help us defray the cost of schools and roads, and on the other hand, we’re driving them away with an inspector who they have asked not to come. We’ve reached a crossroads that I don’t think we can recover from.”

Reached Wednesday, Wilcox agreed that Vaillancourt had had to go.

“I’m sure that Mr. Vaillancourt is a great electrician, but the repeated complaints, consistent issues, really couldn’t be ignored anymore,” she said. “I’m really grateful for the people who were brave enough to come forward and I’m glad the council majority has proven to the residents, investors and business owners in Richmond that behavior like that is not acceptable.”

Trimmer, in an interview Wednesday, said,

“It was time. We tried to work with him. We have him many opportunities, and it just got to the point where the cost was too high. We would have had to hire another electrical inspector, and pay two.”

Michael Rosso, who has previously done electrical inspections for the town, will step in on a temporary basis as the town begins the process of hiring Vaillancourt’s replacement.

Council Chooses Zangary

The council discussed the two applicants for Town Solicitor, Allan Fung and Christopher Zangary, during an executive session before the council meeting.

It is not clear whether the discussion in executive session was contentious, but by the time the council members returned to open session, their vote to hire Zangary was unanimous.

Trimmer said Wednesday that he had invited Fung to apply for the position, but had changed his mind.

“I invited former Mayor Fung to apply for the job, but the more I evaluated it, the more I thought about it just realized that Zangary’s experience and the fact that attorney Cozzolino [the other Town Solicitor] felt comfortable with him and Karen [Pinch] felt comfortable with him – that’s what we want, we want a team that works together.”

A resident of North Kingstown, Zangary, a Republican, ran unsuccessfully for Town Council in 2022.  His law firm, which specializes in real estate and land use issues, is located in Warwick. Zangary will attend the next Town Council meeting, on Feb. 6.