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Rhode Island Newspaper Headlines

Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

No action on Warwick school union's court request
By Barbara Polichetti

WARWICK, R.I. -- No action was taken Tuesday on a union's request to block the Warwick School Committee from going forward with its plan to freeze all employees' salaries and require them to pay 20-percent of their health insurance costs.

James E. Kelleher, lawyer for the Warwick Independent School Employees (WISE), said that after both parties conferred with Judge Brian P. Stern, it was decided that a full hearing on whether to grant the union an injunction will be held some time next month.

The union, which represents about 450 employees in custodial, clerical and other non-teaching positions, went to court last week seeking a restraining order against the School Department, which is in the process of imposing pay freezes, mandatory increases in health insurance contributions and other measures intended to help it bridge a roughly $8-million deficit for this year.

School officials have said the deficit is the result of cuts in state aid as well as a reduction in local funding for schools.

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The Ahlborg Construction Corp., a prominent Rhode Island developer, has been accused of racketeering, bribery and conspiracy in the construction of a tipping facility at Rhode Island's landfill.

A lawsuit by the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation accuses the Warwick-based company and its top executives, brothers Glenn and Eric Ahlborg, of illegally profiting from "a nearly $20 million blunder'' -- construction of a tipping station that was unnecessary and beset by bid-rigging and cost overruns.

Of that cost, at least $13.7 million was paid to Ahlborg, then called O. Ahlborg & Sons. The rest was paid to equip the facility, which was built in 2001 and 2002 but sits largely unused today.

"The Central Landfill Tipping Facility, now unused for its original purpose and scheduled for demolition, was typical of the epidemic of corruption, mismanagement, and wrongdoing rampant at (Resource Recovery),'' the lawsuit says. "Ahlborg, as the construction manager for the project, was all too happy to take advantage of these circumstances.''

The lawsuit in Providence Superior Court says that the tipping station was pushed through by former Resource Recovery chairman A. Austin Ferland, a close personal friend of the Ahlborgs. The suit accuses board members controlled by Ferland of overruling the agency's own selection team, which had found Ahlborg the least qualified of the five bidders for the project.

The initial $8-million to $9-million estimate to build the tipping station soared, fueled by nearly 100 change orders submitted by Ahlborg. Even after Resource Recovery officials refused to pay one change order for more than $200,000, then-executive director Sherry Mulhearn approved the payment to Ahlborg, the suit says.

The Ahlborgs also had a business relationship with Ferland's housing company, the suit says; on one occasion, Eric Ahlborg sent Ferland a set of golf clubs and a leather jacket from Ahlborg Construction, with a card that said, "Austin, Best Wishes, Eric.''

Late Tuesday afternoon, Gregg Perry, a spokesman for Eric Ahlborg, said Ahlborg was just beginning to review the suit and "is confident that all of the facts will come to light during the course of this litigation.

"The Ahlborg family has been in the construction business for more than 80 years and has performed with skill and integrity in thousands of construction projects around New England and Rhode Island. In this case, the Ahlborg's [sic] submitted a qualified bid that was selected in a formal review process and the entire project was governed by a detailed contract with oversight from Rhode Island Resource Recovery's own independent design firm. The Ahlborg's followed this contract during and through completion of the project.

"The Ahlborg's will defend vigorously defend themselves in this civil litigation."

Extra: Read the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation's lawsuit against Ahlborg Construction Corporation, which attaches a Sept. 22, 2009, audit of the Resource Recovery Corp.

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THOMASTON, Conn. -- An ex-convict who allegedly sent out a slew of letters threatening to kill people in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Utah has been arrested in North Dakota.

Sgt. Jim Campbell of the Thomaston police said that Roland Prejean, 43, of Morris, Conn., is to return to Connecticut after extradition proceedings.

Campbell said that the police have obtained warrants charging Prejean with issuing threats and with breach of the peace.

Sgt. Gregory Kenney of the Connecticut State Police said that Prejean was taken into custody Tuesday morning in Bismarck, N.D.

Prejean had been missing for five days after borrowing a car belonging to an acquaintance. Kenney said the car was supposed to have been returned the same day it was borrowed.

"He sent letters out all over the country," Gregory said.

Campbell said that the Thomaston Post Office and a nearby middle school were evacuated on Tuesday morning after the postmaster reported receiving a letter from Prejean declaring that a bomb had been placed at the Post Office.

The state police bomb squad searched and found nothing, Campbell said.

He said he did not know immediately any details about the threatening letter or letters sent to Rhode Island because the investigation was not complete.

As for a motive, Campbell said, "The only intent we can find is that he wanted to go back to prison."

Campbell said the Prejean was released in April from the Gardner Correctional Facility in Connecticut. He did not know what crime Prejean had committed.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Kernan F. King, the Republican candidate for state general treasurer who has, since 2005, received a property tax break available only to permanent residents of Florida, said Tuesday that he would reimburse a Florida county for the tax break.

"I'll pay the back taxes, whatever I happen to owe," King said. "If I owe something, I'll pay it."

King, a Rhode Island native, retired as an insurance company executive in 2002 and moved from Massachusetts, where he had lived for 34 years, to Florida. In December 2004, he bought a house on a golf course in Sarasota County. The next month, he went to the Sarasota County property appraiser -- the equivalent of a Rhode Island tax assessor -- and applied for a homestead tax exemption.

In November 2005, King moved to Rhode Island to seek the lieutenant governor's office in the 2006 elections. Each year after that, Sarasota County mailed him a notice to advise the property appraiser if anything had changed affecting his qualification for the homestead exemption. But King did not report he was no longer a Florida resident until August 2010, after the post office returned the notice from the county.

King called that an oversight.

"You don't pay attention to that stuff. I was focused on Rhode Island," he said. "Florida wasn't even on my radar screen."

On Tuesday, King provided The Providence Journal with information from state tax returns showing that he paid a total $144,979 in Rhode Island income tax from 2005 to 2009.

King also provided the newspaper with minutes of a La Salle Academy Board of Directors meeting on March 8, 2010, and records showing he had a medical procedure in Rhode Island that day.

The Sarasota County property appraiser said last week that his office contacted King on that date at King's Florida number and that King said he was still a permanent resident of Florida.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, the Rhode Island Democratic Party criticized King, refering to a speech King made when kicking off his 2006 run for lieutenant governor. "I like coffee milk, Awful Awfuls, New York System hot wieners," King said then. "I like clamcakes and Del's Lemonade ... I am a Rhode Islander, true and true ..."

"Graduating from a local high school and enjoying lemonade and milk shakes are not the only criteria for Rhode Island residency," the Democrats said in a statement Tuesday. "Rhode Islanders want to elect honest leaders who are committed to being responsible citizens of the state."

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Police and fire officials announced Tuesday that they arrested a 41-year-old Pawtucket man for the firebombing of a city fire station two years ago that caused $35,000 in damages.

The police arrested Richard E. Carden, of 34 Everett St., Pawtucket, at his home over the weekend and charged him with first-degree arson, a felony. He was arraigned Tuesday morning and sent to the Adult Correctional Institutions pending a future bail hearing.

Officials declined to speculate on why they think Carden threw the Molotov cocktail device through a glass door of the fire station in Rumford one night in April 2008. Firefighters were on duty in a kitchen nearby but no one was injured and a sprinkler system extinguished the fire.

"It was a highly unusual criminal act," said Police Chief Joseph H. Tavares. "Lives were placed in jeopardy and he had no regard for them."