The East Bay Energy Consortium has been cleared of public records and open meetings laws violations.

The RI Attorney General made its ruling last Friday on a complaint lodged by a Tiverton man, Gerald Felise, who is the CEO of eCo Industrial Park and Natural Energy Generators, according to a story posted on eastbayri.com.

The ruling said that EBEC, a consortium of nine RI towns at the time of the complaint – Barrington, Warren, Bristol, Little Compton, Portsmouth, Tiverton, Middletown, Newport and East Providence, did not break the law when it failed to provide him in a timely manner with the minutes of dozens of meetings between 2009 and 2012. 

In the opinion published a week ago, RI Special Assistant Attorney General Maria R. Corvese said: “While the EBEC is certainly a public body … not all public bodies are subject to the provision at issue. The EBEC is a municipal, not state, entity."

EBEC obeyed the standard it is held to by providing unofficial minutes in a timely manner, and it made them available for review at the EBEC offices in Bristol Town Hall. (Bristol is no longer a member of the consortium; it pulled out last fall.) 

The ruling also said: “This Department finds that the EBEC did not violate the APRA when it extended the response time an additional 20 business days” beyond the 10 days as called for in the public records law because it has no full-time staff and is not subject to the same requirements.

Felise cab appeal the ruling to the Superior Court within 90 days. See the complete story at eastbayri.com.