Ruggiero out as City Solicitor

Mayor Joseph Solomon confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that City Solicitor Peter Ruggiero – who has been in the midst of multiple allegations surrounding contractual provisions involving the Warwick Fire Department – would no longer be employed by the City of Warwick, effective as of last week.

However, Solomon sought to make it clear as multiple news agencies were hearing and trying to confirm rumors that Ruggiero had resigned, been instructed to resign or had been fired, that actually none of those scenarios were the case.

“I did not fire Peter Ruggiero,” he said during a phone interview. “This is a natural transition process that is occurring and will roll out smoothly, and hopefully it will roll out smoothly so we can continue to transition the city in a way that is good for the taxpayers of Warwick.”

When asked if the decision to replace Ruggiero had anything to do with him signing off as the city’s legal witness on both a side deal that allegedly enabled firefighters to accrue excessive sick days and cash them out monthly, and a contractual provision change regarding unused vacation payouts that never went before the City Council but was ratified into a new collective bargaining agreement anyways – two practices that Solomon has since put an end to and admonished – he denied such a connection.

“Mr. Ruggiero served adequately for the previous administration. I am going to replace my legal counsel with someone that I feel more in tune with my views and my perspective going forward under the Solomon administration,” he said. “Whether it be the mayor's office or the Attorney General’s office, any elected official, when they come in, they bring people in that operate under the direction that the incoming office holder is going in…It's not isolated to the legal aspect of things, this is taking place in other departments.”

Asked to expand on which other departments might be going through similar turnover, Solomon said he was not ready to divulge such information at this time. He also said that he felt it wasn’t an appropriate time to name who would be replacing Ruggiero as the new solicitor.

“I'm trying to make it as smooth as possible for the incoming and outgoing,” he said.

Solomon reiterated that the personnel decision was not a reaction to him coming to a conclusion regarding the aforementioned issues at hand.

“Relative to any investigation as to something that was illegal or improper in nature, I have not reached a conclusion at this point,” he said.

Solomon said he would be enacting changes to how the city handles contractual decisions, in the hopes of making the process more transparent and less open to possible manipulation. He gave the examples of making original documents more easily available, limiting the number of people who have access to documents when they are in between new deals and how documents are marked up during contract changes.

“These things were brought to light to me, and when I found out things were improper, I immediately stopped them,” he said. “I ceased those practices from happening, and I took steps to prevent practices such as those from occurring, not just under my administration but in future administrations.”