Protesters’ pleas aside, Wyatt board reaches an agreement
CENTRAL FALLS — Despite the pleas and protests of demonstrators who said such an agreement would only further the relationship between the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation Board of Directors on Wednesday evening voted unanimously in support of a forbearance agreement between the Corporation and bond trustees.
According to the Corporation’s attorney, the agreement was negotiated between the Corporation and counsel for UMB Bank N.A., the bond trustee, as part of mediation in
federal court. Once approved, the agreement allows the Corporation to operate under forbearance until 2021.
While several in attendance called on the board members to resign rather than vote in favor of the agreement, newly-appointed Chairman James J. Lombardi III said resigning was not the answer.
“I think we can make more changes as a board than a trustee can. If we do not vote this through, my strong belief is that a trustee will be appointed,” he said. “I’m not overly excited about this but I’ll say it’s the only practical option. If a trustee comes in, then we have no oversight.”
As each of the four board members voted in the affirmative, the crowd in attendance shouted “Shame!” while rising from their seats and turning around, thus symbolically “turning their backs” on the board members.
Prior to the vote, former State Rep. Aaron Regunberg said the demonstrators were back, and will continue to be back at future meetings because “what is happening here is wrong.”
“We’re back because this forbearance agreement is still substantively a horrifying document,” Regunberg said. “Sure, it reads like a good PR person looked it over to make some stylistic improvements, but none of the inhumane elements were changed.”
“We are not going anywhere. The people here tonight, we are going to come back here again and again and again,” he later said. “UMB Bank and ICE and your employees can assault us, drive trucks into us, attack us with pepper spray, send us to the hospital. Doesn’t matter, we’re coming back.”
Former Central Falls City Councilor Stephanie Gonzalez said she was speaking at Wednesday’s meeting to appeal to the consciences and hearts of those on the board. She wondered if years from now, when people read about this moment in history, whether the directors would be “satisfied” or “content” with their actions.
“The more beds that you allow Wyatt to sell to ICE, the more we embolden them…” Gonzalez said. “You tell us if that’s something you’re proud to have endorsed with your actions.”
She then read testimonies of people who have been detained in ICE custody – including some at the Wyatt – and said it was “all connected.”
The actions on the forbearance agreement, Gonzalez said, have a “direct impact on human lives. I hope you weigh these testimonies and remember you are human beings first before directors on the board.”
Ward 1 City Councilor Jonathon Acosta referenced a series of points in the forbearance agreement which he said established the bond trustees and bank are the sole entity responsible for choosing the warden or makes it so the Corporation requires written consent for contract decisions – which he argued made it so the Corporation could not cancel the ICE contract.
He also said the agreement outlines how the facility could be sold and also cuts out any city voice in the management of the facility.
Thus, he said, the Board of Directors were turning themselves into “puppets.” He then called on the board members to resign, saying that while there are times and contexts when working from the inside can produce change, Wednesday’s vote was not one of those times.
“Stop parading this for something it’s not,” Acosta said.
In his first comments as chairman of the board, Lombardi said the panel consists of “people that are responsible to the community and deeply care about all of the detainees housed in this facility.”
While he said he understood that some of those in attendance wanted the Wyatt shut down, he said it was simply not an option, as “we are under court order” to accept ICE detainees. He also said that demonstrators disrupting and shutting down board meetings would be a “big mistake” as if the board fails to operate, the trustees will operate without public input and a sale to a for-profit prison operator would be “much more likely.”
“Many of the things people are here to object to are beyond our control. We want to hear your objection, but there’s nothing we can do to change federal immigration policy,” Lombardi said.
Protesters from Never Again Action, the group that disrupted previous meetings of the Detention Facility Corporation’s Board of Directors, again returned to the Wyatt to demonstrate at Wednesday’s meeting.
Never Again Action argued that the new forbearance agreement does “nothing to address the concerns raised by Never Again Action, AMOR, and others who demonstrated at the Wyatt in September.”
In their opinion, voting for the agreement would prevent the Wyatt from terminating its agreement with ICE, establish a fast-track process requiring the board to cooperate in a sale of the facility if the bondholders decide to sell, deny the City of Central Falls any role in the oversight or management of the facility, and emphasize the board’s obligation to maximize value to bondholders over any of its obligations to the people of Central Falls.
The Detention Facility Corporation on Wednesday also voted unanimously to endorse a two-year employment agreement with Warden Daniel W. Martin with an option for an additional two years. In the agreement, Martin is described as “a key employee of the Corporation” who has “provided leadership and stability and acted in the best interests of the Corporation and its creditors.”
“The Corporation seeks to retain Martin … for the continued stability and high-level operational performance of the Corporation,” the agreement states.
Martin will be paid a base salary of $130,000, which will increase to $135,000 on Jan. 1, 2020. He’s also set to receive a $10,000 lump sum payment upon execution of the agreement, and he could receive an annual $10,000 performance bonus effective in the 2020 calendar year.
The Detention Facility Corporation in July 2015 selected the 27-year corrections industry veteran as the new full-time warden at the Wyatt Detention Facility. Prior to that, he served as a correctional major at the facility for nearly two years.