By Gina Macris
Journal Staff Writer
Every day, Harriet Lloyd rises between 5 and 6 a.m. in her Westerly home and, over coffee, prepares a news digest for conservative Rhode Island.
She is one of a handful of volunteers who form the backbone of the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition, which takes as its goals ethical government and prudent spending. Toward these ends, it has endorsed candidates challenging the leadership of the General Assembly in the coming election.
The work Lloyd does, as a volunteer, resembles her former professional role as a freelance writer, editor and consultant for colleges, libraries and museums that commissioned her to write newsletters and turn out annual reports.
But these days her work is closer to her heart. And her efforts resonate.
When Lloyd pushes the button on the daily “RISC-Y” newsletter from her kitchen counter, the message pops up in more than 4,000 e-mail boxes.
If she misses her self-imposed 8 a.m. deadline by even an hour, Lloyd says, she starts to get e-mails from subscribers asking if she’s all right.
In Providence, William Felkner, who once crisscrossed the country as a marketing executive and entrepreneur, now brings those skills to the think tank he created, the Ocean State Policy Research Institute.
As one of two full-time employees of the nonprofit foundation, Felkner, 45, says he feels blessed to be able to do the work he loves.
Felkner started OSPRI last year with a $50,000 grant from the State Policy Network, a nationwide organization that supports state-level think tanks dedicated to limiting the role of government and letting a free market solve many of society’s problems.
At the end of its first full year of operation in July 2008, OSPRI raised a total of nearly $209,000, Felkner said.
Principal donors were the State Policy Network and the like-minded Atlas Economic Resource Foundation, he said.
In the last few years, the passion of people like Lloyd and Felkner to limit the reach of Rhode Island government has attracted large commitments of time and money.
RISC has been able to afford $50,000 in legal fees for written arguments in a case involving Narragansett Indian-owned land in Charlestown. The case, a challenge to the Interior Department’s holding the property in trust — land that some fear may become a casino site — is to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 3.
According to its annual report to the Internal Revenue Service, RISC took in more than $71,000 in its fourth year of operation ending Sept. 30, 2007. Almost all revenues came from dues from the membership, which has grown to 4,000 people since the group was begun in 2003.
Leaders of both RISC and OSPRI say their success stems partly from a dedicated volunteer effort and partly from being in the right place at the right time.
OSPRI’s Felkner said, “Rhode Island is in a bad spot, with a half-a-billion-dollar deficit.”
Harry Staley, the founder of RISC, said, “We came along at a time when people were interested in a lot of the issues we were interested in.” Two such issues are property tax relief and greater local control of affordable housing, he said.
Some nuanced differences, structural and philosophical, separate OSPRI and RISC.
OSPRI does not endorse political candidates, but Felkner is a member of the Chariho Regional School Committee and an independent candidate for the Town Council in Hopkinton.
One of OSPRI’s chief volunteers, David Anderson, has taken a leave from speaking engagements on behalf of the organization while he campaigns against Democratic House Majority Leader Gordon Fox.
As a political action committee, RISC has endorsed a roster of General Assembly candidates including Edward J. O’Neill, past president of the Lincoln Taxpayers Association, who is trying to unseat Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano in District 17.
The two organizations share a zeal for access to public records, each one sponsoring Web sites encouraging the public to seek public records and question their governments.
Lloyd’s volunteerism follows the example of her father, RISC founder Staley, whose energy belies his 78 years.
Staley started the coalition from a group of Westerly citizens who had worked for the election of Town Council candidates opposed to the elimination of local fire and water districts in 2002.
“I’m probably working harder now than I worked when I worked,” said Staley, a retired fundraiser for colleges, museums, libraries and community organizations who summered in Westerly for many years and made it his permanent home in 1985. RISC gained notoriety in 2004 when it pushed — unsuccessfully — for legislation to allow nonresident property owners to vote on local financial questions in Westerly.
Nonresident voting is allowed in Connecticut and about 18 or 19 other states, Staley said.
But in Westerly, “we got branded as the rich white shoreline people trying to run the town.”
Lloyd said that when she and her husband settled in Westerly 10 years ago, she was made to feel like an outsider for raising questions about the way the town was run. But Lloyd, whose civic duty includes a stint as the president of a local school board in New Jersey, said anyone who lives in a community is part of it.
And “if you live in a community you need to study up on it,” she said.
The RISC Web site is www.risc-ri.org.
The OSPRI Web site is www.oceanstatepolicy.org.
gmacris@projo.com
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