Author Phil West speaks on his new book "Secrets & Scandals", which details 20 years of political corruption in RI and the reforms that have changed it.

WESTERLY – Saturday, November 15th, at 1 p.m., author H. Philip West will be speaking at Westerly Library on his new book, “Secrets & Scandals: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006.” Phil West was dubbed by the Providence Journal the “godfather of political reform in Rhode Island.” He served for eighteen years, 1988-2006, as executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. His first assignment was to prepare an ethics complaint against Rhode Island’s sitting Governor, Edward D. DiPrete. In January 1989, Common Cause Rhode Island filed that complaint, which resulted in Ethics Commission findings of violation and a record fine. Seven years later, DiPrete pled guilty to related criminal charges and served eleven months in prison.

West then served as vice chairperson and primary lobbyist in a successful drive that won landmark reforms in ethics and the financing of campaigns, as well as a constitutional amendment that established four-year terms for statewide General Officers. In 1994, West’s group, RIght Now!, pushed successfully for a pair of constitutional amendments that created a public process for merit selection of all Rhode Island state judges and that modernized Rhode Island’s General Assembly.

“Secrets & Scandals” gives the details of all of the players in this 20 year period of corruption in Rhode Island. The book opens with a quote from Raymond Patriarca, who was reputed to operate organized crime in the Northeast from a small storefront in Providence. He said “it’s easier to corrupt a small state. If you have some dirty cops, some dirty politicians and a judge or two, you can corrupt the whole system.”
Featured are Governor Edward DiPrete, the only elected Governor to go to prison, the abrasive but honest Gov. Sundlun, past mayor of Providence, Buddy Cianci, and Pawtucket Mayor Brian Sarault, both of whom also spent time in prison, and many other players in this period of Rhode Island reform.

West states “I hope this narrative from Rhode Island’s latest ‘era of reform’ demystifies the workings of government for ordinary people who sometimes feel so disgusted that they leave politics to the mercenaries.” “Secrets & Scandals” provides all of the backroom details of how ethical reform is done, such as getting a constitutional convention that established a new ethics commission, giving that commission teeth and protecting it from politicians who wanted to water it down and weaken it, getting a ban on gifts to public officials, and creating a system for selecting judges that ends a reliance on political dealmaking.

Programs at the library are free, open to the public, and handicapped accessible.