Federal judge schedules contempt hearing in Johnston eminent domain dispute

One week after a Rhode Island federal judge ruled Johnston’s attempted seizure of a 31-acre property for a proposed apartment complex was unlawful, its owners are asking the court to hold town officials in contempt as they still try to take the land.

U.S. District Court Judge Melissa DuBose on Tuesday afternoon scheduled a show cause hearing Friday morning, requiring Johnston officials to explain why they should not be held in contempt for violating her 2025 order blocking the town’s condemnation effort.

In a motion filed earlier Tuesday, attorneys representing the property owners, Salvatore Compagnone and the Santoro family, argued Johnston officials violated the 2025 injunction by continuing to pursue condemnation of the property through a pair of resolutions approved at a special Town Council meeting on Friday, July 31.

One resolution placed a measure on the November ballot to amend the town’s charter to expand the local government’s condemnation authority. The other authorized the creation of a Town Municipal Public Building Authority, which would oversee town-owned property maintenance and repairs.

Asked for comment on the upcoming hearing, Dominique Turner, deputy chief of staff for Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena Jr., said in an email “motions cannot be ignored.”

“Judge DuBose is responding to their motion as she would with anybody else,” Turner wrote.

But the town is asking that the hearing be pushed to Wednesday, Aug. 11, noting in a court filing made at 4:20 p.m. Tuesday that their attorneys are unavailable Friday.

The Santoro family planned to build a 252-unit affordable housing complex on the site on George Waterman Road. But when they met with the town’s planning board for a pre-application meeting for their income-restricted apartment complex in December 2024,  Polisena issued a public letter opposing the development. 

Polisena warned that the town would “fight back” using “all the power of government” available to stop the project. 

On March 10, 2025, the Johnston Town Council voted 5-0 to begin the legal process of condemning the site after obtaining an appraisal that found the property was worth $775,000. The Santoro family sued the town the same night, arguing the condemnation effort was pretexual and violated the Fifth and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect against the taking of private property without a valid public purpose.

Polisena had stated he wanted the land to construct a new public safety complex and town hall to replace the town’s aging buildings.

On March 19, 2025, DuBose issued a temporary restraining order, halting the town from taking further action for 30 days. That restraining order was converted into a preliminary injunction less than a month later, which prevented the town from seizing the property while the legal process played out.

“The only thing the town needed to do to comply with the PI was to do nothing,” the Santoro family’s attorneys wrote in Tuesday’s court filing.

DuBose’s order Tuesday directs the town’s attorneys to produce the agenda, meeting minutes and any signed resolutions from the Town Council’s July 31 special meeting.