Uprise RI · Adriana Vossari · September 3, 2026
The Richmond Town Council adopted a social media policy requiring public comments to be disabled on official town accounts, over the objection of Council President Samantha Wilcox.
Town, department, and board pages are to run as one-way information channels with commenting off. Residents wanting to respond must email staff, write the town clerk, or speak at public forum.
The Richmond Town Council voted 3-1 to adopt a social media policy that requires public commenting to be disabled on the town's official accounts, according to the council's published meeting recording.
The practical effect for residents is straightforward: pages run by the town, its departments, and its volunteer boards and commissions are to operate as one-way channels for information, with commenting and other interactive features switched off . Residents who want to respond to the town would need to email staff, write to the town clerk, or speak during public forum at council meetings.
The motion approved the draft policy with amendments to Section 5. As read into the record by the council member who moved it, the amended language would direct the town administrator to establish official town accounts as one-way channels of governmental communication and to keep public commenting or other interactive features disabled. The same member said any remaining language listing factors to weigh in deciding whether to allow comments could come out, "because there aren't going to be any."
The policy grew out of an incident on the town's main government page in the late spring, according to the town administrator's account at the meeting. Erin, the town administrator, said actions were taken then to protect the integrity of the page and that a written policy was sought to back those actions up. A first version drew council comments and was redrafted; the version before the council was described as a draft for council direction.
The sharpest disagreement was not about the incident but about the middle ground the draft created. As written, the policy would have let the town administrator turn commenting on or off using a rubric — a set of stated criteria intended to make the decision consistent rather than case by case.
One council member said that discretion was the problem and argued the town should simply leave comments on. That member said the accounts had been fine, that other town-owned pages had seen no issues, and that a vulgar comment posted during the budget process "reflects more on the person using it than the town having it on their page." The same member said the choice should be all the way on or all the way off, not toggled post by post, and objected to a records-retention section referring to preserving deleted comments, saying there should not be any deleted comments.
A second council member took the opposite position and moved the amendment. That member said the policy describes the accounts as informational, so they should be a one-way transmission to the community. Policing comments and correcting inaccurate information, that member said, wastes staff time and pulls attention from the underlying post. That council member also agreed that a sometimes-on, sometimes-off approach carries risk, but concluded the accounts should be off.
Another council member drew a comparison to the 250th anniversary Liberty Tree dedication held earlier that day, saying notices pinned to a Liberty Tree were never a two-way street, and that town websites have historically been one-directional as well. That member said the town is not restricting participation because public forum and council meetings remain open, and noted no one had spoken at public forum that night.
On the roll call, Councilor Daniel Madnick voted yes, Councilor Michael Colasante voted yes, a third council member voted yes, and Council President Samantha Wilcox voted no. "No offense," Wilcox said. "Not my cup of tea."
A second thread of the debate concerned control of the accounts themselves. A council member noted the draft defines official town accounts to include volunteer boards and commissions, and asked how the town would manage pages administered by volunteers who may not serve long term.
The town administrator said the policy, once adopted, would be sent to all boards and commissions with accounts, and that she would seek to be added as a secondary credential holder. She said the town had already lost some content when a commission page had only one owner.
Multiple speakers described the mechanics: Facebook page access is granted through an individual's personal profile rather than a shared login. A council member raised the scenario of a departing employee refusing to hand over access, saying the risk is "giving the key to the kingdom to one person." The town administrator said she is the sole user on the main town government page, and that a departure there would be the more critical problem. She said she would ask the town's website vendor whether a generic town account could be created and the pages transferred to it.
No separate vote was taken on the credential question. The adopted policy leaves that work to the administrator's follow-up with the town's boards, commissions, and vendor.
The council's next regular meeting was discussed at the meeting as being scheduled for October 6, with a 6 p.m. start time noted rather than the usual 7 p.m.
This story was sourced from the complete transcript of the meeting. While we make every effort to ensure accuracy, the possibility of transcription errors could lead to inaccuracies.
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