10/10/2026
South Kingstown Whistleblower Lawsuit Targets Fire Inspection and Licensing Practices
SOUTH KINGSTOWN — A whistleblower lawsuit filed by Union Fire District Assistant Fire Marshal Keith Maine alleges businesses were approved as compliant with fire safety requirements without inspections or while documented violations remained unresolved. Maine also alleges his full time position was later reduced to part time after he repeatedly raised concerns about inspection and licensing practices with District Administrator Brian Mahoney.
The case, filed in Washington County Superior Court, provides a public account of what Maine says occurred inside the Union Fire District and identifies records his attorneys are now seeking through discovery that could confirm or dispute his claims.
Maine was sworn in as Assistant Fire Marshal in November 2023. According to the lawsuit, it was a paid full time position. Dennis Bernier became Fire Marshal at roughly the same time. Maine had previously worked as a paid firefighter for other departments and had experience as a fire marshal before taking the position with the Union Fire District.
According to the complaint, Maine began noticing problems with the way inspections and business licensing were being handled. He alleges some businesses were marked in the permitting system as having completed inspections before an inspection had actually taken place. Maine says he later inspected some of those locations and found fire code violations.
At one location, Maine alleges a prelicensing inspection uncovered approximately 50 fire code violations, but the business was still being considered for approval. The lawsuit also alleges another business was approved despite violations that had not been corrected. Maine further alleges that Bernier approved a permit using Maine's login credentials.
The allegation involving Maine's login cannot currently be independently confirmed through the records available to Thy Back Door. Maine's attorneys are now seeking OpenGov, EPR and other database audit logs showing access, modifications, approvals or deletions made using Maine's credentials. Those records could eventually establish who actually entered individual approvals into the system.
South Kingstown's publicly available licensing information says applications are reviewed by the appropriate departments to ensure compliance with state laws and town ordinances before being placed on the Town Council agenda for approval.
Town Clerk Nichole Romane also described what the town understood a Fire Marshal approval to include. Romane said her understanding was that approval included passing Fire Marshal inspections and compliance with all fire codes. She also referenced life safety inspections and occupancy documentation as part of the process where applicable.
Maine's lawsuit does not simply allege disagreements over paperwork or internal procedure. His claim is that approvals were being entered in cases where inspections had not occurred or documented violations remained unresolved.
Thy Back Door also reviewed 225 business and liquor licensing records that were analyzed by a confidential source familiar with the Union Fire District inspection process. According to that analysis, approximately 41 percent of the records were identified as approved without an inspection. Another 17 percent were identified as approved with active or unresolved documented violations. About 16 percent were identified as inspected with no documented violations.
Approximately 6 percent were marked as not requiring an inspection. Another 12 percent were handled by the separate Kingston Fire District and were therefore outside the Union Fire District review. The remaining approximately 7 percent involved other circumstances or could not be clearly classified from the information available.
The phrase "inspected with no documented violations" is intentionally limited. It means the records reviewed by the source did not contain documented violations associated with those inspections. It does not establish that no problem could have existed or that an inspector could have addressed something without documenting it.
Thy Back Door is not identifying individual businesses included in the review. The allegations concern the government inspection and approval process, not necessarily the conduct of businesses seeking licenses. A business could have properly submitted its application and relied on the Fire District to perform whatever inspections and approvals were required.
Maine's lawsuit also alleges that the concerns were brought to District leadership well before his position was reduced. According to the complaint, Maine began reporting suspected violations involving fire safety, inspections and licensing practices to District Administrator Brian Mahoney in April 2025. Maine alleges Mahoney repeatedly responded that he would take care of the concerns, but that no corrective action followed.
Mahoney became District Administrator in March 2025 after working for the South Kingstown School Department, where he had served in facilities and transportation positions. When the Union Fire District announced his appointment, Mahoney described the fire service as a new field that he was learning.
On May 1, 2026, Maine alleges Mahoney called him into his office and told him the Board of Wardens had determined that his full time Assistant Fire Marshal position would be reduced to part time effective July 1. According to the complaint, Mahoney could not provide Maine with specifics regarding the terms of the new part time position.
Maine further alleges that two Board members knew nothing about a decision to reduce his position and that the Board's meeting records contained no vote or substantive discussion concerning the reduction.
A review of publicly posted Board of Wardens agendas and minutes surrounding the alleged decision did not identify an open discussion or recorded vote reducing Maine's position. Our review also did not identify a publicly noticed executive session concerning that specific employment action.
Rhode Island's Open Meetings Act allows public bodies to discuss certain personnel matters in executive session. However, a public body must still publicly vote to enter executive session and identify the legal basis for closing the meeting. The closed discussion itself may remain confidential, but the executive session does not disappear entirely from the public meeting record.
Maine's lawsuit includes a separate Open Meetings Act claim alleging that the Board failed to provide notice of a discussion concerning his position, failed to report a vote reducing it and failed to record the action in its minutes. The absence of a publicly recorded vote does not establish that an illegal meeting occurred. It does, however, leave unresolved how the decision attributed to the Board was actually made.
Several of the larger questions raised by the lawsuit cannot yet be answered from publicly available records. It remains unknown who entered each disputed approval into the District's permitting systems or whether another employee actually used Maine's credentials. The public record also does not establish what actions Mahoney may have taken internally after Maine says he reported the licensing concerns, or what the Rhode Island State Fire Marshal knew or did after concerns reached that office. Those are among the issues Maine's attorneys are now seeking to examine through discovery.
Requests for production filed September 22 seek inspection and licensing records, communications involving Maine, Bernier and Mahoney, records involving the State Fire Marshal's Office, Board meeting and executive session records, and database audit logs showing access, changes, approvals or deletions involving Maine's credentials. The lawsuit remains pending, and none of Maine's allegations have yet been adjudicated.
What is currently public is that an Assistant Fire Marshal has formally accused the Union Fire District of allowing businesses to be approved without inspections or while documented violations remained unresolved, and alleges his full time position was reduced after he repeatedly reported those concerns.
The licensing records and public Board meeting records provide additional context to those allegations, but the questions of who was responsible, what District officials knew, what actions were taken internally and whether any laws were violated remain unresolved. Those answers may not become clear until the lawsuit moves further through discovery.
The lawsuit has also reached the South Kingstown Town Council. An agenda posted for the Council’s September 28 meeting schedules a closed executive session to ‘discuss and/or act upon’ litigation including Maine v. The Union Fire District of South Kingstown, WC-2026-0479.
