PROVIDENCE -- Governor Carcieri has released a list of 192 names of people who called state officials in the days after The Station nightclub fire to affirm that they were safe, or who were otherwise reported as OK.
The Providence Journal had filed suit to get the list, arguing that it was a public document, after the governor initially contended it should be kept secret.
The newspaper is trying to account for every person who was in the West Warwick nightclub when it burned down Feb. 20, killing 100 people in the deadliest fire in state history.
Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said yesterday that the governor still believes the list is exempt from public-disclosure laws, but decided to release it anyway.
"The governor decided that, on balance, the privacy rights of the individuals on that list would not be significantly impaired," Neal said. "The governor has made clear that in all cases he would prefer to err on the side of openness."
Carcieri has refused to release names of Station survivors from a second list, maintained by the Department of Human Services, and that dispute is expected to be decided in court.
THE JOURNAL has identified 432 people who were in The Station at the time of the fire, during the Feb. 20 concert by the California rock band Great White. The number includes those who died.
The list from Carcieri contains the names of 121 people The Journal has already identified as being in the fire. The governor's list also contains a few duplicate names, and the names of people who The Journal has confirmed were not at the fire, but who were reported safe anyway for various reasons.
More than 40 names from the governor's list have not been confirmed either way.
The Journal is attempting to determine whether any of those people were in the building when Great White's pyrotechnic display ignited flammable soundproofing foam. The fire destroyed the club in minutes.
IN THE days after the fire, the state faced several struggles:
To identify the bodies of victims.
To determine who was missing or hurt.
To try to obtain an accurate count of how many people were in the building at the time of the fire.
In response, the governor made public pleas after the fire for anyone who was in the club to call and report that they were safe. Names of those who responded were added to a list maintained by the state's Emergency Management Agency.
The public-records dispute over the names began in April, when The Journal tried to get them through a formal records request.
Carcieri's office argued that the EMA list was generated from direct requests by the governor, and was privileged communication between the chief executive and his constituents.
The governor's recent decision to provide the names to The Journal came after discussions over several months between lawyers for both sides, Neal said.
Another public-records dispute over names of fire survivors remains unresolved.
The Department of Human Services has its own list of people who have applied to the state for benefits due to The Station disaster, according to Carcieri's office. Some of the people on that list were in the fire.
Carcieri's office has said that releasing the Human Services list would identify people who have applied for state benefits, which, Neal argues, exempts the list from the Open Records Law. "I think it is a very obvious and specific exemption," he said.
Journal lawyer Joseph V. Cavanagh Jr. said he will file by next week a supplemental memo in the case, seeking the names and addresses of those people on the Department of Human Services list who were in the fire. The Journal is not seeking any information about state benefits, or any information about people who were not at The Station on Feb. 20, he said.
In addition, the paper has ongoing court action to get fire department and police records and dispatch tapes related to The Station, and records that specify where each body was recovered.
In November, Attorney General Patrick Lynch released a portion of the police tapes and fire records, under a consent agreement approved by the Superior Court.
