PROVIDENCE — With this year’s legislative session racing to a close, North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi came to the State House yesterday to match his political capital against that of current state Rep. Peter Petrarca, D-Lincoln, and former state Rep. Vincent Mesolella, a once-powerful Smith Hill Democrat from North Providence.

In the Senate, he had luck.

The Senate Judiciary Committee without dissent passed a bill allowing North Providence to take, by eminent domain, a 15-acre parcel now known as Camp Meehan that the mayor and the Town Council want to keep out of the hands of developers, and preserve as open space.

The committee approved the bill sponsored by Senators Frank Ciccone and Dominick Ruggerio, whose districts include North Providence, after Lombardi pleaded with the lawmakers to pass the bill as, he said, they usually do when confronted with a town resolution asking for legislative help.

The town is seeking to acquire the Camp Meehan parcel, adjacent to Governor Notte Park and the Lincoln town line, to block a developer’s attempt to buy the land and use it to build townhouses or, failing that, an amusement park.

Lombardi told the senators North Providence has “the least amount of open space left of any community in the state of Rhode Island...All this is is to ensure that this land remains exactly what it is: open space,” and “we wholeheartedly need your help and your support for the residents of the Town of North Providence to ensure that for our children, their children and their children for years to come they will enjoy the use of this property.”

The bill now moves to the full Senate, and from there to the House, where a nearly identical bill has run into a potential end-of-session roadblock in the House Corporations Committee, whose members include the would-be developer’s son. After a June 3 hearing, the House committee voted to hold the bill for more study.

The land, owned by Capital City Community Centers, has long been home to a summer day camp that has been operated annually by Capital City. Early last year, the agency, which also operates a couple of community centers in Providence, entered into an agreement with Lincoln developer John Petrarca under which his firm, Generation Realty, would purchase the property for $1 million and give the agency 25 acres next to a lake in Burrillville, presumably to allow the camping program to continue there.

Petrarca, the developer, is the father of both Representative Petrarca, who is vice chairman of the House committee where the bill stalled and, as lawmaker Petrarca confirmed, Jina Petrarca-Karampetsos, who is registered agent for a company, VMJP Realty, at the same 330 Silver Spring St. address as Generation Realty, whose only named principal is former Representative Mesolella.

“I’m not going to meet with him, but it was suggested at one point in time that we meet with Vin Mesolella and Mr. Petrarca. and my [response] is, why should I, they don’t own the property?”

Mesolella was not at yesterday’s brief hearing in the Senate, but he was introduced at earlier town-level meetings as the consultant who helped to pave the way for the purchase-and-sales agreement between John Petrarca, the principal owner of Generation Realty, and Capital City Community Centers, by providing the 25 acres of wooded land in Burrillville that would be part of the $1-million transaction.

Lombardi yesterday said he thought he had a commitment from House Majority Leader Gordon Fox to pass the eminent domain bill. But Fox spokesman Larry Berman yesterday said Fox said he supports open space in general, but “gave him no commitment” and still hasn’t reviewed the language. The bill’s fate “hasn’t been determined yet,” he said.

In an interview after the Senate hearing, Lombardi said the House hearing hit him as odd. Even though Petrarca recused himself from the vote, Lombardi said: “We went to a hearing, the chairman is sitting at the head of the table, to his right is Mr. Petrarca’s son. Whether he got involved in the vote doesn’t matter to me. He shouldn’t even have been in the room.”

kgregg@projo.com