§ 23-25.2-3. Pesticide relief advisory board established - Appointment of members. (a) There is created a pesticide relief advisory board consisting of eleven (11) members: one member shall be the chairperson of the joint committee on the environment or his or her designee, ex officio, and is referred to as the legislative member; the other ten (10) members shall be referred to as public members, and shall be appointed as follows: one public member shall be a faculty member in the department of plant pathology and entomology at the University of Rhode Island, to be appointed by the governor; the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the house, and the president of the senate shall each appoint one public member; the lieutenant governor shall appoint a public member who shall be a person engaged in full time vocation as an agricultural farmer; one public member shall be a professional toxicologist or a physician with sufficient experience in public health as it relates to pesticides or toxicology, to be appointed by the governor; one public member shall be a faculty member in environmental studies at a Rhode Island college or university, to be appointed by the governor; and one public member shall be a representative of the urban pest control industry or the chemical or pesticide industry, to be appointed by the governor and two (2) public members shall be representatives of the community at large, to be appointed by the governor.

(b) The terms of office of the members of the board shall be as follows: the legislative member shall serve until the end of his or her legislative term; the governor shall appoint faculty members to succeed faculty members whose terms expire to hold office for a term of two (2) years commencing on the first day of February next following. In the month of January in any year in which a public member's term of office expires, the appointing authority shall appoint a successor to the member whose term shall expire in that year, to hold office for a term of two (2) years commencing on the first day of February next following. All members shall serve until their successors are appointed and qualified. Any vacancy other than by expiration shall be filled in like manner as the original appointment, but only for the unexpired portion of the term. All appointments shall be made in a timely manner.

(c) Immediately upon the completion of the initial appointments, the board shall meet at the call of the director and shall elect from among themselves a chairperson.

History of Section. (P.L. 1985, ch. 260, § 1; P.L. 2001, ch. 86, § 84; P.L. 2001, ch. 180, § 52.)