(May 16, 2024) The Inquirer and Mirror’s Letterbag page is Nantucket’s marketplace of ideas. Share your thoughts, ideas and opinions about the issues affecting island life with the community. Letters must be signed and contain a phone number and address for verification. The deadline is 4 p.m. Tuesday. Letters are subject to editing for length, grammar and clarity. E-mail them to newsroom@inkym.com or drop them off at our Milestone Rotary office.
Below is a sampling of letters published this week. To read all letters published in The Inquirer and Mirror each week, subscribe to the digital replica e-edition here
More work to do on STRs
To the Editor:
A recent I& M editorial (“Enough Already”) correctly points out that the next step in the STR marathon is the ZBA’s upcoming decision on the definitions of primary usage and accessory usage. But as important as that ruling will be, it won’t be enough.
Though zoning may be settled, we will still need a simple and coherent set of regulations to govern the operation of STRs in a balanced and sustainable way.
Already on the books are a few regulations on noise and nuisance, and now on corporate ownership. But those are just “baby steps,” as Brooke Mohr put it at Town Meeting.
Commercial or investor-only owners and operators may find a way to circumvent definitions of accessory use, perhaps through debatable claims of living in the property during the off-season or through contrived “long-term” off-season rental contracts. Regulations will have more teeth.
How many STRs can one person own and operate? Is there a minimum length of stay in the high season (to help reduce churn)? Can we limit the number of newly-formed STRs? Should there be a cap on the total number STRs allowed on the island?
We all look forward to the ZBA’s ruling, but more work lies ahead.
JIM SULZER
Former member, STR workgroup
Voices heard at Town Meeting
To the Editor:
To those who attended Town Meeting, thank you. To those who spoke up, thank you for giving the rest of us the courage to as well.
MEGHAN PERRY
Time for a new form of government?
To the Editor:
Rest in peace, Annual Town Meeting.
It’s more obvious after this year’s ATM that the need and time for a new form of government is necessary.
Three days to complete the articles put forth, a second session in the fall, writing amendments during the session and a host of eligible, registered voters missing.
Nantucket is burgeoning, the needs of the town are burgeoning and the speed and alacrity of new issues being addressed underscore the need for a change to a more flexible, responsive form of town government.
Unfortunately, we will be leaving the island – to watch our grandkids grow up.
Will miss the people, the personality and the pristine nature of the island. We’re happy to have had the opportunity to experience and live in this community.
We wish all the best.
JOHN RICCIO
Looking forward to Special Town Meeting
To the Editor:
I want to say a few things about Town Meeting. The warrant was loaded with important and thought-provoking articles and it’s not surprising it took three nights to complete. I would call it forward-thinking on a number of fronts. The voters who participated need to be commended for exhibiting dedication and intelligence.
I am proud to be a Nantucket citizen and I am already looking forward to Special Town Meeting in September. I hope Sarah Alger gets her voice back to lead us. On to the election.
KATHY RICHEN
Town Meeting has run its course
To the Editor:
I thank the I&M for questioning the value of Town Meeting as a vehicle for direct democracy. It is not. It was not even before all the people left after the Article 59 vote last Tuesday.
Nantucket needs a voting system like the one that other “modern” municipalities have, which is to give every registered voter the right to vote in the mail or in person at the voting booth.
Meri Lepore made the emphatic point that she could be at Town Meeting because she was able to pay a babysitter to watch her kids for the time that it took to vote on all of the articles. How many can do that?
Looking at the crowd, it cannot escape even the casual observer that there were lots of people with gray or white hair.
Finally, the outrageous manipulations during Town Meeting by the Planning Board also prove how susceptible it is to giving too much power to special interests. Maybe the townspeople present finally realized that they had had enough even if they were leaning in the direction of voting yes on Article 59. Maybe the Planning Board and Steve Cohen had over-played their hand. MAUREEN SEARLE
Thanks for voting down Article 59
To the Editor:
Thank you to the record number of voters who came to Annual Town Meeting May 7 to participate and vote your view on so many articles but, above all, those about short-term rentals. This discussion is far from over, but the defeat of Article 59 permits us to consider better alternatives.
We are committed to listening to and working with all STR stake-holders who are interested in good-faith discussions seeking a resolution of this important matter. Our objective is to give the overall security and stability of the island and its year-round neighborhoods and residents first priority, rather than the interests of those who only seek to profit from Nantucket. We appreciate the faith in that goal shown by your votes. It resonated.
Thank you, in particular, to those who stood to express their views to their fellow voters, and also to everyone else who voiced their views by pushing button 2 to reject Article 59. That collective action may have saved our island. We are grateful and honored by your help. We will stay in touch.
On behalf of Put Nantucket Neighborhoods First, CHARITY BENZ and EMILY KILVERT
Musings on Town Meeting
To the Editor:
At Town Meeting, hearing the good sense of neighbors Nat Philbrick evoking our fabled past and Lee Saperstein recounting our old reliance on windmills – the acme of hightech for centuries – I had to chuckle at the blustery, ludicrous irony of others attacking windmills.
While these modern Don Quixotes denounced windmills as enemies of pristine views and whales, I was picturing our town in the past: streets littered with animal waste, air stinking of whale oil and our harbor and shore views cluttered with huge canvas sails, all engineered to kill those whales.
As a diver, I’ve seen how undersea formations like rocks, coral reefs (which our overheating oceans are destroying) and even wind turbine bases provide rooting and shelter for sea life.
Also, young Tom Moakley, now running to be our next state representative, recently pointed out to some of us new research by our Cape neighbor, the renowned Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. WHOI reports (online at Oceanus, May 9, 2024) that “Of all the right whales that have died over the last several decades, the cause of death is always vessel strikes or fishing gear entanglements,” adding, “Curiously, those causes of death aren’t mentioned in anti- wind, save-the-whale campaigns.”
Scientists worry too, says the report, about noise. Thus, “scientists, wind developers and government agencies” are striving to monitor whale traffic, so that pile-driving, etc. to build wind turbines can only take place when whales are elsewhere “on migration.”
Lastly, Town Meeting was inordinately dragged out by people who often began by saying things like, “I don’t know much about . . . but,” and then rambling on, at times less than coherently. And someone else even tried to overturn a vote. Perhaps it’s time for us to consider an elected representative form of Town Meeting as the citizens in Falmouth now do.
HAZIEL JACKSON
Walkers thank Boys & Girls Club
To the Editor:
We would like to extend our sincere thank you to the Boys & d Girls Club for generously providing the use of their gym for indoor walking on Tuesdays and Thursdays from Oct. 17, 2023 to May 16, 2024.
They were so very accommodating, having the facility open and available and the gym immaculate, well-lit and warm from the winter chill.
A special thank you to chief executive officer Jamie Foster, director of operations Fernando Jones, the staff members and the board of directors.
This walking program has benefited so many community members, and we look forward to a continued relationship.
NANCY SWAIN
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