Month: August 2023

Newsletter: August 13 2023

Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage Asso­ci­a­tion Newslet­ter:
I have been talk­ing with the Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage Asso­ci­a­tion and more specif­i­cal­ly Sue Eleft­her­akis, who has tak­en over their newslet­ter.  We have decid­ed that their newslet­ter will be focused on local vil­lage events and keep­ing every­one up to date on what dif­fer­ent groups are offer­ing.  I would like to focus more on issues that con­cern Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage, Cum­maquid and the wider town, along with town events and meet­ings that are of inter­est to res­i­dents.  Thanks to Sue for tak­ing this on.  If you have an event you would like to be in the BVA newslet­ter con­tact Sue in the next week for her Sep­tem­ber 1 newslet­ter. 
http://suekurz25@gmail.com

Office Hours:  I have restart­ed office hours at Stur­gis Library, the first Wednes­day of the month, 3:00–5:00.  Come by with you ques­tions and com­ments on any ideas or thoughts you’d like to dis­cuss.  The next day is: Sep­tem­ber 6th.  Five res­i­dents showed up to talk about issues includ­ing bury­ing elec­tric lines,  jet noise, water sup­ply and firetruck access.

Town Coun­cil Meet­ing:    The next Town Coun­cil Meet­ing is August 17th at 7:00.

Sur­vey­ing:  The two sur­vey crews work­ing on 6A west of the Vil­lage have fin­ished their work. I will set up a meet­ing with the Mass. Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion before they begin side­walk design, so we can learn what their guide­lines are for width, ramps and gran­ite curbing.….

Wilkens Lane Hous­ing:  The Fire Depart­ment has been doing inspec­tions and walk-throughs dur­ing con­struc­tion and the water has been turned on in build­ing #1.  As for oth­er build­ings on adja­cent land, there have been no offi­cial fil­ings or inquiries that I am aware of.

The Barn­sta­ble Fire Dis­trict Water Depart­ment 
I try to get to every Water Dis­trict meet­ing (the sec­ond Tues­day  the month at 2:30 at the water Dis­trict offices.)  The fire hydrant was replaced in front of the Cape Cod Organ­ic Farm. The plans for the new water treat­ment plant are being fin­ished and reviewed.  The con­tract for con­struc­tion should be award­ed by the end of Octo­ber.  With some major redesigns, Super­in­ten­dent, Sean Ander­son, has kept this process mov­ing quick­ly so we do not lose our place for low inter­est loans from the State.
One reminder is to keep an eye and ear on your toi­lets as leaks can run up your water bill. For some this has cost hun­dreds of dol­lars. Kim checks for meter read­ings that are anom­alies but the meters are only read every three months.

Indi­an Trail Road.
Work­ing with res­i­dents and the DPW, signs will be installed soon to lim­it park­ing to one side of the road down near the beach.  There are con­cerns with pub­lic safe­ty and the inabil­i­ty of emer­gency vehi­cles access­ing the end of the road.

Scud­der’s Lane Ramp
This plan is close to being fin­ished but it is present­ly at the state lev­el for review of the place­ment of the ADA ramp.  As soon as we can we will set up a pub­lic meet­ing to review the plans.

Oak Street Trans­former Sta­tion
Ever­source is in the mid­dle of a Mid-Cape Reli­a­bil­i­ty Project.  This includes the addi­tion of anoth­er high-ten­sion wire from the Cape Cod Canal to Oak Street.  The site on Oak Street will be devel­oped in the next few weeks to accom­mo­date this line.  Here is a way to link to the con­struc­tion time­line and the Project Web­site:
https://www.eversource.com/content/residential/about/transmission-distribution/projects/massachusetts-projects/mid-cape-reliability-project

One Cape Con­fer­ence: July 31 and August 1
This year­ly, two day, con­fer­ence spon­sored by the Cape Cod Com­mis­sion brings togeth­er town plan­ners, munic­i­pal lead­ers, State pol­i­cy mak­ers and those inter­est­ed on learn­ing more about the plan­ning efforts by dif­fer­ent towns.  The C. C. Com­mis­sion also brought in speak­ers from dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try to share their dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives on hous­ing devel­op­ment, trans­porta­tion, water infra­struc­ture and cli­mate change. 

The Vine­yard Wind sub­sta­tion along with it’s con­struc­tion ship
Wind Farm Boat Tour
I was invit­ed, along with about 100 munic­i­pal lead­ers, State leg­is­la­tors, union work­ers and press to tour the progress of the Vine­yard Wind, wind farm, 14 miles south of the Vine­yard. This trip was spon­sored by the Envi­ron­men­tal League of Mass. and Avan­grid. The con­struc­tion project is now in full for­ward mode as most of the com­po­nents are ready at the dock in New Bed­ford.  We saw 6 wind­mill bases already con­struct­ed and the rest of the 62 in total will be done by the mid­dle of Sep­tem­ber.  We also saw the large sub­sta­tion, about 7 sto­ries high, that will be the con­duit for all of the cables as they con­nect to the main­land. Soon a spe­cial ship will begin installing the vanes, fin­ish­ing one wind­mill a day!  The plan is to have pow­er gen­er­at­ed by the end of Octo­ber.  This project is one of the inte­gral parts of the State’s goal of reduc­ing our use of green­house gas­es.
Com­mon­wealth Wind (Craigville Beach) and Park City Wind(Osterville), are the two remain­ing wind pro­pos­als,  There are many ques­tions and con­cerns still to be worked out with these two projects. Stay tuned.


New Police Offi­cers
I recent­ly got to join in a cel­e­bra­tion for three new Barn­sta­ble Police offi­cers as they were sworn in by Town Clerk, Ann Quirk at the Police Sta­tion.  I got to meet the three, expe­ri­enced, ded­i­cat­ed  and enthu­si­as­tic new recruits.  We should all thank them for being will­ing to serve and strength­en­ing our pub­lic safety.

Town Coun­cil: Strate­gic Plan Meet­ing, August 10.
I will men­tion a few impor­tant issues brought up, but it was not the best forum for revis­it­ing and rewrit­ing a strate­gic plan for the next two years.  I brought up a num­ber of items that will need more time and dis­cus­sion.  Hope­ful­ly the Town Coun­cil can hold some “work­shops”, i.e. sec­tions of a a reg­u­lar meet­ing to dis­cuss them in more depth. 

#  Since the Barn­sta­ble Town Coun­cil passed a pol­i­cy to “Reduce Net Green­house Gas Emis­sions” in Novem­ber of 2020,  adap­tion and mit­i­ga­tion should be the lens through which we make all deci­sions.
#  We need to have clear zon­ing reg­u­la­tions in place before we start hook­ing up to the sew­ers.  We also need to have spe­cif­ic num­bers as to how much efflu­ent can be put in to the ground and where.
#  I sug­gest­ed a Water Qual­i­ty Advi­so­ry  Com­mit­tee be devel­oped to include Town Coun­cilors and res­i­dents to learn about and get peri­od­ic updates on con­struc­tion and plan­ning. The Com­pre­hen­sive Waste­water Man­age­ment Plan (CWMP), was devel­oped to be and should be an iter­a­tive, evolv­ing process.
#  The Town should pri­or­i­tize the com­ple­tion of the Hous­ing Pro­duc­tion Plan.
#   The town Water Dis­tricts should meet reg­u­lar­ly and look for ways to plan togeth­er and share resources as water sup­ply and qual­i­ty are town-wide con­cerns.
#  Mod­ern build­ing codes should be adopt­ed now to assure that our future and exist­ing hous­ing stocks are ener­gy effi­cient long into the future. 

More?
I know this is long, but there is a lot going on.
I am liai­son to the Board of Health and they are work­ing to final­ize their reg­u­la­tions includ­ing: the  amount of time res­i­dents have to hook up to the sew­er when the pipe in front of their house is ready. Res­i­dents need to know this soon as res­i­dents may have to start hook­ing up in March of 2024.

Uni­ty Day, August 4th was a fun, friend­ly gath­er­ing on the Hyan­nis Vil­lage Green!
Cape Cod Gate­way Air­port spon­sored a meet­ing at Town Hall about their efforts to clean up PFOS.  The top­ic is fair­ly tech­ni­cal as there are a num­ber of under­ground plumes head­ed south­east toward the Maher wells in Hyan­nis.  Who has what respon­si­bil­i­ties is still to be worked out. Here is a link to this pre­sen­ta­tion.
https://streaming85.townofbarnstable.us/CablecastPublicSite/show/10669?channel=1

These flags are on the cour­t­house lawn i the Village.

Newsletter: July 24 2023

Fourth of July Parade:  It seems like weeks ago, but thanks to every­one who helped out with the Vil­lage Parade.  And thanks to those who par­tic­i­pat­ed and watched.  We were lucky to get our parade in between the rain.  And Thanks to Kate Arm­strong for this photo.

Office Hours:  I am restart­ing office hours at Stur­gis Library, the first Wednes­day of the month, 3:00–5:00.  Come by with you ques­tions and com­ments on any ideas or thoughts you have.

Town Coun­cil Meet­ing:  Thurs­day the 20th the Town Coun­cil meet­ing last­ed from 6:00 to 11:20.  The room was packed as there was a pol­i­cy change pro­posed that would have changed the lev­el of vote need­ed to approve zon­ing changes for hous­ing in a Reg­u­la­to­ry Agree­ment area.  The effort was to bring the town’s vot­ing into align­ment with the State Hous­ing Choice pol­i­cy.  Instead of a 2/3 vote to approve a reg­u­la­to­ry agree­ment, it would have been low­ered to a major­i­ty vote.  Many res­i­dents came to show their dis­like of the change.  In the end, the Coun­cil vot­ed to with­draw the item.  This change was not man­dat­ed by the State and I did not see any rea­son to change our lev­el of vot­ing.  If a project can­not con­vince 2/3 of the Coun­cil, then maybe it needs to be be redesigned.  As in a sim­i­lar case in Fal­mouth, the devel­op­er may come back with a 40B pro­pos­al, which is a State pro­gram where a devel­op­ere­can include 25% afford­able hous­ing and bypass most town review and zon­ing reg­u­la­tions.  Stay tuned.  The next Town Coun­cil Meet­ing is August 17th.
Sur­vey­ing:  You may have also noticed two sur­vey crews work­ing on 6A west of the Vil­lage. They are doing pre­lim­i­nary work for design of new side­walks. The hope is to keep DOT mov­ing for­ward and to sur­vey, design and per­mit this sec­tion of State road so it is shov­el-ready for con­struc­tion when funds are avail­able. Hav­ing had con­ver­sa­tions with the work­ers, they have to mark every tree and obsta­cle 25′ from the cen­ter line and they still have a lot of work to do.  They have also assured me that the pink spray paint they are using is not per­ma­nent.  
Sew­er work:  The work by Robt. B. Our con­tin­ues on the pump sta­tion at the Old Barn­sta­ble House.  There have been a few work delays wait­ing for parts to be deliv­ered, but work is now pro­ceed­ing. The Freez­er Road Pump sta­tion at the har­bor is also begin­ning a com­plete over­haul due to age.  The first step is to dig a hole in the park­ing lot to install bypass pumps. This is nec­es­sary so the sta­tion build­ing can be shut down as there is a lot of elec­tri­cal work that has to be done inside the build­ing. The tim­ing is not great, but con­trac­tor sched­ules are not always flex­i­ble.
Har­ris Mead­ows Pedes­tri­an Cross­ing:  Last newslet­ter, the curbs were rebuilt and the road was wired for new signs. The flash­ing bea­cons are on order, but they are at least a month out.

Wilkens Lane Hous­ing:  The Fire Depart­ment has been doing inspec­tions and walk-throughs dur­ing con­struc­tion and the water has been turned on in build­ing #1.  As for oth­er build­ings on adja­cent land, there have been no offi­cial fil­ings or inquiries that I am aware of.

BARNSTABLE FIRE DISTRICT
WATER DEPARTMENT

1841 Phinney’s Lane
P.O. Box 546
Barn­sta­ble, Mass­a­chu­setts 02630
Phone: 508–362-6498
Fax: 508–362-9616
www.barnstablefiredistrict.com
bfdwatersupt@barnstablefiredistrict.com

The Barn­sta­ble Fire Dis­trict Water Depart­ment is plan­ning to replace
a Fire Hydrant near 3667 Main Street. To safe­ly per­form this work,
we need to shut off the water main from Com­merce Road to Mary
Dunn Way. This will affect res­i­dents off Main Street includ­ing
Coun­ty Farm Road, Cap­tain Murphy’s Way, and Adri­an Way. This
work is sched­uled for August 2 nd or 3 rd . The Dis­trict is call­ing all the
res­i­dents that will be affect­ed by this shut down. The shut­down
should last 6–8 hours from 9 am to 5 pm. Please call the Water
Depart­ment if you have any ques­tions or con­cerns. Thank you.

This is a new Bridge on the Trayser Trail, behind the Coast Guard Muse­um and the Black­smith Shop.  This bridge spans a sen­si­tive wet­land area and it has been a long-time dream for Doug Payson.  With the help of many peo­ple and groups includ­ing, the New Eng­land Moun­tain Bik­ing Asso­ci­a­tion, the town’s Land Acqui­si­tion and Preser­va­tion Com­mit­tee and the Town of Barn­sta­ble.  Thanks to all.

Newsletter: June 17 2023

This rainy Sat­ur­day gives me a chance to put off out­door work and get this out to you.  And if you know me at all, I would rather be out­side.
6A  There has been a flur­ry of work on the side­walks along Route 6A. This seems to take up a lot of my time, but it is worth it.
The new cross­ing at Har­ris Mead­ows Rd. is most­ly done, with just the addi­tion of signs and elec­tri­cal con­nec­tions left to fin­ish.
The three small side­walk repairs have been fin­ished. One was to alle­vi­ate a sec­tion that col­lects rain water and the oth­er two were to address trip­ping haz­ards.  
You may have also noticed a sur­vey crew work­ing on the 2 miles of road west of the Vil­lage. They are doing pre­lim­i­nary work for design of new side­walks. The hope is to keep DOT mov­ing for­ward and to sur­vey, design and per­mit this sec­tion of State road so it is shov­el-ready for con­struc­tion when funds are avail­able.
Com­merce Rd.
At the Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage Water Dis­trict meet­ing this week our new water super­in­ten­dent, Sean Ander­son, shared that he has been able to hire the same surveying/design com­pa­ny the Town is using for Com­merce Road.  This town project includes widen­ing the cul­vert, rais­ing the road height, and build­ing side­walks from George Street to 6A. There are water pipes that need to be replaced under Com­merce Road, and they will need to be designed to span the cul­vert cross­ing at Marispan Creek. The syn­er­gy of using the same com­pa­ny as the town means we will able to pig­gy­back on the engi­neer­ing work they have already done, which is a cost sav­ings and, it makes com­mon sense.  


I attend­ed the Barn­sta­ble Water Dis­trict meet­ing and the Barn­sta­ble Fire Dis­trict Pru­den­tial com­mit­tee meet­ings this week. Dave Mason was vot­ed in as the new chair of the Water Dis­trict Com­mit­tee, con­grat­u­la­tions.  The redesign of the new water treat­ment plant is almost at 50% com­plete and the bids for con­struc­tion will go out in the ear­ly fall.  An inter­est­ing note is that we are able to keep the costs of chem­i­cals for water treat­ment down as we are part of a Coun­ty-wide bulk pur­chas­ing pro­gram.
The Fire Depart­ment land­scap­ing improve­ments will begin after July 4th.  Many of the plants are being donat­ed while most of the labor will be donat­ed by our fire fight­ers.  Thanks to Chief Beale and his crew.

On Wednes­day the 14th, I was able to join many in the com­mu­ni­ty as we cel­e­brat­ed Aman­da Con­verse on her well-deserved recog­ni­tion as the recip­i­ent of the 22nd Annu­al Mer­cy Otis War­ren Cape Cod Woman of the Year Award. The dis­tin­guished award cer­e­mo­ny, held at the his­toric 1717 Meet­ing­house in West Barn­sta­ble, was a tes­ta­ment to Aman­da’s out­stand­ing achieve­ments and con­tri­bu­tions to the Cape Cod com­mu­ni­ty. To learn more about the award, vis­it https://www.capecod.gov/MOWAward. 

At the Town Coun­cil meet­ing this week we passed the School Oper­at­ing Bud­get. Barn­sta­ble Land Trust was rec­og­nized for reach­ing the mile­stone of pro­tect­ing land in Barn­sta­ble for 40 years. Present were Jack­ie Bar­ton, the first Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and Janet Milk­man who present­ly heads BLT. Thanks to you both and the many oth­er res­i­dents who have worked so hard over the years.  The final vote was giv­en to accept Con­ser­va­tion Restric­tions on the last 3 parcels in the Brazel­ton prop­er­ty along Com­merce Road.  This cul­mi­nates over ten years of work between BLT and the Brazel­ton, Magrud­er and Low­ell fam­i­lies to pro­tect almost 40 acres of land.  Thanks to all involved for your effort and per­se­ver­ance.
 
Final­ly, on to some local events:

June 19th, Mon­day:  June­teenth

Mon­day June 19th is a State and Fed­er­al hol­i­day, and con­se­quen­tial­ly Town facil­i­ties and offices will be closed, includ­ing Town Hall and the Trans­fer Sta­tion.
“June­teenth is a day of pro­found impor­tance that cel­e­brates both the free­dom of African Amer­i­cans from enslave­ment and the begin­ning of the jour­ney to Equal­i­ty for all Amer­i­cans  It was pro­claimed a fed­er­al hol­i­day on 2021.  On June 19. 1865, state lev­el enforce­ment of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion (1863) final­ly reached the last state, Texas.”  (Zion Union Her­itage Muse­um)

June 19th is a hol­i­day and there­fore a legal shell­fish­ing day.  Good ear­ly morn­ing tides!



 
June 22nd, Thurs­day:   Sandy Neck Design Review Meet­ing

Review of Pre­lim­i­nary Designs for Sandy Neck Beach Facil­i­ty Coastal Resilien­cy Project
The Town of Barn­sta­ble invites inter­est­ed indi­vid­u­als to join us for an infor­ma­tion­al meet­ing to review an updat­ed con­cep­tu­al design for the Sandy Neck Beach Facil­i­ty Coastal Resilien­cy Project.

The infor­ma­tion­al ses­sion will be held:
IN-PERSON on Thurs­day, June 22, 2023 at 6:00 PM
Loca­tion: Har­borview Con­fer­ence Room, 3195 Main Street, Barn­sta­ble, MA 02630

For those unable to attend, the meet­ing will be record­ed and lat­er post­ed on Barn­sta­ble Chan­nel 18 at:
https://www.youtube.com/@BarnstableChannel18, for any­one to view.
This meet­ing is a fol­low-up to the April 5, 2023 pre­sen­ta­tion, where con­cep­tu­al designs for long term
coastal resilien­cy at the Sandy Neck Pub­lic Beach Facil­i­ty were reviewed with the pub­lic. The April 5, 2023
meet­ing can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5d_gPd1Fd0&feature=youtu.be
If you have any ques­tions or wish to receive project updates, please con­tact Amber Unruh, Senior
Project Man­ag­er – Spe­cial Projects, at the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works at 508–790-6400 or
Amber.Unruh@town.barnstable.ma.us.

 
June 21st, Wednes­day:  Barn­sta­ble Gate­way Air­port

Invites you to a Pub­lic Infor­ma­tion Meet­ing for the Cape Cod Gate­way Air­port Envi­ron­men­tal Review for Improve­ment Projects
Wednes­day, June 21, 2023

2:00 PM (vir­tu­al – Zoom) and 6:00 PM (in-per­son)
In-Per­son: Jim Crock­er Hear­ing Room, 2nd Floor, Barn­sta­ble Town Hall,

367 Main Street, Hyan­nis, MA 02601
Vir­tu­al: https://virtualmeeting.link/CCGA-ER2

The pur­pose of this pub­lic meet­ing is to pro­vide mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty with an
update on the Cape Cod Gate­way Air­port envi­ron­men­tal review process for air­port
improve­ment projects. The meet­ing will pro­vide an update of the ongo­ing and future
envi­ron­men­tal review phas­es of the 2022 Mas­ter Plan projects and allow atten­dees to offer
com­ments or ques­tions. To learn more about the project, review relat­ed mate­ri­als, or find
con­tact infor­ma­tion, please vis­it the project web­site at https://flyhya.com/environmental-
assessment/

 

Newsletter: June 5 2023

Wow, Sat­ur­day was some cold.  The wind blow­ing out of the north, no sun, who would have pre­dict­ed that, espe­cial­ly with the ocean tem­per­a­ture in the mid 50’s.  I vis­it­ed the EV Expo at the Trans­porta­tion Cen­ter and it was wicked cold.  I did get to ride an elec­tric assist bike for the first time and enjoyed it.

Side­walks

Just before I was to send this out, the Town got word that a crew will be mak­ing some side­walk repairs along 6A next week.  The work will take place between 6/7 and 6/13. Three small sec­tions will be improved.  The address­es are 2110 Main Street, 2390 Main Street, and 2875–2895 Main Street.  These may seem like minor work, but it is progress and we are now on the  MA Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion: DOT, radar.  DOT is in the process of hir­ing a design­er for the whole side­walk project.

The oth­er news about the side­walks is that the DOT has con­tract­ed for elec­tron­ic cross­ing signs at Har­ris Mead­ows.  At the same time they are rework­ing the curb and then they will paint the road.  This has been a long time com­ing and I had to push to get them to do it before sum­mer as they were wor­ried about work­ing on 6A in June.  I assured them that the improved safe­ty of the cross­ing would out­weigh any incon­ve­nience for vil­lage res­i­dents and visitors.

You may have noticed the repaving on Hyan­nis Road.  This was nec­es­sary as the Town DPW did so much drainage work along this sec­tion that they decid­ed to repave from 6A south to the rail­road tracks. There is no more planned work here for now.. The rest of Hyan­nis Road and Phin­ney’s Lane still keeps us all awake, but it is minor com­pared the sec­tion of Phin­ney’s Lane south of Route 132.  Con­struc­tion fatigue is a real thing in the active sew­er­ing areas.

Stay in Touch.

Newsletter: May 16 2023

6A Sidewalks

I love this time of year as I can work out­side with­out bugs.  But that will change soon as I found mos­qui­to lar­vae swim­ming in some stand­ing water.  So now is the time to emp­ty any buck­ets or any cran­ny where water can accu­mu­late.
I do not try to be a com­pre­hen­sive cal­en­dar of events, but if I am sent news I will try and get it out. 
Thanks to every­one who vot­ed in the Barn­sta­ble Fire Dis­trict Elec­tion and also thanks to those of you were able to attend the Dis­trict Annu­al Meet­ing.  
Stay in Touch.
 Route 6A Side­walks                                                       May 16, 2023 This is a com­pi­la­tion of the progress made along route 6A and the work pro­posed by the Mass Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (DOT). Improve­ments are hap­pen­ing, the long process nec­es­sary for all trans­porta­tion projects, is mov­ing for­ward. First, you may not have noticed, but the cen­ter and edge lines along the road­way have been repaint­ed and some reflec­tors have been added, most­ly along curves in the road.  This should make it eas­i­er for many of us dri­ving at night.  This is an exam­ple of main­te­nance under­tak­en by a gov­ern­ment enti­ty, which most­ly goes unno­ticed and unap­pre­ci­at­ed. Sec­ond, and I quote DOT, “…we are plan­ning to install a cross­walk and RRFB (Rec­tan­gu­lar Rapid Flash­ing Bea­con) across Route 6A at Har­ris Mead­ow Lane.  We have the final design ready and will pri­or­i­tize with our con­trac­tor for instal­la­tion hope­ful­ly before school gets out in June.  One poten­tial issue could be obtain­ing the RRFB itself, as we are expe­ri­enc­ing sup­ply chain issues with equip­ment of that type.  We should have a bet­ter idea on a time­line for instal­la­tion short­ly.     I have talked to the Dis­trict 5 Oper­a­tions Engi­neer and they are still work­ing hard to get this done by June 1, or ear­ly sum­mer. Also antic­i­pat­ed is a crew to scrape and clean the exist­ing side­walks this spring.  I point­ed out that there must be wider side­walks under­neath the present path and they should instruct their con­trac­tor to find the edges of the side­walk that exists under the over­grown sec­tions. I have been in con­tact with Kip Dig­gs, and Mr. San­tos (DPW) who sup­port the con­struc­tion project, and the admin­is­tra­tors at the DOT Dis­trict 5 office in Taunton.  Every­one is work­ing hard to move this for­ward. Here is the lat­est report from Bill Tra­vers at DOT:   “With respect to the side­walks along Route 6A, as I’m sure you are aware we are mov­ing for­ward with the design of the side­walk between Old Jail Lane and Route 132.  We are in the process of secur­ing a con­sul­tant to do the design, and the first step will be for them to obtain the field sur­vey.  This should begin lat­er this sum­mer.  Once a sur­vey is obtained, the design­er will then devel­op con­cepts for the side­walk along the cor­ri­dor.  We will be meet­ing with the town and oth­er key stake­hold­ers in the devel­op­ment of the design, and we will also be doing pub­lic out­reach meet­ings.  The project will like­ly have impacts to trees, walls, shrubs, fences, etc. along the road in order to build a com­pli­ant side­walk.  The sup­port of local offi­cials will be cru­cial to obtain fund­ing and advance the project for adver­tis­ing and con­struc­tion.” Bill said he was around when the sec­tion of the side­walk east of the vil­lage was rebuilt and that sec­tion was much less com­plex in terms of lay­out and obstruc­tions. Once this project is shov­el-ready we will need every­one to add their voic­es to the  urgency of  this rebuild.  If you want to express your con­cern and relay your sto­ries now you can do so.  Email Bill Tra­vers at DOT mailto:bill.travers@state.ma.us

Newsletter: April 21 2023

Earth Day….Once a Year?

I hope every­one is feel­ing well and enjoy­ing this spring.  I espe­cial­ly appre­ci­ate that there are no mos­qui­toes, at our house  …yet. 
There is a Town Coun­cil meet­ing next Thurs­day April 27th start­ing at 6:00.  Most items will be relat­ed to the Cap­i­tal Improve­ment Pro­gram (CIP) so look at the agen­da and watch. You may join in at any meet­ing through Zoom or in per­son to talk about any top­ic you are pas­sion­ate about, for three min­utes.  This par­tic­i­pa­tion is high­ly encouraged.
Earth Day
There are many ways to par­tic­i­pate in Earth Day.  Join a group for a clean-up, do your own clean-up or find your own way to con­nect to the liv­ing earth that sup­ports and nour­ish­es us.  We must respect and preserve(ever day) that which keeps all life alive and thriving.

Newsletter: March 13 2023

Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage Asso­ci­a­tion Com­mu­ni­ty Meeting

Last Tues­day night about 30 res­i­dents of Cum­maquid and Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage met at St.Mary’s Church.  We had a live­ly, and infor­ma­tive dis­cus­sion about all sorts of top­ics. I rec­om­mend you come join in for the next com­mu­ni­ty dis­cus­sion with your ideas, com­ments and ques­tions.  I will do my best to sum­ma­rize the high­lights. 
Agen­da:
#  Annu­al Board of Direc­tor elec­tions
#  Fire Chief, Chris Beale
#  Precinct 1 Updates from Town Coun­selor Gor­don Starr
#  Intro­duc­tion of the new Water Depart­ment Super­in­ten­dent, Sean Ander­son, and update of the PFAS water fil­tra­tion plant design and con­struct process.
#  Cyn­this Cole @ Com­post­ing food waste

Water Dis­trict: 
I have to start with the last item, as some might not read to the end and this is impor­tant.  Sean Ander­son is the new Super­in­ten­dent at the Barn­sta­ble Water Dis­trict.  Sean came to us from The Sci­t­u­ate Water Depart­ment and he lives with his fam­i­ly in Cen­ter­ville.  We all know that we need a new water fil­tra­tion sys­tem to assure that the PFOs are removed from our water sup­ply and the Dis­trict has been design­ing this plant. Sean looked over the plans and thought that the fil­tra­tion plant might be larg­er than it need­ed to be so he request­ed a peer review from an engi­neer­ing firm.  Basi­cal­ly they report­ed that the plant was over designed and that the job could be done with a small­er build­ing.
Who ever gets to intro­duce your­self to the vil­lage and say, :“I am Sean, your new Water Super­in­ten­dent, and am going to save you about 10 mil­lion dol­lars.“
Thank you Sean, Fan­tas­tic news.
There will be a spe­cial meet­ing of the Water Dis­trict on March 22 where res­i­dents will decide whether or not to vote mon­ey for the plant redesign. (Spend­ing mon­ey to save mon­ey)
Here is the meet­ing info and war­rant:
  http://www.barnstablefiredistrict.com/wp-content/uploads/WARRANT-FOR-THE-WATER-TREATMENT-SPECIAL-DISTRICT-MEETING.pdf

Fire Chief:
Chris Beale, our new Fire Chief, intro­duced him­self to the 2–3 peo­ple in the room who did not know him. He explained the 911 sys­tem and how those calls are rout­ed.  The plan in the future is to devel­op a coun­ty region­al dis­patch cen­ter. 
Chris also men­tioned that his crew will help res­i­dents put in lock box­es on the side of their house.  This box would be avail­able for fire and res­cue per­son­nel dur­ing emer­gen­cies (well­ness checks and 911 calls) so they can enter your house with­out hav­ing to break in.
Out­door burn­ing ends on May first.  

Coun­cilor Starr:

Blish Point Ramp:  Last month the Town Coun­cil accept­ed a grant from the Mass. Depart­ment of Fish and Game: Divi­sion of Marine Fish­eries in the amount of $25,000 for repairs to the ramp.  These will take place ear­ly in the spring. The state owns the ramp, but the town main­tains it.  There are plans to rebuild the ramp in five years.
Scud­ders Lane Ramp:  The Town DPW has held a num­ber of meet­ings with stake­hold­ers and they are work­ing on the 90% design.  As soon as this is done there will be anoth­er meet­ing to bring it to res­i­dents.
Com­merce Road Side­walks:  The Town has hired engi­neers to sur­vey, design and per­mit the side­walk from George Street to Route 6A.  The side­walks will be done at the same time as the road is raised at the east­ern end and the cul­vert widened.  Rais­ing the road is nec­es­sary to allow res­i­dents access dur­ing extreme­ly high tides and storms. Doing these togeth­er is nec­es­sary, but it makes the whole project more expen­sive.  By get­ting it up to the shov­el-ready stage we can look to grants to make this hap­pen.
6A Side­walks: A cross­walk is being designed and the Depart­ment of Transportation(MA) hopes to have it installed pri­or to the shut down of con­struc­tion work for the sum­mer on Cape Cod.  Also, I got this report in late Jan­u­ary from DOT: “a project was approved for the instal­la­tion of a side­walk on Route 6A from Old Jail Lane to Route 132.  The next step will be for the project to advance to pre­lim­i­nary design.  Fund­ing will also need to be iden­ti­fied and the project pro­grammed for adver­tis­ing.  Mass­DOT will be reach­ing out to the Town, Cape Cod Com­mis­sion and Old Kings High­way to coor­di­nate as the project pro­gress­es.“
This does not mean it is a done deal.  If you want to make a com­ment to the state, you can email:  http://Bill.Travers@dot.state.ma.us>

Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage Asso­ci­a­tion:
The BVA vot­ed in a strong Board of Direc­tors, but that being said, there are many oppor­tu­ni­ties and needs for vol­un­teers for the sum­mer con­certs, vil­lage clean-ups and the Fourth of July Parade.  Think about join­ing in for an hour or two.
Check in and join this group as it ties us all togeth­er.
https://www.barnstablevillage.org/

Food Waste:
Cyn­thia Cole talked about the impor­tance of recy­cling food waste.  It is a heavy com­po­nent of house­hold waste and there­fore rais­es the cost of waste dis­pos­al. If it ends up in a land­fill, it pro­duces lots of methane gas. Eco­log­i­cal­ly it should be treat­ed as a resource and reused in our gar­dens or dropped off at the Trans­fer Sta­tion so that it can be com­mer­cial­ly com­post­ed.  Cyn­thia gave out coun­ter­top com­post­ing bins that are avail­able for free at the Trans­fer Sta­tion office.  You can also leave your food waste at the Trans­fer Sta­tion and it is picked up by Watts Fam­i­ly Farm and composted.

Newsletter: February 27 2023

Com­plete Streets
Many vil­lage res­i­dents have already shared their views about need­ed improve­ments to our roads and side­walks.  This is one more chance to raise aware­ness con­cern­ing the safe­ty issues on Com­merce Road and the need for a com­plete side­walk to 6A.

Complete Streets

Updates

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Cape Cod Com­mis­sion and based on pub­lic feed­back col­lect­ed this past Sum­mer, Town staff have worked to devel­op a Draft Pri­or­i­ti­za­tion Plan: a list of pri­or­i­ty road­way improve­ment projects through­out the Town of Barn­sta­ble ranked by defined eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria includ­ing safe­ty, mobil­i­ty, abil­i­ty to imple­ment and com­mu­ni­ty support.

The Town of Barn­sta­ble and the Cape Cod Com­mis­sion want to hear from you. Does the Pri­or­i­ti­za­tion Plan reflect our com­mu­ni­ties’ pri­or­i­ties? Are there any road­way improve­ments that should be added to the Pri­or­i­ti­za­tion Plan? The pub­lic com­ment peri­od is now open through Wednes­day March 15th. To view the map of pro­posed pri­or­i­ty projects and to sub­mit com­ments, please vis­it the Cape Cod Com­mis­sion’s web­page: https://www.capecodcommission.org/our-work/barnstable-complete-streets/ 

Newsletter: January 19 2023

Christmas lights formed to look like a pick up truck

Thanks to Ray and Pip­pa for their cre­ative and enter­tain­ing addi­tion to our vil­lage hol­i­day lights.

Real Estate Taxes

A num­ber of res­i­dents have reached out to me with con­cerns about their tax bills. 

The best place to start is to either look at your bills from last year, or prefer­ably, look up your Prop­er­ty Record on the Assessor’s sec­tion of the Town of Barn­sta­ble website.

Go to  https://town.barnstable.ma.us   then go to Depart­ments: then Asses­sor:: then: Prop­er­ty Look Up.  From there you can access your prop­er­ty infor­ma­tion, includ­ing assessed val­ues for pre­vi­ous years and your tax info for the last two years.

The present tax assess­ments are based on the real estate sales mar­ket in 2021.  This is the last year with com­plete infor­ma­tion.  On aver­age assessed val­ues rose 27% from the year before.  Assess­ments for most peo­ple rose, but the res­i­den­tial tax rate itself actu­al­ly decreased from $8.64 per $1,000 in 2022 to $7.07 per $1,000 in 2023.  Many peo­ple had their home val­ues rise and their tax­es remained about the same, while some saw high­er home val­ue increas­es and high­er taxes.

While you are look­ing at your prop­er­ty infor­ma­tion, check the bot­tom of your Tax Infor­ma­tion to be sure that, if this is your pri­ma­ry res­i­dence, you are get­ting a Res­i­den­tial Exemp­tion.  This reduces your assess­ment by 20% before your tax­es are cal­cu­lat­ed.  You should have a line at the bot­tom of your tax infor­ma­tion that says: Res­i­den­tial Exemp­tion Received.  You need to have owned your home since the begin­ning of 2022, but call the Assessor’s Office to get check all of the par­tic­u­lars.Exam­ple:

2023
Assessed Val­ue:
$669,800Barn­sta­ble FD Tax (Com­mer­cial)$ 0Barn­sta­ble FD Tax (Res­i­den­tial)$ 1,279.32Com­mu­ni­ty Preser­va­tion Act Tax$ 109.91Town Tax (Com­mer­cial)$ 0Town Tax (Res­i­den­tial)$ 3,663.56 Total: $ 5,052.79		2022
Assessed Val­ue: 
$ 548,900Barn­sta­ble FD Tax (Com­mer­cial)$ 0Barn­sta­ble FD Tax (Res­i­den­tial)$ 1,383.23Com­mu­ni­ty Preser­va­tion Act Tax$ 111.40Town Tax (Com­mer­cial)$ 0Town Tax (Res­i­den­tial)$ 3,713.31 Total: $ 5,207.94
Res­i­den­tial Exemp­tion Received= $151,616Res­i­den­tial Exemp­tion Received= $119,119

You can also review your Prop­er­ty Record Card for accuracy.

If you see a prob­lem with your Prop­er­ty Record Card or you feel your assess­ment is not accu­rate, you have until the end of Jan­u­ary to file for an abatement. 

Ques­tions regard­ing: Res­i­den­tial, Vet­er­an, Senior, Blind Exemp­tions and Defer­ral appli­ca­tions can be direct­ed to the Town Asses­sor’s Office by call­ing: 508–862-4022 or email assessor@town.barnstable.ma.us
Here is a link to a recent­ly pro­duced video which explains how our prop­er­ties are assessed: AN OVERVIEW ‑VIDEOFISCAL YEAR 2023 RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE TAX:

2022 Is Winding Down, But…The Days Are Getting Longer

Gordon Starr
Precinct 1
Town Councilor

Decem­ber 28, 2022

At this time of year, I always enjoy say­ing, “See you next year.“
I hope to see you many of you at the Annu­al Barn­sta­ble Har­bor New Year’s Day Splash, on Sun­day the 1st of the year.  Bring your bathing suit and then join us at the Dol­phin.  There will be music, raf­fles, and many vil­lage friends to begin the new year with.  The funds raised will go to fam­i­lies in need in Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage.  I want us all to rec­og­nize the efforts of Dan Phi­los-Jensen for tak­ing over and orga­niz­ing this fun and worth­while vil­lage event. He has put in many hours and he is a role mod­el for all of us.
There is also a series of First Day HIkes, orga­nized by the Barn­sta­ble Land Trust.
I hope you are all stay­ing warm and if I don’t see you this week, See you next year.