Category: Clean Drinking Water

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: 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: 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.

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.

Keeping Up With Gordon

It’s not easy keep­ing up with Gor­don. He’s all over town!

Knock­ing on doors, town meet­ings, and now, radio shows, he is on the move. His signs are show­ing up all over the precinct as he reach­es out to vot­ers across Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage, Hyan­nis, and Centerville.

Elect Gordon Starr sign on a neighbor's lawn with a handsome cream colored retriever sitting next to it. Keeping Up With Gordon is not for the feint of heart.

As busy as Gor­don is, so are his sup­port­ers. Click the links below to read Let­ters to the Edi­tor sup­port­ing his can­di­da­cy and pub­lished by the Cape Cod Times this past week.

Asso­ci­a­tion to Pre­serve Cape Cod’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andrew Got­tlieb had this to say in his “What I’m think­ing” newsletter…

If you start at the local lev­el, and let’s face it that most of the action on mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion are going to hap­pen as local gov­ern­ment projects, your vote real­ly counts. I was elect­ed a select­man by 6 votes. In local scale elec­tions, sin­gle votes mat­ter and can­di­dates know it. So, don’t waste your pow­er. Put peo­ple in office at the local lev­el who take the sci­ence seri­ous­ly and under­stand the urgency.

… Don’t think for a minute that who you elect local­ly doesn’t mat­ter. Even if your local select per­son doesn’t move up the polit­i­cal food chain, they will be decid­ing what your town does or doesn’t accom­plish on cli­mate and water qual­i­ty. Barn­sta­ble vot­ers, you have an elec­tion soon, so it is not too late to flex your envi­ron­men­tal mus­cles.

Gor­don cares about Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage. He is look­ing for­ward on all issues impact­ing our vil­lage and our town. Vis­it About Gor­don and learn why he should be our next Precinct 1 town councilor.

Endorsed by Senator Ed Markey

Yes­ter­day, Gor­don Starr Barn­sta­ble Town Coun­cil Can­di­date Precinct 1 was endorsed by U.S. Sen­a­tor Ed Markey at Nir­vana Cof­fee Shop in Barn­sta­ble Village. 

“We need lead­ers at the local lev­el to influ­ence poli­cies that are going to help us to avoid the worst and most cat­a­stroph­ic con­se­quences of cli­mate change, we need to think glob­al­ly but need to act locally. ”

U.S. Sen­a­tor Ed Markey

Endorsed by Senator Ed Markey

Here’s the Cape Cod Times article:

Markey Makes Unusu­al Endorse­ment on Cape Cod Visit

The Cape Cod Times arti­cle notes that the town coun­cil elec­tion is not a par­ti­san race. Gor­don is reg­is­tered as “un-enrolled” nev­er­the­less, Gor­don’s strong record of sup­port­ing the envi­ron­ment caught Sen­a­tor Markey’s atten­tion for an endorsement.

Markey was on the Cape to attend the Net Zero Con­fer­ence being held at Cape Cod Resort and Con­fer­ence Cen­ter in Hyannis.

Gordon has lived in Barnstable Village for over 40 years

Gor­don knows Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage. He val­ues its tra­di­tions and respects its char­ac­ter. Gor­don under­stands what is impor­tant to the vil­lagers. He is a great lis­ten­er and wants to hear what mat­ters to you!

Vis­it About Gor­don to learn more about Gor­don’s sto­ry. Aside from being endorsed by Sen­a­tor Ed Markey, Gor­don has cur­ried favor with towns­peo­ple across the vil­lage, as indi­cat­ed by the many lawn signs lin­ing route 6A.

Cape Cod Climate Task Force

Here’s a pro­pos­al for some big pic­ture think­ing. Can we come togeth­er to cre­ate a Cape Cod cli­mate task force, using com­mon sense and good­will to cre­ate a blue­print, a com­pact, to guide and unite us all in this new era?

https://www.capecodtimes.com/opinion/20190911/call-for-cape-cod-climate-task-force

Picture of the flooding tide in Barnstable Harbor : Cape Cod Climate Task Force

As my bio states, I am the “envi­ron­men­tal guy”. Click here to learn more about my sto­ry, my inter­ests, and why I believe that I can help to make Barn­sta­ble resilient in the face of cli­mate evolution.

And for those of you for whom the link does­n’t work, here’s the copy from Mimi McConnel­l’s Cape Cod Times Edi­to­r­i­al of Sept. 11, 2019.

Hats off to Well­fleet and its neigh­bors for their enlight­ened approach in explor­ing non­tra­di­tion­al meth­ods to reduce waste­water pol­lu­tion in Well­fleet Har­bor (“Well­fleet weighs mul­ti­fac­eted water­shed cleanup approach,” Aug. 26, Page 1).

This augurs well for the rest of Cape Cod if we can open our minds to exam­in­ing and then adopt­ing new solu­tions proven else­where in our coun­try but also in oth­er nations – whether it be to address water qual­i­ty or oth­er issues. Too often we turn to “horse and bug­gy” fix­es in today’s world of reli­able alter­na­tives and new technologies.

But this brings up the larg­er ques­tion fac­ing this penin­su­la: What are we doing now, today, in con­cert, to pre­pare for the esca­lat­ing impacts of glob­al cli­mate change? We do not have the 10- to 12-year peri­od we hear tout­ed; the changes are cas­cad­ing now, affect­ing weath­er, the econ­o­my, ris­ing seas, the bal­ance of nature and ulti­mate­ly our way of life right here.

Can we come togeth­er to cre­ate a Cape Cod cli­mate task force, using com­mon sense and good­will to cre­ate a blue­print, a com­pact, to guide and unite us all in this new era?

This would obvi­ous­ly require leg­is­la­tion, cre­at­ed by the peo­ple of Cape Cod after inten­sive input from all ele­ments of our pop­u­la­tion. We are blessed with world-class sci­en­tists right here in Woods Hole; we have pro­gres­sive busi­ness lead­er­ship; we have coura­geous envi­ron­men­tal and groups; we have enlight­ened polit­i­cal lead­ers; we have an informed but unor­ga­nized pub­lic open to new ideas – yet there is no cohe­sive or unit­ed effort yet to address the biggest chal­lenge of our time.

This is not a pro­pos­al for a feel-good study group but rather a con­ven­ing of knowl­edge­able and deter­mined Cape Cod­ders. Care in form­ing this task force would be imper­a­tive to ensure bal­ance, fair­ness and doa­bil­i­ty. Fund­ing for staff and logis­tics would be need­ed and could come from finan­cial and real estate enti­ties (whose futures are cen­tral to this effort). Might our Cape Cod Cham­ber of Com­merce take the lead in form­ing this task force, using great care to be inclu­sive, bal­anced and prac­ti­cal, with a dead­line of, say, 18 months?

Yes, this is com­pli­cat­ed, and indeed daunt­ing; but I have faith that we on Cape Cod will find com­mon ground at this extra­or­di­nary time of awak­en­ing to this local yet inter­na­tion­al chal­lenge to the plan­et entrust­ed to us. It will require inge­nu­ity, integri­ty and wis­dom to play our part in the future of our glob­al vil­lage. Let’s make it happen!