Category: Coastal Resiliency

August 30 2023

Trans­fer Sta­tion Closed Mon­day: 
The Town of Barn­sta­ble Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works Sol­id Waste Divi­sion will be closed Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 4, 2023 in obser­vance of Labor Day. Trash and recy­cling ser­vices will resume on a nor­mal sched­ule Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 5, 2023. For ques­tions, please call the Sol­id Waste Divi­sion at 508–420-2258.
We have to remem­ber that very few towns have a Trans­fer Sta­tion that is open all-day sev­en days a week.
So please thank the crew.

Bot­tle and Can col­lec­tion at the Trans­fer Sta­tion:
The redemp­tion of bot­tles and can will resume this month as the West Barn­sta­ble Whelden Library will be col­lect­ing bot­tles on Fri­days, Sat­ur­days and Sun­days only, all month.

Road Work:  I met with the DPW this week about the inter­sec­tion of Mill­way and Com­merce Roads, as Joe Dugas point­ed out, this cor­ner has become more and more dan­ger­ous.  The town will cut back the bay­ber­ry hedge for vis­i­bil­i­ty, at least one new cross­walk sign will be installed and an old one replaced, and the fad­ed cross­walk lines are on the sched­ule to be repaint­ed in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber.
The DOT (Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion) respond­ed with­in 2 days and filled in a dan­ger­ous washout gul­ly along the north side of 6A in front of the Crane’s house, (across from Colo­nial Way).

Sep­tic Sys­tems:  Will I have to replace my Title 5 sys­tem with a more expen­sive Innovative/Alternative (I/A) sys­tem if my sys­tem fails?
The short answer is no.  On the north side of town Barn­sta­ble Har­bor has clean water, assist­ed by a ten foot tide which helps flush the har­bor.  We also have less den­si­ty than oth­er parts of town.  The areas around the cour­t­hous­es, Com­merce Fields, and Ren­dezvous Lane are sew­ered now.  The only area that will have a nitro­gen prob­lem will be the Brag­g’s Lane neigh­bor­hood. This area is slat­ed to be sew­ered in 20 years, but remem­ber, a lot can change between now and then. This begs for a longer con­ver­sa­tion.  Which reminds me that the BVA will hold some vil­lage issue ses­sions this win­ter.  What would you like to talk about?

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 vil­lage groups are offer­ing.  I would like to focus more on issues that con­cern Barn­sta­ble Vil­lage, Cum­maquid and the wider town.  Thanks to Sue for tak­ing this on.  If you have an event you would like to be in the BVA newslet­ter con­tact Sue.
 suekurz25@gmail.com
Here is a link to the lat­est BVA Newslet­ter: https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?u=5b1742ca9d912fa155a73d768&id=58a1431ac4

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.  My next date is: Sep­tem­ber 6th. 

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

Barn­sta­ble Tus­can Cui­sine:  So what is hap­pen­ing after the fire at the Old Barn­sta­ble Tav­ern site?  I have talked with a few peo­ple, but if you have more info, let me know.  The east or right hand side of the build­ing is up and run­ning, Booth Law is there and open as is the Salon 6A-Spa.  Cer­taPro Paint­ing is work­ing out of the bot­tom of the build­ing.  The west sec­tion had the most dam­age and the Barn­sta­ble Tus­can Cui­sine has been work­ing hard to get reopened.  Right now they are hop­ing for ear­ly Decem­ber.  Jit­ka and her Clean Green com­pa­ny have decid­ed to find a new loca­tion, and Joe Berlan­di has moved his law office across the street.  The Vil­lage missed the restau­rant this sum­mer and we hope the ren­o­va­tions go smooth­ly and quickly.

Air­port Noise:  Many res­i­dents have asked about the increased noise from the air­port.  There seem to have been an inor­di­nate amount of jet traf­fic this sum­mer, but the end is in sight.  The main rea­son has been that the North-South run­way: 6–24, has been closed for resur­fac­ing leav­ing only one run­way, the east-west 15–33, open.  Every 20–25 years the run­ways have to be ground down and resur­faced.  This job has been going on since March and it will be fin­ished by the end of Octo­ber.  This has left only one run­way open all sum­mer and one of the flight paths has been over Calves Pas­ture and the hill behind the old Coun­ty Jail (Maushop Ave).  The Hyan­nis Park neigh­bor­hood behind the Cape Cod Hos­pi­tal has also been affect­ed by this increased traf­fic and noise this sum­mer.  The end is in sight because the two Jet Blue flights a day to NYC will end Sept. 5th, and as sum­mer winds down there should be few­er pri­vate air­craft com­ing and going.  This run­way is all set for 20–25 years.  I was remind­ed that this run­way, east-west, was closed dur­ing the sum­mer of 2017 from March until Octo­ber, but we don’t remem­ber that because it was qui­et for us.

There are plans to length­en the take­off and land­ing areas of the east west run­way, but con­struc­tion would not begin before 2028 and there will be a series of pub­lic involve­ment meet­ings long before then.
There is more info about noise on the Air­port’s web­site  or con­tact: 
Security/Noise Abate­ment Coor­di­na­tor
Christi­na Louns­bury
508–775-2020 x106
clounsbury@flyhya.com

Wil­low Street Clear­ing:  Some have asked about the clear­ing of these four acres and here is a clear answer from the CC Times: 

Storm prep: Eversource Energy clears land in Yarmouth for line trucks, crews

Denise Cof­fey
Cape Cod Times
 When anoth­er nor’east­er or major storm hits Cape Cod, Ever­source Ener­gy plans to have equip­ment and man­pow­er cen­tral­ized in a new stag­ing area on Wil­low Street.

The com­pa­ny is des­ig­nat­ing an approx­i­mate­ly 4‑acre emer­gency stag­ing lot for crews and equip­ment on their Yarmouth prop­er­ty, Ever­source spokesman Christo­pher McK­in­non said. It will sup­ple­ment exist­ing stag­ing area agree­ments they have with oth­er part­ners on Cape Cod.

“This new lot will give us the flex­i­bil­i­ty to stage approx­i­mate­ly 100 line trucks and oth­er equip­ment or to set up a tem­po­rary base camp where crews can eat, sleep, refu­el, and con­tin­ue their impor­tant restora­tion work,” McK­in­non wrote in an email to the Times.

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 over 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

Bike Trail
Here is an arti­cle from WCAI about the new bike trail behind the Trayser Muse­un in the vil­lage:
https://www.capeandislands.org/in-this-place/2023–08-27/hikes-we-like-bike-association-builds-boardwalk-to-improve-trail

Town Elec­tions: Here is a com­pre­hen­sive arti­cle I am pass­ing on from today’s Cape Cod Times about the upcom­ing elec­tions in Barn­sta­ble.  Barn­sta­ble Nov. 7 elec­tion: Who is already run­ning for town coun­cil, school com­mit­tee?Susan Vaughn
Spe­cial to Cape Cod Times

Four incum­bent Barn­sta­ble town coun­cilors and two new can­di­dates have been cer­ti­fied as can­di­dates to be in the Nov. 7 town elec­tion, Town Clerk Ann Quirk said. They received the required 50 sig­na­tures to be cer­ti­fied as of Monday.None of those who took out nom­i­na­tion papers to run for the School Com­mit­tee and the Hous­ing Author­i­ty have been cer­ti­fied yet, Quirk said in an email. Those two boards require 150 sig­na­tures to be cer­ti­fied. All sig­na­tures for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion are due on Sept. 15 for all three boards.Twenty-one res­i­dents have tak­en nom­i­na­tion papers for 13 town coun­cil seats, and eight seats are being con­test­ed. The four cer­ti­fied incum­bent town coun­cilors are Gor­don Starr, precinct 1; Bet­ty Ludtke, precinct 3; Kris Clark, precinct 11; and Paula Schnepp, precinct 12. Craig Tamash also has been cer­ti­fied to run against incum­bent Niko­las Atsalis in precinct 4. Feli­cia Penn has been cer­ti­fied for the precinct 13 seat cur­rent­ly held by Jen­nifer Cul­lum, who has tak­en out papers for the School Committee.Cullum and long­time Precinct 7 Coun­cilor Jes­si­ca Rapp Gras­set­ti have termed out of their posi­tions after 12 years, Gras­set­ti said Monday.“I’ve enjoyed my time and the great peo­ple. All in all I think it was good,” Gras­set­ti said, adding that she feels it is also good to have challengers.The even-num­bered precinct can­di­dates run for two years dur­ing the first two years of an elec­tion cycle after the lat­est cen­sus (2020) and the odd-num­bered precinct can­di­dates run for four years. In the next elec­tion in two years, the even-num­bered can­di­dates can then run for four years.The town coun­cil chal­lengers who have tak­en out papers, but have not been cer­ti­fied include: Frank Fred­er­ick­son against Starr, precinct 1; John Crow against incum­bent Paul Cusack in precinct 5; Seth Bur­dick and Wendy Solomon, precinct 7, cur­rent­ly held by Gras­set­ti; Louis Parke against Jef­frey Mendes, precinct 8; Char­lie Bloom against Tra­cy Shaugh­nessy, precinct 9; Toby Leary against Clark, precinct 11; and Kyle Cond­in­ho against Schnepp, precinct 12. Three incum­bent coun­cilors who are not being con­test­ed so far are Eric Stein­hilber, precinct 2; Paul Neary, precinct 6; and coun­cil pres­i­dent Matthew Levesque, precinct 10.Five peo­ple have tak­en out nom­i­na­tion papers for the School Com­mit­tee and not been cer­ti­fied. They are incum­bents Michael Judge and Kath­leen Bent as well as Cul­lum, Chan­da Beaty, Louis Parke. None have been cer­ti­fied and Joe Nys­trom, the third com­mit­tee incum­bent up for re-elec­tion, has not tak­en out papers.Three can­di­dates for the Hous­ing Author­i­ty have tak­en out papers, but not been cer­ti­fied. They are incum­bent Deb­o­rah Con­verse, and Ronald Beaty and Louis Parke.

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: 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.

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!

2019 One Cape Summit

Kris Clark (left) & Gordon Starr (right) at the One Cape Summit
Barn­sta­ble & West Barn­sta­ble Town Coun­cil Can­di­dates Gor­don Starr & Kris Clark at the 2019 One Cape Summit

I spent Mon­day and Tues­day at the Cape Cod Com­mis­sion’s 2019 One Cape Sum­mit. Work­shops addressed cli­mate change through adap­ta­tion and mit­i­ga­tion. Also fan­tas­tic dis­cus­sions about the issues con­cern­ing year-round hous­ing on the Cape.

Picture of the patio of the Wequasset Resort where the 2019 One Cape Summit was held.
2019 One Cape Sum­mit: Wequas­set Resort patio over­look­ing Pleas­ant Bay 

This year’s One Cape Sum­mit focused on Envi­ron­ment and Econ­o­my. Day #1 fea­tured speak­ers on envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns. Eric Fish­er, CBS Boston’s WBZ-TV’s chief mete­o­rol­o­gist recount­ed not only the con­di­tions lead­ing up to the pre­vi­ous week’s tor­na­does, but also stat­ed that July 2019 was the hottest July on record for Boston. In fact, the Wash­ing­ton Post reports that June was the 414th con­sec­u­tive month with above-aver­age glob­al temperatures.

The One Cape Sum­mit Day #2 agen­da includ­ed pre­sen­ta­tions on town plan­ning tools. These tools inte­grate design, eco­nom­ics and pub­lic input to devel­op strate­gies for improv­ing qual­i­ty of life while increas­ing liv­ing space den­si­ty. Town of Barn­sta­ble plan­ners are look­ing to the future to ensure that afford­able work­force hous­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties are created.

Final­ly, a pre­sen­ta­tion by the US Cen­sus Bureau empha­sized the need for our par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 2020 cen­sus. The impor­tance of keep­ing respon­dent data strict­ly con­fi­den­tial was both empha­sized and reit­er­at­ed. And, the US Cen­sus Bureau is offer­ing cen­sus tak­ers jobs at $19/hour. Here’s a link to see if you qual­i­fy 2020 US Cen­sus Job Oppor­tu­ni­ties.