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: 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/