Tag: Cummaquid

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!

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.