Committee proposes to make top boards appointed
BY PETER B. BRACE
The Government Study Committee has submitted three citizen articles asking voters to make the Shellfish & Harbor Advisory Board, the Planning Board and the Historic District Commission appointed, rather than elected, boards.

"On the HDC and the Planning Board you want people with knowledge and the skills for being able to interpret the law," said Allen Reinhard, chairman of the Government Study Committee. "The comparison is with the Finance Committee, and the FinCom is one of the strongest committees on the island."

The Board of Selectmen appointment process, said Reinhard, is transparent for voters and less rigorous for those who want to serve on these boards.

"The other thing is if you have a person who is elected, it's very difficult - virtually impossible to recall them, so you're stuck with them until the next election cycle. And, if you're talking about the Planning Board, it's five years."

In the case of the Planning Board and the HDC, however, Reinhard and the committee found that Planning Director Andrew Vorce, HDC Administrator Mark Voigt and HDC member Linda Williams do not support the selectmen appointing members to their boards because they felt these boards should be exempt from administrative oversight and subject to the will of the voters.

"Because both of these arguments were both so strongly made to the committee, we thought it was important to bring it to a full discussion. That's why we decided to bring it to the Town Meeting floor," said Reinhard.

HDC Chair Dirk Roggeveen, speaking for himself, worries about just five voters - the Board of Selectmen - deciding who should serve on the HDC for the island's 7,989 registered voters who currently have the power to choose candidates to fill open seats on the commission.

Roggeveen said there could be more special interest groups lobbying their favorite selectmen to appoint HDC members who favor certain styles of architecture over others.

"As I've watched how the Board of Selectmen has appointed people, it's so politicized," said Roggeveen. "I think it would politicize it even more. They've also appointed people who are grossly unqualified."

Roggeveen added that the citizen article language for this article is flawed in that it does not provide for an appeal process for the HDC.

"If one proposes to change to an appointed board you would also need to change the appeals process because it's fundamentally flawed to have the selectmen both appointing the board and hearing appeals from the board."

Roggeveen said appeals of HDC decisions would need to go to Nantucket Superior Court, as they currently do for the appointed Zoning Board of Appeals and the Conservation Commission.

SHAB's administrator, Marine Superintendent Dave Fronzuto and the Nantucket & Madaket Harbors Plan Committee do not share this thinking and believe an appointed SHAB would enhance SHAB with more diverse representation.

In the Revised Nantucket & Madaket Harbors Action Plan, the committee recommends changing SHAB's name to the Harbor Advisory Board because it felt that SHAB focuses too heavily on shellfish issues and not nearly enough on other harbor issues.

"Restructure the new Harbor Advisory Board so that it is more representative of all stakeholders by making it a Board of Selectmen appointed committee rather than an elected on," said the Harbors Plan Committee in its recommendations.

This new board would include two marine trades representatives, two commercial fishermen, one member from the Conservation Commission, one member of the Nantucket Planning & Economic Development Commission and one at-large member.

What would likely augment any lack of shellfish coverage by HAB is Fronzuto's hiring of a shellfish biologist this spring.

Should the voters approve all three of these articles, homerule petitions would then be filed with the Massachusetts State Legislature, which would have the final say. Square one, however, is Town Meeting in April 2007.

"I think the whole point here is it is the process we go through in government review," said Curtis Barnes who wrote and sponsored Article 29, which created the Government Study Committee, adopted by a hand count of 157-102 at Town Meeting in April 2005. "You have to take a look at what you're doing and why you're doing it and try to make it a better process. I think getting it up in front of Town Meeting will be a good place to talk about it."

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