My View
VOTE NO ON ARTICLE 3
By Curtis Barnes
Tomorrow night, at a hastily called Special Town Meeting, the voters of Nantucket will be asked to consider three articles that reflect special interest efforts to obtain favorable treatment outside the normal annual meeting guidelines. To say the least, this approach to local government should not be encouraged.

Of particular interest is the proposed purchase of the property at 10-12 Washington St. for use as an in-town bus terminal for the NRTA. The Selectmen have continuously acted in executive session to authorize the $3.5 million purchase of this property without any public notice or discussion.

Normally, for a project of this type, the Planning Board would hold a public hearing to review staff recommendations, to obtain citizens' input, and would vote on a recommendation to be forwarded to the Selectmen, as well as to be put forth at Town Meeting. To date, none of this has happened.

Part of the Planning Board review would be to study the proposed traffic pattern suggested for the new bus loops, as well as to study the impact on downtown traffic during the summer. Since the NRTA buses operate only seasonally, what would be the proposed use of the property during the remaining nine months of the year?

It has been stated that one of the advantages of the 10-12 Washington St. property would be to remove the buses from the public streets, and thus free up 10 much-needed downtown parking spaces during the summer. However, the observer notes that there have been 10 to 12 cars parked on the site during the past week, which would then be returned to the streets. Net effect, "0".

Perhaps of greater concern is the fact that the Washington Street site has in the past been the location of an auto repair shop and a gas station, which leads to the question of whether it constitutes a 21- E hazardous waste site. An attempt to get an answer to this question from the Selectmen has been unsuccessful. If there is a 21-E report, it is apparently not available through the Selectmen's office.

Yet do the Selectmen not have an obligation to the citizens of Nantucket to make a careful determination of the condition of the site before proceeding with its acquisition? Or is the logic that it's okay to park buses on an already potentially polluted site?

It has been said that if the property does not work out as a bus depot, it could be sold by the town to recover the funds. Rest assured, any potential buyer, or any other potential use by the town would require that any hazardous material be removed, and we are talking here of an additional $1 million of expense, or more.

Another irony in this whole situation is the proposed source of funds for the purchase of the property. Article 3 includes the provision that funds received from the Nantucket Land Bank for the purchase of town-owned land in Surfside "….pursuant to Article 75 of the 2007 Annual Town Meeting or from any leasing or licensing by the Land Bank, other Town properties or portions thereof…." may be used for the purchase of 10-12 Washington St.

Thus it appears as if funds from a conservation organization (i.e., the Land Bank) are going to be used to purchase a potential hazardous waste site in the middle of town. If that's not ironic, what is?

The bottom line, for the present, is that this is an ill-conceived, hasty action on the part of the Selectmen. At the least, the proposal should receive a full airing in the proper public forums, including the Planning Board, and then we can consider whether we want to spend $3.5 million for a marginally viable parcel in the middle of town that has no particular relationship to any other part of our government infrastructure.

In its present format, Article 3 should be

defeated. I