The Lighthouse Keeper
BY DANIEL W. DRAKE PUBLISHER

Some of Nantucket's voters have spoken in the follow-up vote on three Proposition 2 1/2 overrides. Last Tuesday, they said "No" to $3 million dollars of new playing fields with a lot of artificial turf and a big parking lot; "No" to almost $7 million dollars worth of mish-mash - a laundry list of capital improvements and repairs and "No" to a new $26 million public safety building hidden away in the woods off Fairgrounds Road.

Many observers were surprised at the outcome, which was essentially two-to-one against the fields and the building, with a smaller majority defeating the mish-mash. Despite previously expressed concerns about its cost, the public safety facility proposal, along with the mish-mash, were overwhelmingly approved at Town Meeting with little discussion. One observer said with a straight face that in the case of the public safety building, the reason for such little dissent was because people were concerned that the police were watching them.

The playing fields were discussed at some length but still passed by the 2/3 majority required of a town meeting by the Proposition 2 1/2 process.

There were about 500 people present at the beginning of Town Meeting or about six percent of the registered voters. 1,613 voters, or almost 20% of those registered, cast ballots in the special election. It would be interesting to know how many of those attending Town Meeting also voted on Tuesday. Assuming that town meeting attendees are the most politically active or, perhaps, the most "civic- minded," it is reasonable to assume that most of them also went to the polls. Thus, it is not too much of a stretch, unless the police-watching theorist is correct, to assume that most of those people voted in favor of the overrides. Therefore, it is also reasonable to assume that the voters on Tuesday who did not attend Town Meeting voted overwhelmingly in the negative against the three overrides, with perhaps as many as 90 percent voting "no."

As reiterated by Town Manager Gibson at the Wednesday selectmen's very brief post-mortem on the election, the point has been made that the difficult economic times influenced many to vote "no." That is probably true to a degree, but it also may be that a pattern is emerging.

In July 2007, special town meeting approved the acquisition of the Island Spirits Property for a bus depot. In the follow-up balloting, the proposal was defeated, with almost 63% of the votes cast in the negative. The remarkable similarity in the outcomes of the two elections may be just a coincidence. It may be that people really are feeling the pinch and the only thing that they can control, somewhat, is their tax rate. Or it may be that a bloc of voters has coalesced around the notion that it can, almost as a matter of principle, bullet-vote at the polls to veto any town meeting decision to spend money beyond the Proposition 2 1/2 constraints, regardless of the merits of the underlying proposal.

It is too early to tell if this is a continuing trend, but the two resoundingly negative Proposition 2 1/2 election results in nine months do serve as a wake-up call, of sorts, for our municipal officials. It is clearly not enough for the Town Manager and a couple of police officers to be standing in front of the grocery store with a model of the public safety facility a few days before the vote. (Although the concept is a good one, in this instance it may have hurt the cause more than it helped.) Every project, large or small, must be thought through as to need and scope and then it has to be actively marketed to the voters as necessary or justifiable by those promoting it. Maybe the mish-mash has to be broken out into projects that people vote on individually rather than asking them to determine importance from a small print.

Since the Proposition 2 1/2 process isn't going to be changed any time soon, if there is to be any future success in working through it here, the approach to it must be changed. It isn't going to get easier to find the funding for the town's needs as the tax base stops expanding. Given the nature of the political animal, the first things to be neglected will be capital projects and infrastructure maintenance. It falls to our municipal officials to insure that these needs do get funded, using every means at their disposal to convince the voters of that. But first, they have to be absolutely convinced that each project is saleable, because they have to get out a body of voters who can overcome the inveterate naysayers.

Now that the voters have handcuffed the town on the public safety building, what are the alternatives? Despite Ms. Gibson's comment to the selectmen last week that a lot of money has already been spent on the project and that it would be nice to continue on the same course, the project must be thought through from the beginning in the context of what is nice to have and what is really necessary? For starters, certainly it would be nice to have the public safety departments under one roof, but is it necessary?

A new police station is necessary. That is beyond debate. Could the fire department be relocated to Fairgrounds Road, and the police station move to the Pleasant Street firehouse (which, incidentally, would give the police a much more prominent site than they would have in the pine woods)? If a new firehouse could be built for $10 million - to pull a number out of the air - and the firehouse renovation for police use done for $5 million, the taxpayers would be way ahead of the game, even without selling the Pleasant Street property which was part of the just-defeated plan. Or do we go back to the idea of renovating the existing firehouse and figure out another solution for the police?

So, also, with the mish-mash. Which of those projects are really necessary and which are nice to have. We have survived for a long time with the Orange Street/Union Street corner as it is. Do we really need "improvements" particularly when other aspects of the downtown truck route are much more dangerous and less maneuverable than that intersection. On the other hand, some of the other proposed projects are designed to protect investments the taxpayers have already made. In these instances, there has to be followup.

The proponents of the defeated overrides must be very discouraged. They are entitled, but not for long. They have to go back to the drawing boards and find workable and saleable solutions to most of the same issues that these overrides addressed. As with fires in the desert, the incineration of the overrides is an opportunity to bring new life to the important projects, as well as to the approach in addressing them. i

The "Lighthouse Keeper" reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily represent the editorial position of The Nantucket Independent. Comments are welcome and may be sent to drake@ nantucketindependent.com.