Nantucket Town Meeting Wrap-Up
Perhaps the biggest story of the Nantucket Annual Town Meeting was what articles did not pass. There were three articles, citizen sponsored, that would have halted or ended the Town’s affordable housing project at Ticcoma Way/6 Fairgrounds Road and all three were voted down, confirming that the community stands behind the Town’s effort to create 65 more affordable housing units for working people on Nantucket.
There was an article for a $30 million tax levy override, also citizen sponsored, that would have put the bulk of the override burden on those who own summer homes and do not use the services here on a year-round basis. During a lengthy discussion, issues about taxation without representation and fairness were raised. This article was also nearly unanimously defeated. The sponsor voted for it and received a nice round of applause for his efforts.
Two articles by individuals who own property in the Surfside area who wanted to change their zoning from 2 acres to 1 acre also did not pass. The majority of those voting felt that both articles represented zoning “creep’ in spite of the fact that both articles received a positive recommendation from the Planning Board. The argument that a neighboring property is in a different, more liberal, zoning district did not go over well with the voters. People are upset about the massive and messy construction project on Old South Road (the Richmond Project) and feel that enough is enough.
Also defeated was an article that would have permitted an increase in ground coverage from 10% to 12.5% in certain Village Residential zoning districts by special permit provided that the additional 2.5% of ground coverage was limited to 16 feet in height. Voters felt they were giving something away for nothing and soundly defeated this article.
Article 67 was a Home Rule Petition which would authorize the changing of the name of the Board of Selectmen to the Selectboard, a more gender-neutral term. The article overwhelmingly passed. Also passed, without much discussion, was the annual operating budget of $82.3 million.
The meeting opened with 485 (only 6%) of Nantucket’s 8,913 registered voters in attendance. Of the 90 articles on the Town Meeting Warrant only 25 were called for discussion. The rest of the articles were voted as recommended by the Finance Committee and the Planning Board. The meeting was wrapped up in less than 5 hours.
One perennial observation: each year the issues seem to become more complex and the Town does a decent job of holding a series of public hearings on each article prior to the ATM in order to provide an opportunity for voters to become more informed. It is frustrating when voters have not done their homework prior to speaking and it slows down the process. But this is democracy at work and we are fortunate to be able to participate.