Jim Cooper Resigns From Board Of Health In Protest After Two Members Replaced By Select Board

Longtime Board of Health member Jim Cooper has resigned, citing the Select Board’s recent decision to oust the Board of Health’s chair and vice chair during its annual committee appointments earlier this month.

“The Select Board recently failed to renew the Board of Health tenure of two members, including the chair, both of whom have medical and science backgrounds,” Cooper wrote in his resignation letter. “They replaced them with two people who are on the record in favor of a particular outcome in a single, highly publicized and controversial issue.”

The Select Board voted out former chair Ann Smith and vice chair Meredith Lepore on a 4-1 vote during its June 10th meeting amid a lengthy, contentious debate over how the Board of Health should handle a proposed artificial turf field slated for installation at Vito Capizzo Stadium. Both women had proposed motions that would, if passed, have at least temporarily blocked the installation of the field, though neither motion was ultimately voted on.

Smith and Lepore have both been criticized for their conduct during deliberations on the field, leading to two complaints alleging they violated a state law intended to ensure that government board meetings are accessible and open to the public.

They were replaced by emergency room nurse Kate Garrette, a vocal proponent of the turf field, and excavation and concrete company owner Ernie Strang. Strang also signed a pair of letters advocating for the field and against the Board of Health’s actions. One of those letters was co-written by Garrette.

Cooper, the Board of Health’s elder statesman, had served on the board for 17 years.

“I have put my heart and soul into this Board, and over all the years, I have never seen anything like this misuse of authority,” he wrote.

With Cooper’s resignation, the Board of Health now has just a single member who was serving before last month’s local elections: Kerry McKenna, who was re-appointed to a new term last year, before the turf field reached the Board.

Opponents of the field claim it may contain harmful substances, such as microplastics and the so-called forever chemicals known as PFAS, which could contaminate Nantucket’s sole-source aquifer. The Nantucket Public Schools administration and proponents claim there will be no intentionally added PFAS and that the field is needed for athletes' safety, as it can withstand far more hours of practice than natural grass without deteriorating in quality.

Cooper’s resignation strengthens comparisons between the recent shakeup on the Board of Health and a previous realignment on the Conservation Commission. During a heated debate on the Sconset Bluff geotube installation - a debate that has recently begun to make headlines once again - the Select Board removed several members of the Commission, including two consecutive chairs. Another member resigned in protest, much as Cooper has now done.

The rapid turnover on the Board of Health is remarkable, however. Incumbents are usually reappointed or re-elected, and even when they are not, their terms are staggered enough that it is difficult to replace nearly an entire board so quickly. Even in the case of the Conservation Commission, it took years for a majority of the Commission to be replaced. The Board of Health has now seen an exodus of four members in five weeks.

The Board of Health’s final new member is Select Board representative Bob DeCosta. DeCosta is the third Select Board member to serve on the Board of Health in the last two months. He replaced Matt Fee, who joined the board on an interim basis for a single meeting after Tom Dixon, himself relatively new to the Board of Health, opted to leave the island rather than run for re-election for his Select Board seat.

The Select Board will vote to fill Cooper’s seat by appointment. In addition to Garrette and Strang, the last round of appointments saw two other candidates aside from the incumbents apply for a position on the Board of Health: island resident Kit Murphy, who later withdrew her application, and Nantucket Cottage Hospital chief nursing officer Amy Beaton, who received no votes from the Select Board.

In the last round, Fee voted for both incumbents, while the Select Board’s other four members all backed Garrette and Strang.