Nantucket Town Government Roundup, Sept. 12 - 25

Read through the Current’s government roundup for new information on a legal spat over a proposed Baxter Road alternative access plan and an update on the school’s bus driver shortage.

• Charter boat captain Brian Borgeson called a Special Town Meeting last week. The meeting, which will focus on short-term rentals, will be held on November 4th. Borgeson’s article calls for the full legalization of short-term rentals across the island. Planning Board chair Dave Iverson drafted a compromise proposal, which will also be on the warrant after the Planning Board voted to advance it. Iverson’s article looks to have the support of a narrow majority of the Planning Board, with a public hearing scheduled for October 9th.
• With the Special Town Meeting approaching, the timeline for the Annual Town Meeting is officially approved. The deadline for citizens to submit a warrant article is November 17th, less than two weeks after the Special Town Meeting, and the warrant is set to be adopted by the Select Board on January 21st. The Annual Town Meeting will begin on Monday, May 4, and the Annual Town Election is scheduled for Tuesday, May 19.
• The Select Board approved assessing roughly $295,000 in betterments on Sheep Pond Road homeowners to fund the construction of a road providing alternative access to their properties, in what could be a sign of how the Board will handle larger upcoming coastal resilience projects.
• Nantucket’s long-awaited year-round and affordable housing deed restriction program was finally launched by the Affordable Housing Trust last Wednesday. Applications can be submitted here, and are open until November 14th.
• A hearing on an alternative access plan for Baxter Road wasn’t opened at the Conservation Commission’s September 18th meeting after chair Seth Engelbourg said that the Commission’s regulations would not legally allow for the application to be heard until the town obtained signatures from all property owners whose land would be needed for the work to continue. Vince Murphy, Nantucket’s Sustainability Programs Manager, contended that the town needs to know what the Conservation Commission will allow before engaging in the eminent domain takings process to acquire rights to the property owned by the Baxter Road residents opposed to the project. The Conservation Commission voted unanimously to request guidance from town counsel on how to proceed.
• The Board of Health has voted unanimously to increase its fees in line with a draft reviewed last month. They also reviewed the latest PFAS data, which includes another detection over the imminent hazard threshold in a new part of the island.
• The School Committee signalled its support for a major athletic complex project and received reports on e-bikes and the implementation of the in-school cellphone ban it voted for over the summer. NPS has also hired a fifth bus driver, hopefully alleviating some of the pressure on its overburdened transportation network, which has been shorthanded for years, and allowing the school to create a new bus route to reduce the amount of time students spend on the bus waiting to get to and from school.