Nantucket Town Government Roundup, Sept. 26 - Oct. 16

This government roundup includes new information on a Select Board decision not to renovate the town’s public restrooms this year and whether you should eat Nantucket’s sea foam or not.

• Preparation for the November Special Town Meeting is continuing. The Select Board has opened, closed, and adopted the warrant, which will feature two competing short-term rental regulation proposals. The Planning Board voted 3-2 to endorse chair Dave Iverson’s more restrictive regulation proposal, while the Finance Committee voted 3-2 for local charter boat captain Brian Borgeson’s attempt at full codification, and the Select Board declined to endorse either of the two articles that will go head-to-head in next month.
• The town has released a new survey seeking public input on future plans for Our Island Home, which characterizes a move to Sherburne Commons as still the island’s best option. The survey can be found here.
• After the Planning Board rejected local orthopedic surgeon Rocco Monto’s proposed medical office on Goldfinch Drive in Naushop, it looks like the island doctor is targeting 1 Cherry Street instead. The Historic District Commission approved an accessible ramp for the building last Tuesday, noting it would be Monto’s new office—if everything goes right and all necessary permits are secured. One Cherry Street was the home of the Fast Forward coffee shop, and was slated to be the new location for Slow to Rise bakery before a sudden fire gutted the building days before opening last May.
• The Select Board rejected all three bids to renovate the town’s public bathrooms, largely in an effort to save money by excluding the Harbor Master building from the renovation project and rebidding without it. The Select Board hopes to rebuild the Harbor Master building with separate funds, and didn’t want to spend money renovating its restrooms only to tear the building down a year or two later.
• At the same meeting, the Select Board discussed the town’s concerted effort to prevent property owners from encroaching on public ways. Homeowners often place stakes or rocks on grassy road shoulders in an effort to protect what they see as their property. But when the shoulder is owned by the town, as is often the case, these obstructions constitute encroachment, with the homeowner taking land that doesn’t belong to them. As shoulders are often quite large, the affected area can be significant. Oversized hedges are another common cause of encroachment, often blocking critical eyelines for drivers. The town claims that what might seem like a technicality is actually an issue of public safety. These obstructions force pedestrians into the road, eliminate space for cars to pull over in the event of a breakdown or to allow an emergency vehicle to pass them, and make it more difficult for large vehicles, like fire trucks, to navigate Nantucket’s often narrow roadways.
• The next week, the Select Board voted to take a new approach to securing Conservation Commission approval for an alternative access plan for the homes on Baxter Road after homeowner opposition stymied an earlier effort.
• The School Committee heard about an updated speaker vetting policy in response to a recent controversy, reviewed some testing results, fielded a bevy of concerns about a proposal for a new athletic complex, and discussed another decrease in enrollment for the month of October at a meeting on Wednesday.
• The Airport Commission is continuing to negotiate with the Steamship Authority in an effort to increase the amount of fuel it can ship to the island.
• The Board of Health received another update on PFAS on Thursday. After an earlier round of sampling showed incredibly high levels of the dangerous “forever chemicals” in the island’s seafoam, Nantucket issued an advisory telling islanders not to eat the foam. But the laboratory that tested the foam indicated that the numbers weren’t reliable, likely due to an insufficient amount of foam for testing. Nantucket sent in a second batch of foam for further testing, and the results are now available. None of the concentrations detected in the second test came close to 30,000 ppt for a single PFAS compound, the highest level found in the first sample. That said, the tests still found what would otherwise be the highest concentrations of PFAS recorded on Nantucket, with one sample containing nearly 9,000 ppt of a single PFAS compound. The trouble is that, once again, the lab noted that many of the results are unreliable. All of the highest concentrations were flagged by the lab. While it looks likely that Nantucket’s foam has very high levels of PFAS, the actual concentrations may never be known. Still, it’s probably best not to eat the foam.