Town Meeting Votes To Approve New Our Island Home Skilled Nursing Facilty

In a reversal, Town Meeting has voted 959-321 to support a $137 million proposal to move Our Island Home to Sherburne Commons after defeating the plan last year.

The largest capital project to ever go before Town Meeting, Article 11 is poised to keep the state’s only municipally owned skilled nursing facility open for the foreseeable future. The project still needs majority support at the ballot box in the upcoming local election, but if confirmed, tonight’s vote represents the single biggest investment Nantucket’s voters have ever approved.

Highlighting what they saw as the ethical importance of the facility, advocates leaned heavily on personal stories and moral appeals.

Had Article 11 failed, the Select Board had indicated that the existing Our Island Home would be closed within three to five years, likely leaving Nantucket with no options for skilled nursing care and forcing elders to leave the island at high cost to them and their families.

Opponents have rarely refuted the importance of Our Island Home, instead framing the issue as a choice between the emotional appeal of the facility and the allegedly illogical financial downside.

Nantucket is facing a wide range of expensive capital projects in the next decade, including over 200 million on this year’s warrant. Article 11 asks for $119 million in borrowing, the same amount the town asked for last year. It was opposed by the Finance Committee and Capital Program Committee, two town committees that evaluate capital requests, but supported by the Select Board. The Finance Committee’s vote was 4-3.

In addition to the $119 million in borrowing, the town now has to continue providing an annual subsidy to Our Island Home. A pro forma showed that subsidy beginning at $14.7 million and increasing to $17 million over the course of a decade, and some, including Finance Committee chair and Select Board candidate Jill Vieth, have argued that the pro forma underestimates the cost by overstating occupancy at the facility.

The vote is a striking change of pace after voters shot down most major borrowing articles last year, including one nearly identical to Article 11. This year, voters were more generous.

The $119 million appropriation will fund the construction of a 60,000-square-foot, 45-bed new nursing facility at the Sherburne Commons campus, complete with enclosed courtyards and photovoltaic solar arrays. Some rooms will be large enough to accommodate a second bed should OIH need to increase capacity.