Potential Planning Commission Reform Referred To Subcommittee

The Nantucket Planning and Economic Development Commission (NP&EDC) has referred a long-delayed set of reforms to a subcommittee for further study after a contentious workshop session Monday in which Commissioners were unable to come to a consensus with critic Hillary Hedges Rayport, whose citizen warrant article seeking to restructure the NP&EDC partially spurred the initiative for self-reform.

Commissioners voted 6-3 to form a three-person subcommittee that will work with Rayport to find common ground and potentially present a unified reform bylaw proposal to Town Meeting next Spring. Rayport, whose citizen warrant article passed by a single vote at the 2022 Annual Town Meeting but can’t go into effect without state approval, is seeking to bring her petition to a vote again, despite a negative recommendation from the Finance Committee.

Rayport's proposal matches the NP&EDC proposal on several points, including decreased representation for the Planning Board, a name change to a more streamlined title, and a representative for the Land Bank on the island's regional planning body. But she remains at loggerheads with the Commission on key issues, including whether any members of the Commission should be elected and whether the Nantucket Historical Commission should be represented, though the NP&EDC itself is not unified on all issues.

The NP&EDC hopes the subcommittee can help avoid Rayport forcing another vote on her article at Town Meeting by reaching a compromise on these issues.

“The goal,” NP&EDC vice chair Nat Lowell said, “is to get Hillary to accept the [Finance Committee] motion with the continuation of discussion.”

Rayport indicated she would be willing to participate in negotiations, and that she believes compromise is possible. “I think we can do it,” she said.

Not all Commissioners are convinced. Chair Barry Rector voted against the proposal, preferring to continue discussions with the whole group.

“I am not a fan of this in any way, shape, or form because what I heard just a few minutes ago was that there is a lot more that is going to go on at Town Meeting and we have just covered the tip of the iceberg,” Rector said. “I feel as though there's a lot more here that I would prefer everyone here to come to grips with and understand exactly what is going on.”

But by the end of Monday’s workshop, after hours of discussion failed to result in any progress toward a compromise, Rector was out-voted by his fellow Commissioners. Rector was joined in opposition to the creation of the subcommittee by Abby De Molina and Mike Misurelli, while John Kitchener, Kristina Jelleme, Joe Topham, Brooke Mohr, and Bert Johnson joined Lowell in voting in favor of the workgroup, which was initially proposed by Kitchener.

Drawing on the recent Select Board subcommittee on short-term rentals and his experience in the short-term rental work group, Kitchener pitched the subcommittee as a potential avenue for compromise. The proposal came after over two hours of debate that failed to alter the initial draft proposal sketched out at the NP&EDC's last meeting or resolve the questions that draft left unanswered.

Rector will appoint the three NP&EDC members of the subcommittee and has already indicated that he will be one of them. It remains unclear who will join him on the commission, though multiple Commissioners signaled their support for Kitchener.