Select Board To Decide Fate Of Our Island Home Nursing Facility Next Week

Just months after Nantucket's new municipal nursing home proposal was narrowly defeated, the Select Board is slated to decide the future of Our Island Home next Wednesday - and the Board may be poised to wind down its operations and eventually close the town-owned nursing facility for good.

After reviewing the results of a survey intended to gauge the community’s support for relocating the facility and a revised plan that would drop the total required remaining borrowing from the $116 million rejected last year to an estimated $104 million, the Select Board on Wednesday opted to continue the discussion on whether to bring a new proposal to the 2026 Annual Town Meeting. But first, several members of the Board suggested they might decide to close Our Island Home instead - an outcome that town manager Libby Gibson had previously said was on the table if the funding proposal was defeated.

“This is a really hard decision,” Select Board member Tom Dixon said. “We are the only municipally owned nursing facility left in the commonwealth for a reason. The business model has changed. It is extremely difficult. I just don't know how I can reasonably say, as a Select Board member, that this is a good idea to send on to the voters.”

The cost of the proposal weighed on the board. Once interest is considered, it would require total debt service of around $182 million, increasing property taxes by $0.16 for every $1,000 of assessed value.

“Yes, we'd love it, but it's the cost that really is dragging me away from this, unfortunately,” Select Board member Malcolm MacNab said. “I think it's time to say it was a good fight, but there's other things we need to do.”

In addition to the high cost of the project, Select Board members worried about the lack of public support for a relocation to Sherburne Commons. The proposed new facility and move to Sherburne Commons garnered majority support at the ballot box and on Town Meeting floor last Spring, but fell 38 votes shy of the two-thirds margin required to pass at Town Meeting.

“The community, through many, many iterations of this discussion, have not expressed enough support for one path or another. I think this difficult decision is going to fall on us,” Select Board member Brooke Mohr said.

The town’s survey continued to show the community deeply divided: 50 percent of respondents supported relocating to Sherburne Commons, with 38 percent opposed. Only 26 percent supported rebuilding at the current site, 25 percent were in favor of taking no action, and 22 percent supported a smaller facility.

Online surveys are often unreliable, especially those like the town’s that rely on “convenience samples,” which allow anyone who wishes to reply to the survey to do so. The town’s survey also did not control for demographic variables such as race, age, or gender, which means the results may not be representative of all Nantucket residents or voters. Questions also appeared to be slanted in favor of a move to Sherburne Commons.

Either way, majorities at Town Meeting and the ballot box supported relocation.

“I can't discard the fact that we got a positive ballot vote. How do we not give people one more shot at this?” Select Board chair Dawn Hill said. “I feel we owe it to the voters to let them make one last decision, and I think it should be very clear that if it is no at the 2026 Town Meeting, that we are moving forward with a closure plan.”

According to town counsel John Giorgio and finance director Brian Turbitt, the positive ballot vote may still be valid if voters approve a relocation plan at the 2026 Annual Town Meeting.

At this point, though, there’s no guarantee they’ll have a proposal to vote on.

“It is on the table tonight that the Select Board may make a decision to close the Island Home,” Hill said before the Select Board continued the discussion. “That is the motion I see that is about to happen.”

The Select Board will revisit the topic at its Wednesday, December 10th meeting, giving the public more time to weigh in.

Mohr suggested that if the town made the absolute nature of this year’s vote clear, it might sway some voters.

“I'm not sure the actual consequences of not supporting this project were clear at Annual Town Meeting last year,” Mohr said. “I'm not sure the voters really realized that not approving this project means we are out of the nursing home business. When that happens is unclear, but it is inevitable that we are not going to be in the nursing home business if we don't build a new facility.”

Some options suggested by members of the public, like passing control of Our Island Home to a different operator, appear to be off the table.

“There's no interest in this once people start really looking at it,” Town Manager Libby Gibson said.

Gibson also expressed concern about the project's cost on Wednesday.

“If we are going to continue being in the skilled nursing business as part of our municipal function, we really need an appropriate facility, and it is expensive, and we do have many other, as has been noted repeatedly, lots of other capital projects on the horizon,” she said.

One factor that remains uncertain is whether the Land Bank could help offset the cost of relocation by purchasing the land where the current facility is located. The Land Bank is actively seeking an appraisal.

If the Select Board does opt to close Our Island Home, it will still cost around $3.2 million.