Setting The Record Straight: Who I Am

To the editor: Kyle Latshaw, a resident of northern Baxter Road whom I do not know, asked in her recent letter to the editor who do I think I am? I would like to set the record straight by responding to Ms. Latshaw directly.

I understand in my role as President of the Nantucket Coastal Conservancy (NCC), I will get criticism and that I will not always be right or have all the answers.

I have never walked on to anyone’s property on Baxter Road and knocked on doors. I have never intentionally flown over anyone’s house with my drone. I don’t know where your back porch is, but I normally fly over the water and video the beach from the water.

This community knows me as someone who volunteers for almost anything that makes our community stronger and better. Examples of this: I am member of the Red Cross; the emergency radio ham operator network; I help look for lost animals with my drone. I have volunteered for every kind of race, contest, or fundraiser. So, when you ask who I think I am, I think I'm a dedicated community member who cares deeply about the island and our beaches.

Okay, so now to actually talk facts about Baxter Road and the geotubes.

I believe the voters at Town Meeting did decide not to allow our public beach to be used for a private erosion control project. I don't think I ever said the Baxter Road debate has been decided. I have tried to say the Town has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars getting consultants to make a plan for the eventual relocation of Baxter Road, and we should be discussing how that should move forward.

I am not the stakeholder decider. I thought that SBPF represented the homeowners of Baxter Road. If the homeowners want to be in on the stakeholder discussion, I would welcome that.

Good question about where the homeowners go when the relocation plan is in place. Maybe you should have thought about that before you bought a home on a bluff that has been eroding for thousands of years. I have no say in the relocation design.

You do bring up good points about how the relocated road layout will affect the residents and visitors. You could ask the town, or better yet go to meeting and discuss in public forum, instead of writing untrue and disparaging Letters to the Editor.

You are wrong about the bank swallows. There are no nesting swallows in the area of the geotubes. Swallows have wings and fly. If you have evidence of nesting swallows on the Baxter Road bluff, you should contact one of the many organizations that monitor birds on the island.

Ask any fisherman about how the fishing has declined in the cobble habitat near the geotubes since installation. I think you might learn something.

I have heard this argument over and over that the public beach is not used by many people so it’s okay to put a wall on it. Sorry, that does not seem right or correct in my opinion.

You accuse me of being obsessed with area. If you knew me you would know I just care about all our beaches, and when I see things that are wrong, I say something.

About the alleged vandalism, SBPF leaves a structure on a beach for three years with no monitoring or maintenance, so I decide to keep an eye on our public beach that has an abandoned seawall on it. I notice when droning this past winter that the tubes looked damaged. I passed it on to NCC, and we decided to post about it and contact the town the first business day after we discovered the damage.

If you are any more curious about the chain of events you can always reach out to me. Your insinuation that we were responsible by stating we had nothing to do with it, coupled with your mother-child analogy, was not nice and caused me pain as my mother passing is still a wound that you opened up. If you were trying to hurt me, you succeeded.

When you end your mostly false rant, you write why destroy what is already there: are you talking about the ecologically and geologically significant bluff-beach interface that has been damaged by the abandoned wall, or the beach, which since the abandoned wall has been in place has been shrinking?

When you say the abandoned wall has been working, I will give you that. The toe of the bluff has been protected, but at what cost? The down drift beaches are being impacted negatively, the front beach has been impacted negatively, and we don’t know how much this is affecting the island-wide sediment transportation system because there has been no monitoring or maintenance in over three years.

I hope those who read this letter see the difference in the tone of your letter vs mine. Yours is trying to divide the community by villainizing any attempt to think of the whole island community not just your own road, whereas I am trying to bring us together as a community to deal with the many problems facing a small spit of sand 30 miles out to sea.

We are better together.

Burton Spruce Balkind