The Baxter Road Debate Has Not Been Decided

To the editor: In response to Burton Balkind’s letter of August 31, we find a few things curious.

First of all his timing seems a bit odd. Town Meeting isn’t until next May. Why the arguments now? Also, with his assertion that the voters have decided this question after five TM votes, has he forgotten that oftentimes a motion does not pass on the first time, most recently the funding for Our Island Home?

Mr. Balkind’s assertion that the Baxter Road controversy has been decided is simply not true. There are many issues that are still unresolved. The relocation plan is a just-in-case plan, not a let’s-get-digging plan.

Balkind goes to great lengths to name “stakeholder groups”, but most glaringly is the omission of the homeowners along Baxter Road. This relocation plan, by all estimates, will take 5-7 years and cost around $30 million, not only tearing up the existing road and relocating all utilities, but creating a new road for access to homes and the Light. Where do existing homeowners (on both sides of the road) go during this construction?

This new road would have a steep incline to get to the lighthouse, impractical for bikes, strollers and the handicapped. At the moment there are hundreds of people, both locals and visitors who walk and ride from Sconset town to the Light and back every day. None of that would happen if there is construction.

In addition, the town has to buy easements from homeowners and Sankaty Golf Course at fair market value to cut through their existing properties, then create new lanes and paths.

Right now Baxter Road ending with the Sankaty Light is a remarkable coastal landscape. The bank swallows are coming back (we’ve seen them) and the cobble fish nursery has had over 30 years to return following the Perfect Storm of 1991. There has been much time to recover naturally.

And while the bluff beach is a public beach, very few people use it because of its lack of proximity and access and currents. It’s a mile and half walk from Sconset to Hoick’s Hollow, no public access in between.

Mr. Balkind seems obsessed with this area. He regularly flies his drone over it, then reports to the Coastal Conservancy and ConCom what he has seen. We have even seen his drone over our back porch. What’s that about?

Recently he has taking to knocking on doors of renters along Baxter and telling them they need to get out because the house is going to be condemned. Really? Who does he think he is?

And it’s also curious that the next week after the vandalism of the geotubes, he and the NCC write a letter to the I&M claiming it wasn’t them. First thing a child says when a mommy catches them doing something, “not me.”

Why destroy what is already here? Perhaps a better plan would be to look at what is working (geotubes) and get behind it as a model for the rest of Nantucket beach areas.

Kyle Latshaw