Tuesday: Vote Yes. On Something.

To the editor: One definition of insanity that's not listed in the DSM, is when someone does the same thing repeatedly and expects a different result each time.

And, frankly, that's what has been happening at Town Meeting for over four years. One group or another has been trying to get something codified in Nantucket's zoning bylaw around short-term rentals and nothing has passed the needed two-thirds vote to make it happen. Most have not even come close. And there are reasons for that in each case. Some of the measures were patently unfair. Some of the measures tried to solve all of the problems with one swing of the bat and in doing so, added so much complexity that people got a headache. And with some, a person or two stood up at the meeting and ranted about something entirely off-topic and got the vote killed. We've seen it.

It's like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

And this Tuesday, September 17 we have another Special Town Meeting in which there is bound to be confusion and disagreement. And the easiest thing to do when there is confusion and disagreement is to vote no. It seems very likely that we could crawl through another meeting this week and not get anything done. And that means the next time we convene a town meeting, short-term rentals will once again suck all of the oxygen out of the room and take time away from other pressing issues.

Unless that is, we all make a pact. Right now. Here's my suggestion.

Pledge to vote yes. On something. Decide now where your yes vote will go. Pick the least disagreeable one. Pick the one that makes some sense. It doesn't matter what you choose to vote yes on. Article One? Good. Article two? Fine. You will have at least three chances to vote yes on a zoning bylaw. Maybe four. So do your research, pick one article, and vote yes. No matter what.

It doesn't have to be perfect. Whatever passes will need to be tweaked in the future. The point is, we need to break this cycle and get on to more pressing business.

I am personally voting yes on every zoning article that comes to a vote. There are no perfect articles. But as a community, if we decide to break the cycle, we can move closer to perfection, stop the fighting, and get on to other things.

Let's come together and pass something as a community. As I've said a few times before, either we all win, or we will all lose.

Grant Sanders