Why Is Nantucket Spending Money Like A Drunken Sailor?

To the editor:  Another town meeting is in the books. I don't know about you, but I never miss them. It's the island's show of the year with high-stakes drama and an all-star cast all on display. You never know if a physical fight will break out, what ridiculous articles we will be voting on, or what article will make us shake our heads in disbelief after the vote. Even before the opening ceremonies, we had a disturbance from the audience...we all know who he is.

One thing is for sure: we like to spend money like drunken sailors. Over $200 million in new spending projects and a record municipal spending budget. Top of the list, funding for the new nursing home. $137 million dollars. First off, I haven't heard of anyone saying they are against having the nursing home. Why would they? What was in contention was the cost to build said nursing home, again $137 million. We heard arguments saying they could build it for less and how expensive it is to build on the island, that $137 million was acceptable. There, during the debate, I said we just built the new hospital, so let's compare them. The new hospital cost $90 million, so with inflation those 2019 dollars will now be equivalent to 116 million. The beds to be in the new nursing home number 45, and the beds in the hospital number 45. However, the hospital is 160,000 square feet, and the new nursing home is 60,000 square feet. That makes the new nursing home 3/8ths the size of the hospital, so just that would bring the cost down to $43 million.

But there's a lot of other factors. Hospitals are much more complicated and expensive compared to skilled nursing homes. Diagnostic equipment, laboratories, emergency room, and emergency room suites (13 at the hospital) and operating rooms, etc make the cost in Massachusetts two to four times (or more) expensive to build a hospital. That could bring the cost down to $39 million dollars. And there's more: the new hospital had to be built around the old hospital, and that had to be torn down after the new hospital was built. So if my ciphering is correct, we are going to spend close to five times what it should cost to build the new nursing home.

I couldn't speak at Town Meeting because the vote was called, but many local people did. It was stated that the current nursing home had plenty of years left in it, so there's no reason to rush to build a new one. Yes, estimates now are higher than they were in the past, but that's just due to inflation and the inability to find a fair contractor's bid. Andy Lowell correctly pointed out that the current nursing home is a well-built building and can be improved and added on to. Personally I would like to see the nursing home stay where it is so its visitors will have a more "pretty" setting to visit their loved ones.

To move along, I'll just say we should vote down proposed funding for the new nursing home at the town election (this May 19th ). We will still have a nursing home on the island, and I am sure provisions will be made in the future for one to always be here, but we should not allocate that much excessive money. I'll vote no for the nursing home funding on voting day, even though I support the nursing home being on the island. It's just an outrageous sum of money for the project. I point out that the Finance Committee moved not to adopt the article at Town Meeting.

Another article that I'll question is the appropriation of $26 million dollars for the athletic facilities improvement. There was a vague to no description as to what work will be done, except for "new and or other improvements" and the installation of a synthetic turf field. Just last fall, they proposed the plan with grass fields and a track around it of which the design wasn't supported by Matt Fee. I would like to know exactly what is going to be done for $26 million. Ithaca College just put in a state-of-the-art, eight-lane, 400-meter track with adjacent runways for jumping events. The track met NCAA specifications with a total cost of $4 million. Artificial turf fields at the high end are $1,400,000. So off-island those projects would cost less than $6 million and we are expected to pay $26 million? It can still be voted down at the town election (again May 19th) until plans are finalized.

The expression "Nantucket, why pay less?" is supposed to apply to the tourists, not the taxpayers.

Kenneth Kuntz

Editor's note: Nantucket Cottage Hospital has 14 inpatient beds.