Tall Structures and Energy
To the editor:
William von Herff’s Reporter’s Notebook “Lighthouses and Windmills” [June 20, page A2] made me think about other tall structures, like power-plant smokestacks in the Ohio Valley. To reduce the concentration of emissions of air pollutants like sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx), ozone, mercury, and particulates on their local communities, these stacks routinely stand more than 500 feet tall, with some, like the Rockport Power Plant in Indiana, exceeding 1,000 feet — coming close to the heights of such iconic structures as the Chrysler and Empire State buildings and the Eiffel Tower.
This pollution exacerbates emphysema, bronchitis, and asthma and produces acid rain, which damages crops, vegetation, and aquatic ecosystems. Where does it end up once it is discharged high into the prevailing westerly winds? It ends up here — all over the Northeast, including Cape Cod and the Cape Cod National Seashore.
So, when I consider the tall structures associated with energy production — the energy that powers our homes and businesses, runs our mass transit, powers our cell phones, computers, electric vehicles, and the other conveniences of modern life — I note that some (wind turbines) may have negative effects on those of us living on Cape Cod, while others (smokestacks) definitely do have negative effects.
I’ll choose the towers (that we may or may not even see) supporting wind turbines that produce power without toxic emissions any day over the faraway smokestacks belching the byproducts of climate-altering, health- and ecosystem-damaging fossil fuels.
Bob Wagner
Wellfleet
A Progressive Transfer Fee
To the editor:
Thank you for the excellent article on the path of the real estate transfer fee in the Massachusetts legislature [June 13, front page]. Outer Cape towns have formally requested permission from the legislature to support housing affordability with this new revenue source, and the Cape’s Sen. Julian Cyr has been a strong champion.
The statewide housing bond bill in which Gov. Healey inserted the transfer fee proposal would authorize billions of potential dollars for greater access to housing across the state. But for individual communities looking to change the availability of affordable housing, the transfer fee option is almost the only element that they could be certain would deliver new funding to them. The authorization of billions in bond-funded projects might or might not affect towns on the Cape, depending on whether the state ends up actually issuing the bonds (it often doesn’t) and whether state agencies choose projects located here.
Your article did not mention one of the best features of the proposed transfer fee. It would be progressively structured so that it would fall only on more expensive homes and — depending on the version — be levied proportionally more heavily on the most expensive homes. In addition to raising funds for affordable housing, it would thus also do its part to counter wealth inequality and incentivize creation of housing that is more affordable.
Phineas Baxandall
Truro and Cambridge
The writer is interim president of the Mass. Budget and Policy Center and a member of the Truro Part-Time Resident Advisory Committee.
The ‘Blowing of Millions’
To the editor:
Re “Wellfleet OKs Purchase of Gestalt Center for Town Offices” [June 20, page A4]:
Once again, true to form, a majority of Wellfleet voters have proved that they never met a tax override or debt exclusion they didn’t like.
The Gestalt International Study Center is being sold to the town “as-is,” which tells me it will probably take at least another half million to fix all of its problems. Perfect.
Meanwhile, other town buildings are falling apart because they aren’t being maintained — like the police station that was built in 1980, was neglected for years, and took more than $5 million to remodel inside and out. Beautiful.
Because of the annual blowing of millions by majority votes at town meetings, Wellfleet has nearly hit its Massachusetts-mandated debt ceiling. So now the town can’t borrow multi-millions to throw at 95 Lawrence Road and Maurice’s Campground to bring the proposed subsidized housing developments there to fruition.
More pathetic financial planning.
Mike Rice
Wellfleet
Not All Were Emancipated
To the editor:
Re your preview of “Juneteenth on the Outer Cape” [June 13, page C9]:
The statement that the Emancipation Proclamation “formally abolished slavery throughout the United States” is inaccurate. It abolished slavery, “as a fit and necessary war measure,” only in states or parts thereof whose populations were “in rebellion against the United States.”
On Jan. 1, 1863, there were 10 states in rebellion and the proclamation declared free the more than three million people enslaved there. It did not free the approximately half a million people enslaved in the so-called border states, the four slave states that did not secede: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. Further, the proclamation exempted Tennessee, which at the time was under Union control, and those parts of Louisiana and Virginia (West Virginia) that were no longer in rebellion. The latter exemptions left another perhaps 300,000 enslaved people unemancipated.
Not until the end of the war was slavery finally prohibited by most of the exempted states. Slavery remained legal in two of them, Delaware and Kentucky, until December 1865 when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, formally abolishing slavery throughout the country.
Robert Sabbag
*****
Letters to the Editor
The Provincetown Independent welcomes letters from readers on all subjects. They must be signed with the writer’s name, home address, and telephone number (for verification). Letters will be published only if they have been sent exclusively to the Independent. They should be no more than 300 words and may be edited for clarity, accuracy, conciseness, and good taste. Longer pieces (up to 600 words) may be submitted for consideration as op-ed commentary. Send letters to [email protected] or by mail to P.O. Box 1034, Provincetown, MA 02657. The deadline for letters is Monday at noon for each week’s edition.
