Not the Wild West
To the editor:
When most of us hear the word “sheriff,” we are transported back to the films of the 1950s, where the sheriff kept order in the towns of the Wild West. He rounded up the cattle rustlers and made sure that the card players in the saloon didn’t shoot each other.
Today, each of our towns in Barnstable County has a police department. It is their job to keep order so that the citizens are safe. We also have a federal government with a department that deals with immigration. Our federal taxes pay for enforcement of those laws, so we don’t need to pay the sheriff’s department for doing ICE’s work.
What is the sheriff’s job in Massachusetts in 2022? It is the care and custody of those who are incarcerated. It is the sheriff’s responsibility to care for their physical and mental health needs, to treat addiction, to offer educational programs and job training to prepare them to re-enter their families and our communities so that, after they’re released, they don’t return to the criminal justice system.
Donna Buckley understands that today’s sheriff is no longer the hero of old movies. That’s why I’m voting for her to be the next sheriff of Barnstable County.
Betsy Smith
Brewster
Special Permits for Sale?
To the editor:
I guess the land-use regulations in Truro really are up for sale to the highest bidder.
In 2016, when the Dennis family paid off the town to have the teardown order for the Kline House rescinded, I rationalized: what the hell — it’s really just paying a fine, as stated by the town.
Now comes a pot-growing outfit that, with guarantees of an increasing percentage of profits going to the town, is likely to get a variance from our land-use regulations allowing them to go commercial in a residential neighborhood — on a road, by the way, that can barely sustain the traffic from the few houses currently there [“Truro Farmers Offer Plan for New Cannabis Facility,” April 7, page A5].
What’s good for the goose being good for the gander, I suggest that those who have trouble paying taxes go for a commercial project on your residential land. If you can borrow enough money to pay off the town, the planning board has a special permit with your name on it.
Dan Katz
Truro and Westport, Conn.
Memories of Libby Fleeson
To the editor:
How sad I was to read Libby Fleeson’s obituary in your March 10 issue. How glad I was to remember her at PAAM potluck suppers back in the mid-aughts and early teens. She would rarely eat any of that potluck food, such as B&M baked beans doctored with fried onion, green pepper, and sliced hot dogs. Or a tin of stuffed grape leaves with its lid curled back on itself.
I never saw Libby eat. Either she wasn’t hungry or she was heading home to cook for her husband, who apparently preferred a more Continental dinner hour.
But if Libby were showing one of her mosaics in an exhibition, she would be there with some remarkable dish to share among the plates of cream-cheese-stuffed celery sticks and Betty Crocker Scalloped Potatoes with cubes of Stop & Shop deli ham ends stirred in. Libby’s culinary flair was renowned; people would hover near her offerings with paper plates at the ready until given the “go” to dig in. In a minute, her food would be gone.
Once, when Libby brought a dish of pasta and greens redolent with garlic, I asserted unearned privilege and scooped some out for myself. I wouldn’t let her away from me until I got her recipe for what I learned was a classic Puglian dish: Orecchiette Alla Cime di Rapa. Written on the flip side of a PAAM auction registration slip I still have, the recipe is quintessentially Libby: a bunch of rabe, a head of garlic, good olive oil (a lot), tomato paste (a little), kosher salt, Parmesan, and anchovy paste (more than you would think).
More than you would think! I delight in my memories of Libby Fleeson.
Sheila McGuinness
Provincetown
