For an Eastham Conservation Fund
To the editor:
Eastham voters should support Article 16, to establish a conservation fund (CF), on the May 2 town meeting warrant.
The town summary opposing the article argues that it gives the conservation commission unilateral power to purchase land. But a CF likely won’t ever have money for outright purchases.
The town summary also cites “increasing competition” between conservation and housing for land. In fact, this is an opportunity for housing and conservation to work together. We need more affordable housing for people to live and work here, and we must protect our environment by ensuring smart development. A CF could be a critical tool if any of the few remaining private multi-acre pieces of land come to market. They will be expensive.
These few sizable parcels are mostly tree-covered. A private buyer may be able to afford, say, a 20-acre parcel; a CF will not. The buyer would be allowed to clear most of the acreage, construct 20 single-family homes with 20 driveways and 20 septic systems. Few would be “affordable”; token trees might be replaced, along with lawns and accessory structures (pools, sheds, garages).
If a CF had the funds, it and the Affordable Housing Trust could both request seats at the table with the seller and private buyer — and perhaps negotiate purchase of a conservation restriction on, say, 10 acres of forest and a larger percentage of homes with deeded affordability restrictions. The developer could concentrate housing on half the parcel with shared driveways and shared advanced wastewater treatment.
Everybody wins. The seller gets a good price, the buyer develops half the acreage, a chunk of new homes are affordable, and acres of trees are preserved, monitored annually via the town’s conservation restriction.
This is not a competition but a collaboration for the critical things Eastham needs.
Joanna Buffington
Eastham
The writer, a petitioner of Article 16, is chair of the Eastham Board of Health and vice chair of the open space committee and the strategic planning committee.
Truro’s Planning Board and Diversity
To the editor:
The Truro Planning Board should remain an elected (not appointed) board.
It is crucial that we have a diversity of hearts, minds, and voices representing our town. Our civic conversations have become divisive and often unproductive. The solution to this challenge is to work harder at collaboration, conflict resolution, and open-minded dialogue — not to do away with the democratic election of a board’s members.
If the board becomes appointed, the approval or rejection of an applicant could be decided by just three members of the select board.
The citizens of Truro have complex issues on the table, including affordable housing, water quality, climate change, economic health, and environmental preservation. How we address these challenges will determine the character of our town 10, 20, 30 years from now. It is critical that we have a broad diversity of creativity, smarts, and common sense at the table. We must continue to have a say in who represents us on the planning board.
Vote no on Article 50 on Saturday in order to keep the planning board an elected body.
Amy Wolff
Truro
For Independent Committees
To the editor:
We urge all voters in Truro to continue to support democracy and the free and open discussion of public policy in our community.
We have been home owners in Truro for over 25 years. Yvette is a voter in Truro.
We are concerned about the views of some residents wanting to concentrate power in the hands of a few. In our neighborhood of South Truro, there are dozens of instances of town decisions being made in violation of town bylaws and rules and regulations. Examples include construction of houses with deficient frontage; houses that are occupied without occupancy permits; construction of roads without town permission or approval; and a building department that refuses to pursue violations.
There should be free and open debate about these and other issues; the majority of residents should prevail, and all discussions should be in an open forum with appropriate files retained by the town.
Independent committees are the vehicle by which exceptions are kept to a minimum. Exceptions are becoming way too common — to the point of putting our community at risk.
Please backstop the appointed charter review committee and let it do its work. In the meantime, let us support a continuation of our elected committee members. They represent “the people’s interest.”
Democracy is slow and imperfect. It is, however, the best system for governing.
John and Yvette Dubinsky
St. Louis and Truro
The writers are investors in the Provincetown Independent. John Dubinsky is a member of the newspaper’s corporate board.
Accountability in Truro
To the editor:
The Truro Planning Board has traditionally been democratically chosen directly by the town’s voters. Elected committee members are thus accountable to the voters.
When the members of a board are appointed, it is the appointing authorities to whom they are accountable, not the voting townspeople. In Truro, that invites an undemocratic concentration of power in the hands of just three select board members.
We would be a healthier community if more, not fewer, of our committees and boards were democratically elected. I strongly oppose Article 50.
Joan Holt
Truro
Anger at the Rich
To the editor:
Reading “Seaside Cottage Colony in Truro Faces Demolition” [April 21, page A7], I couldn’t resist the impulse to be angry at the rich for claiming yet another slab of perfect Cape Cod land to transform into their own private paradise.
But on deeper thought, I realize my anger is misdirected.
We all want paradise, but the population possessing the wealth to achieve this has shrunk, and the price has risen. It’s not that fewer people work hard enough to get their lot (no pun), but that our government (local to national) and our economic system have failed the vast majority of us.
Ben Wallace
Eastham
A Fire Alarm
To the editor:
Saturday was a beautiful day, and after putting some eggs on the stove to boil so I could make egg salad for lunch, we hopped in the car and drove over to Longnook for a walk on that gorgeous stretch of sand. When we arrived home in North Truro several hours later, the house was full of smoke and the smoke alarms were blaring their heads off.
After throwing out the blackened eggs, unplugging the smoke alarms, opening all the windows, and setting up some fans, I called 911, full of chagrin and embarrassment. Within minutes two tall, handsome young firemen arrived in a huge truck with lights flashing. They expertly set up a suction fan and swiftly got all the smoke out of the house.
When the drama had passed, I asked what I could do for them. They told me to spread the word that Truro needs more firemen and women. They were the only two on duty that day, they said, and they need far more staff when the fires are big and serious. They work 24-hour shifts and can’t afford housing on our end of the Cape, so they drive long distances (and spend a lot on gas) to get here. We are lucky to have them, but it’s scary to think about the stress on Truro’s fire dept. if there is a larger fire.
I’m spreading the word.
Katharine Baker
Northampton and North Truro
The Truth About Capitalism
To the editor:
What Dan Wolf in your Feb. 17 issue calls a “healthy capitalist system” [“The Death of Democracy and Capitalism,” page A3] is an idealized version of capitalism that ignores its unjust, immoral, and destructive policies and practices.
The climate crisis is the fruit of profit-driven oil and coal industries. Their executives accurately foresaw this 40 years ago and kept that knowledge secret. The untrammeled profit motive thus overrode survival imperatives for the planet.
U.S. involvement in war after war is promoted by arms industries that make money from death and destruction. Through wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and elsewhere, arms companies made huge profits for investors and executives.
The NRA exists to help gun companies sell vast numbers of weapons. More money from killing.
Our government intimidates countries to let U.S. corporations make money regardless of their effects on workers, environments, and the public. Eight hundred U.S. military bases enforce the will of those corporations. Few of the scores of wars in those countries are reported in mainstream media.
Going back at least to President Reagan, capitalism has redistributed wealth upwards. Billionaires give tens of millions of dollars to the Republican Party and to Trump, whose explicit plans include giving still more tax breaks to the super-rich.
I hope Wolf will see his way to leaving idealized textbook versions of capitalism and instead grapple with the real thing.
Gordon Fellman
Cambridge and Wellfleet
