The Truro Conversation
To the editor:
It’s time to change the conversation in Truro.
With the special town meeting now several months away, we have the opportunity to let out a collective breath, take a beat, and try to rebuild our community.
There is no perfect answer for the decisions we are facing as a small town on the Outer Cape, and we all have different perspectives. What if, instead of digging our heels in on these differences, we focus more on what brings us together? More conversations around common ground. More listening to each other, especially when we don’t agree. More communication and more collaboration.
All of us — townies, washashores, part-timers, and the many people who volunteer to run our town — may not always agree on the issues, and that’s OK. Different opinions spark innovation, and innovation creates solutions. We all want what we think is best for Truro.
Changing the conversation means rejecting “I’m right, you’re wrong” thinking and instead trying to find a middle ground on the significant decisions before us that will affect future generations.
This may not be the answer to all our problems, but it’s a start.
Nancy Medoff
Truro
The Truro Voting Story
To the editor:
Kudos to Raphael Richter for doing the heavy lifting in exposing the shameless attempt by certain nonresident Truro taxpayers to dilute the voting rolls and for his role in seeing to it that questionable voter registrations came in for close examination.
I find it disappointing that some registrations were reinstated on what appear to me to be the most specious of grounds: offspring getting married in Truro, veterinary visits, “planning” to cancel an off-Cape residential tax exemption, or having a vacation home in Truro larger than the primary off-Cape residence, for example. Nevertheless, it is refreshing that this blatant attempt to artificially inflate voter rolls to head off meaningful affordable housing efforts was exposed and largely derailed, thanks to Mr. Richter’s efforts.
Speaking of housing, the phrase “Keep Truro Rural” bears examination. I seem to remember when Truro had five service stations as opposed to the one that remains. When the North Truro Air Force Station was in operation, as many as 500 persons were housed there. I agree: let’s make Truro as “rural” as it once was.
This unseemly business has made me even more appreciative of Wellfleet’s Seasonal Residents Association, a group that understands the critical need for affordable housing and has always interacted constructively with our year-round residents and town government.
John A. Wolf
Wellfleet
Sayre’s ‘Rookie Mistake’
To the editor:
Re “Wellfleet Select Board Chooses $4.5M Penalty Over Mitigation Plan” [Nov. 30, page A9]:
Without the Blackfish Creek restoration benefits, I am not in favor of paying over $42,000 per mooring to dredge the harbor, thus subsidizing the summer recreation of yacht owners — especially when the town charges only $300 per year to lease these moorings.
What concerns me the most in the article is the behavior of our select board. This project has been ongoing since 2017. It has a history of lack of transparency and mendacious behavior, as K.C. Myers reported in the Aug. 11, 2022 edition of the Independent. The fickle select board voted unanimously to approve the mitigation plan on July 18 before withdrawing the plan on Aug. 22 and then voting to kill any mitigation plan and pay the fine at its Nov. 21 meeting. The goal posts keep moving.
The article omits that the town administration and dredging task force were able to get the mitigation fee reduced by $10 million through good faith negotiation with the Army Corps of Engineers.
The final stunner is board members’ mistrust of the Army Corps. Tim Sayre’s “I am totally against the Army Corps of Engineers being in this town” can be forgiven as a rookie mistake since he moved to Wellfleet in the last few years from Florida. Heads up, Tim. The Corps is already in town dredging the federal channel.
As for John Wolf’s and Ryan Curley’s position on the Army Corps, unless this is part of some recent epiphany why didn’t they make their objections known before — thereby saving the town time and money?
Mike Shannon
Wellfleet
Serendipity
To the editor:
Re “Algorithm Blues” [Letter From the Editor, Nov. 30]:
You are so right that the serendipity of meeting up in person with someone you weren’t expecting to see but are so glad you did is a very special thing.
And I do feel this as I peruse the Provincetown Independent, learning about my neighbors whom I didn’t even know were there! Thank you for your creative and informative news coverage.
Anne Freyss
Wellfleet
