Leasing to Locals
To the editor:
I was very pleased to read about Provincetown’s “Lease to Locals” program [“Provincetown Aims to Lure Landlords Into Year-Round Rental Market,” Aug. 1, page A6], given the simultaneous need for affordable housing and the abundance of real estate that sits empty most of the year.
As a nonresident Wellfleet homeowner, for the past eight years I have tried to accommodate year-round housing needs while preserving a modicum of space for my own enjoyment. I have shared my house with a shellfisherman, a whale disentangler, a police dispatcher, and a health-care consultant with a child in the Nauset schools. The key has been finding tenants willing to have their landlord visit three or four weeks out of the year and, on my part, being someone willing to have limited access to my second home in exchange for the satisfaction of contributing to the common good.
The arrangement has not covered my expenses, but I’ve made some good friends. I would love for Wellfleet to sign onto the Lease to Locals program or implement its own version of something similar.
What is particularly winning about Lease to Locals is that it creates an immediate remedy to the crisis by engaging existing housing stock as opposed to getting the necessary approvals and infrastructure in place to build new housing. One needs only to read last week’s article on Eastham’s T-Time property development to be reminded how seemingly endless the process can be.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for the T-Time development, accessory dwelling units, and Wellfleet’s plan for an apartment complex on Lawrence Road, which, when built, will be a quarter mile from my house. But having a “yes and” approach to creative problem-solving is more urgent now than ever. Kudos to Provincetown’s leadership.
Joe Scanlan
Wellfleet and New York City
Finding the Experts
To the editor:
Thanks for last week’s eye-opening article about Seashore Point’s finances [“Reviewers Suspect Fraud in Nursing Home Filings,” Aug. 1, front page]. It was confusing, though, not to see an explanation of what brought the two experts — Christopher Cherney (an expert witness in California) & Ernest Tosh (a lawyer from Texas) — into the picture. Was it the Independent or another entity?
Also, there was a report called “Where Do the Billions of Dollars Go?” cited in the article without attribution of any kind.
Burt Grossman
Provincetown
Editor’s note: The Independent identified Cherney and Tosh as leading experts in nursing home management and asked them to review the available financial and staffing documents from Seashore Point. Those documents were also reviewed by two other independent experts. All agreed that the nursing home’s finances were consistent with patterns of understaffing and hidden profit streams, which are common in the for-profit nursing-home industry.
The report “Where Do the Billions of Dollars Go?” was published in 2023 by the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, a nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1975.
‘Beyond Sad’
To the editor:
Last week’s front-page article “Reviewers Suspect Fraud in Nursing Home Filings” and your editorial “Private Equity Doesn’t Care” once again reminded me of this observation by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Money often costs too much.”
That’s evidenced by this statement in your editorial, quoted from a 2022 New Yorker article: “when private-equity firms acquired nursing homes, deaths among residents increased by an average of ten per cent.”
That’s beyond sad. It’s abominable.
Mike Rice
Wellfleet
Food Waste and Black Gold
To the editor:
Thanks for your coverage of municipal solid waste in Provincetown, Truro, and Wellfleet [“Peak Trash Season Strains Outer Cape Transfer Stations,” Aug. 1, page A11]. I hope I wasn’t the only one dismayed by the extraordinary increase of tonnage during August, and I can’t help but think that much of that is food waste.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that food waste composes 24 percent of the municipal solid waste in this country annually and that more food waste is sent to landfills than any other single material in our trash bags. Composting food scraps is not only good for the earth (building soil), the air (reducing carbon), and the food we eat (supplying nutrients), it’s now a disposal option for residents of Provincetown (and Truro and Wellfleet) who don’t have home composting systems.
Here in Provincetown, the transfer station has a collection site where residents can empty their kitchen scraps, which are then collected by Black Earth, an industrial compost company, to turn into black gold.
That’s just one suggestion for reducing the overall volume of debris we send to incineration or landfill, and I’m sure most readers already know that recycling and repurposing are two others. But I’ll save that for another letter.
Laura Ludwig
Provincetown
Learning From Plants
To the editor:
May I offer a respectful counterpoint to Stephen Orr’s article “Know Your Enemy” (July 25, page B1), the “enemy” being “weeds”?
First, from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” And from Slavoj Žižek: “An enemy is someone whose story you have not heard.”
Without plants, which spin sugar (and oxygen) out of sunlight, soil, wind, and rain, human life would not exist. And those particular plants growing in our gardens are our teachers, if only we are willing to listen and learn.
Each plant comes to grow naturally where it can uniquely balance conditions in the soil. It will grow there until its objective of balance has been achieved. Replacing that plant with an edible that can play the same role is the most natural and intelligent way to proceed.
For example, chickweed will appear when the soil has an excess of nitrogen. It’s telling us to plant something edible but equally capable of using and reducing high levels of nitrogen — buttercrunch lettuce, for one. Clover sprouts in soils deficient in nitrogen, telling the gardener to plant another nitrogen fixer, like beans, to accomplish its balancing role. Plantain and dandelions appear when the soil is compacted and deficient in calcium; parsnips and other edibles with taproots are being called for. Purslane is urging us to cover and protect the soil with edibles such as cukes and strawberries; likewise, bindweed won’t need to grow anymore when it’s been retired by pumpkins or watermelon.
Plants are not our enemies. They are wise elders, impeccable in offering their gifts in the great reciprocal giveaway of nature. Nature is what we are. And we can learn to be good, natural citizens from our neighbors, the plants.
Chuck Madansky
Brewster
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.
