Journalists like to say they serve as watchdogs, ready to bark when they uncover abuses by the powerful — especially by government officials. A healthy skepticism about the performance of government is surely a good thing. It’s why the Bill of Rights begins with guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press.
But some people on the Outer Cape have taken distrust of government to a twisted extreme, and Wellfleet is suffering because of it.
The Wellfleet Select Board recently voted 3-2 to pay nearly $4.5 million — and possibly much more than that, pending a proposed 30-percent increase — as an added fee for a permit to dredge the south mooring field in the town’s harbor. The town could have avoided this huge payment by agreeing to an environmental restoration project for 28 acres of Blackfish Creek, supervised by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A main reason for the board’s decision was antipathy to government.
“I am totally against the Army Corps of Engineers being in this town,” said Timothy Sayre, who joined the board after winning a special election in September. He voted with Ryan Curley and John Wolf to pay the additional $4.5 million.
I called Sayre and asked him to explain his reasoning. “We don’t need another government entity like the Army Corps involved in our town,” he said. “We already deal with the National Park Service and the state of Massachusetts, with all the laws and business licensing. They want to tell us what we can and can’t do with our property — and charge us money for doing it.”
Sayre wouldn’t say if his hostility toward the Corps is based on any experience he’s had with them, or on a specific critique of their extensive work in construction and coastal management, which dates back to 1802. Maybe he’s thinking of Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the New Orleans levies, which were built by the Corps.
Wellfleet doesn’t need levies — yet. But it does need dredging, desperately. And the only way to get that done is for local government to work with the state and federal governments. So Sayre’s wish to somehow keep the Army Corps away from Wellfleet isn’t going to happen. As Mike Shannon points out in a letter this week, they’re here and they’re not going away.
The town’s dredging task force had been working closely with the Corps for more than two years to come to an agreement on the restoration project, as mitigation for environmental damage the dredging could cause. Former task force chair Chris Allgeier, who has had a long career in engineering and construction, described the Army engineers as “very helpful and extremely collaborative.” Allgeier, Skip Annett, and Curt Felix have all resigned from the task force because of the verbal abuse and false accusations that were flung at them by opponents of the restoration.
No one needs to convince me that local government here has its flaws. But things can get much worse — and paranoia and misinformation can take us there.
