Truro Decides All Can Vote at Town Meeting
‘Period of healing’ brings part-timers and year-rounders together
By Paul Benson
TRURO — Cape Cod’s smallest town took a giant step toward expanding the franchise on March 26 when the select board approved a plan to give everyone who owns property here, everyone who works here, and anyone who’s ever dreamed of living here the right to vote at town meeting.
This means that people who live here from May through September, including holders of J-1 or H-2B visas, will be able to vote, the board decided. The decision came at the conclusion of a “period of healing” organized by board member and life coach Nancy Medoff and led by the Truro Docs, a group of H2O peers. The new policy was drafted by Town Counsel John Giorgio of KP Law.
“Wait, I think there’s still something in the water,” said Anthony Garrett, who proposed an expansion of voting rights last year. Garrett, president of the Truro Part-Time Resident Taxpayers’ Association, said his group has been working since 1870 to ensure that property rights and voting rights remain linked under the law.
In a late-night email to its membership marked “Confidential: Time for Champagne,” leaked to the Independent on Wednesday, Garrett’s group nonetheless celebrated the change. “There are 3,325 housing units in Truro, and part-timers own two-thirds of them,” said the unsigned email. “Two thousand homes times two people is still a lot of votes.”
The select board voted unanimously to move annual town meeting to the day after Memorial Day so more people might participate. “It wouldn’t be town meeting without at least one date change,” said chair Sue Areson.
Blasch House Will Be Rebuilt
DOGE deletes Delgizzi from IRS shit list
By Christine Legere
WELLFLEET — The dust had barely settled over the site where the Blasch-Bonomi Airbnb once stood when a miffed historical commission announced that its removal was a violation of the town’s demolition delay bylaw. At its March 26 meeting, the commission ordered that the structure be rebuilt.
While the 5,100-square-foot house at 1440 Chequessett Neck Road did not meet the requirement of being at least 75 years old, chair Merrill Mead-Fox said it qualifies as part of the town’s cultural history. “These houses on the edge are our own version of dune shacks,” she said. “Now the only memories of this monument are locked in Airbnb’s rental system.”
The historical commission’s first challenge will be determining who owns the property. “Nobody is really sure who that is,” said Town Administrator Tom Guerino. “We’re going to let the lawyers sort that out.”
Attorney Ben Zehnder lodged his objection to the commission’s order. The site should be used for a smaller house, he said, such as the one owned by his client, David Delgizzi of Weston.
Delgizzi, who said he wants to spend more time on the Outer Cape, is looking for a spot for his newly acquired modernist house. He was given a 500-square-foot Saltonstall-designed cottage last month along with $200,000 in cash to move the house from its original location at The Colony. In its place, an abode in the so-called McModern style is planned.
As of the end of last year, Delgizzi owed $2 million in back taxes to the IRS. “The past is no longer going to dog my client,” Zehnder said. “DOGE has deleted the folder on him.”
This Year’s NRHS Grads Will Be Catapulted Directly Off-Cape
State-of-the-art trebuchet will replace old windmill
By Parker Mumford
EASTHAM — This year’s graduating class at Nauset Regional High School will be the first to participate in a pilot program designed to expedite the removal of young people from Cape Cod. After commencement on June 6, teachers will lead their students in a solemn procession to the Windmill Green in Eastham, where the graduates will step one by one into a giant trebuchet designed to fling them as far as possible from their alma mater.
“We can’t guarantee anything,” said Nauset Principal Patrick Clark, “but we think that their above average MCAS scores will translate into soft landings.”
The hurling device is being built from parts repurposed from Eastham’s old windmill, according to Catherine A. Polt, CEO of USA Trebuchets, the town’s consultant on the project. “The latest research posted on the freshly scrubbed U.S. Dept. of Energy website reveals that wind turbines are useless,” Polt said.
The device will stand on the historic structure’s rotating base, originally used to point the mill’s blades into the wind. That way, said Clark, it will be easy for the catapult’s operators to aim graduates in a variety of directions.
“I wish they’d done this for me when I graduated,” said Jackson Norris, a Nauset alum who graduated in 2018 but still lives with his parents in Eastham. “As long as those kids don’t land in, like, New York or L.A., I’d say they have a pretty good chance of making it.”
John Waters Monument to Feature Unwanted Cybertrucks
By Joe From Classifieds
PROVINCETOWN — A last-minute addition to the 2025 town warrant seeks to set aside $500,000 in free cash for the town to purchase residents’ unwanted Cybertrucks, the aesthetically unnerving Tesla models said to be a favorite of aspiring 2028 presidential candidate Elon Musk. If approved, the Teslas would be given a new life: repurposed into a permanent garbage monument to honor Trash Trilogy director John Waters.
“The good folx of Provincetown who thought they were doing the right thing by buying an electric vehicle now feel conflicted,” said Honey Whitlock, who supports the article.
“What says John Waters more than trash?” said film scholar Howard Karren. “And in 2025, what could be more trashy than driving a Cybertruck?”
