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economy

    SEWER SNAFU

    Provincetown Is Up and Running Again

    Sewer system is restored as of Saturday morning on verge of Carnival

    By

    Editor’s note: This article was updated on Saturday, Aug. 13.

    PROVINCETOWN — The downtown vacuum sewer system was returned to stable operation overnight on Friday and the emergency order issued on Thursday has been lifted, according to an alert sent out by Health Agent Lezli Rowell at 6:22 a.m. Saturday.

    “All users can begin to gradually return to normal water use,” the alert stated. “Bring on the Monsters, Myths, & Legends,” Rowell added, referring to the theme for this year’s Carnival Week, which begins Saturday.

    Town officials had declared a public health emergency on Thursday in the wake of the failure of the vacuum system serving the entire downtown area. All restaurants, bars, and public restrooms in the affected area were ordered closed.

    Travelers en route to Provincetown on Route 6 were warned of the sewage crisis on Thursday. (Photo by Robert S Johnson)

    The affected area included Commercial Street between Snow and Point streets and Bradford Street between Conwell and Prince streets. Residents on the vacuum system were asked to reduce water usage by not washing dishes, doing laundry, or showering, and by keeping toilet flushes to a minimum.

    Signs alerting the public of the closure were placed on Route 6 in Truro, Wellfleet, and Eastham and at the Orleans rotary in hopes of keeping crowds at bay until the system was fixed. The strategy, combined with news reports, appeared to work, as the number of visitors to town on Friday was clearly much smaller than usual.

    The select board and board of health declared the emergency in a meeting on Thursday morning. All food service in the downtown area was halted except for the sale of commercially pre-packaged ready-to-eat food.

    “This is necessary to prevent a further public health emergency caused by sewer overflows, and we need to drastically reduce flow to allow the critical repair work in order to get the town back to full capacity,” the town’s official statement read.

    Shutting down restaurants and bars during the busiest part of the tourist season was “draconian,” health board chair Stephen Katsurinis said, but keeping the system at the lowest level of operation would, he hoped, allow workers to repair the system more quickly.

    The crisis started during a downpour on Tuesday when water flooded the system, causing electrical problems that prevented the vacuum from operating properly. A notice went out to residents and businesses imposing a temporary shutdown, and crews worked overnight on repairs. On Wednesday, officials thought the system was in working order. But as the crowds grew, the problem worsened, said the town’s engineers.

    Health Agent Rowell said sanitary requirements for food preparation that are related to handwashing could not be met with the system down.

    “Handwashing is the best defense against food-borne illness,” Rowell said. “This is a public health crunch and not a time to cut corners.”

    Christopher Hartley, an alternate member of the board of health, asked whether bars might use plastic cups and sell beer in bottles. Rowell said customers would want to use the bathrooms, which would have to remain closed. Others agreed there would be no way to get around the bathroom problem.

    Town Manager Alex Morse said the message had gone out via social media, email, and phone calls. Landlords were contacted as were those who hold food-service licenses in the affected area. Fliers were also being passed out on the street, Morse said.

    Board members noted that declaring a state of emergency allows the town to tap into aid from the state. They urged businesses that had to close to pay their employees for the work hours lost. The town will look to the state for financial help to reimburse business owners for loss of revenue.

    The town’s gravity sewer system, which is newer than the vacuum system, operated with no problems. Officials said the money to refurbish the vacuum system has already been appropriated.

     

    THE NEW NORMAL

    Contact Tracing Could Be a Challenge for Reopened Businesses

    Self-isolation orders will affect employers, employees

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The Outer Cape’s economy is opening back up. The streets are showing signs of life, as lodging, outdoor dining, and retail resume after a three-month hiatus. Workers and tourists are returning to the Cape, and as people flow in, even with all the safety protocols, Covid-19 will likely be reappearing as well.

    This time, it’s supposed to be different, however. Increased testing and a strong contact tracing program are two of the prerequisites of the state’s highly structured reopening. If cases can be identified and isolated, then we can slow the spread of infection even as the economy resumes.

    But contact tracing can also be disruptive. When everyone was under a stay-at-home order, a week of self-isolation wasn’t that different from any other week. But in a world where many more people will be working, self-isolation presents employees, business owners, and housemates with some thorny situations.

    What Will They Tell You?

    Provincetown’s health dept. runs its own tracing program, said Steve Katsurinis, chair of the board of health. In Truro, Wellfleet, and Eastham, contact tracing is managed by the Visiting Nurses Association (VNA) of Cape Cod, a longstanding nonprofit connected to Cape Cod Healthcare. Sarah Endres, the director of public health at VNA, explained how a contact tracing call works.

    “We don’t use individual names of patients,” said Endres. “But we do name the location, and we get pretty specific about when the exposure was. Honestly, I don’t think there’s been one call so far where people can’t put the pieces together.”

    The contact tracer has to be specific, because the nature and duration of exposure are crucial. How many minutes, at what distance, with what personal protection, and with what cleanliness protocols — all are key. The contact tracer will need to make a decision at the end of the call: whether the exposure was so insubstantial that a test is not required, or, if the exposure was significant, to order you to get a test and self-isolate until the results come.

    The contact tracer will also want to know about your other close contacts. Depending on the details, people in your household or with whom you are especially close could be directed to get a test and self-isolate as well.

    Contact tracing is one of the necessary conditions for Massachusetts’ phased reopening after the Covid-19 shutdown. (Chart: Mass. Dept. of Public Health)

    “We don’t typically isolate contacts of contacts right away,” said Endres. “We would all go crazy, isolating the universe. But as a matter of authority, we can.”

    People who share a bedroom are thought to be very likely to get the coronavirus if their partner has it, Endres explained. Meanwhile, “transmission has been sometimes but not always for people who share a kitchen or a bathroom.” Two people in a household might be ordered to test and self-isolate, said Endres, while others might be ordered to stay away from their housemates.

    Trying to Keep the Lights On

    Testing is faster now than before, and more readily available. Katsurinis said test results have been coming back in two to three weekdays, and Endres said Cape Cod Healthcare has a rapid test that is ready in 24 to 48 hours.

    Rapid results are helpful, because isolation orders could wreak havoc on a small business. One problematic exposure could put all the cooks in a restaurant, or all the housekeepers in a hotel, in isolation for three days. This could be even harder to deal with than formal post-exposure procedures. (According to phase two rules, retail stores and restaurants must shut down the whole property for a deep clean after a customer or employee tests positive. Lodgings must shut down the room in question for a deep clean.)

    Following all the guidelines closely could help a business avoid having its staff quarantined, Endres pointed out. If all the rules are followed, an employee would never be in sufficiently close contact with a customer to be contact-traced.

    “The exact verbiage is: six feet or less from a confirmed coronavirus case for a prolonged period of time,” she said. “If all of these rules about masks and distance and handwashing and surfaces are being followed, there’s a very good chance we would say that’s not a prolonged period of time.”

    Transmission between customers and employees is supposed to be negligible — but where many employees live together, real trouble could lurk. An exposure that has nothing to do with the workplace could still make several employees who share housing sick at the same time. And unlike a mere contact trace, an actual diagnosed illness comes with a 14-day self-isolation order, possibly for the whole household.

    “Our health department knows how interconnected things are here,” said Katsurinis. “People are coworkers and friends and housemates. It could ripple through that matrix. The likelihood that it impacts business in a big way and somewhat randomly is going to be difficult to navigate.”

    “When you think of an apartment of six people who are all desperate to make some money this summer,” said Endres, “if one gets coronavirus, it’s a little bit of a nightmare. People have to be mindful and take masking and distancing seriously, so everyone can stay healthy and stay working.”

    ECONOMY

    A Tough Time for Local Businesses

    Uncertainty prevails at planning time

    By

    WELLFLEET — The “Coming Attractions” marquee at the Wellfleet Cinemas is empty, an indication that nobody knows what’s coming next. Spring is a time for preparation and planning for the July-August tourist season, and even though the coronavirus has not yet emerged widely here, its effects are already hitting hard.

    Just last week, many people said it was “too early to tell” what summer would bring. This week brought a dose of reality in the form of the first confirmed case on the Cape. Emergency closures of bars, restaurants, schools, and other institutions, and cancellation or postponement of conferences, concerts, and other large gatherings have followed.

    The outlook boils down to three questions: Will the tourists come? Will the workers be here? And will anybody have any money?

    Peter Hall, owner of Van Rensselaer’s and Catch of the Day restaurants in South Wellfleet, said his plans to bring 18 summer workers from eight countries are up in the air. “If you had asked me a month ago, I was all hired up,” he said. “Now, I don’t know if I’m going to get any of them. We might have a good summer, we might have a rotten summer. We will do what we have to do.”

    The U.S. State Dept. last week announced a 60-day “pause” in international exchange programs that allow students from other countries to come work here. That includes the J-1 program that covers Hall’s workers.

    “If worse comes to worst, we might not get our summer workers,” said Radu Luca, executive director of the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce.

    U.S. restrictions on travel from Europe are initially scheduled to last just 30 days, but no one knows what will happen after that. Travel restrictions within Luca’s native Romania may pose problems for summer workers on H-2B visas, he said.

    As for travel within the United States, while restrictions are still limited to specific areas, that could change.

    “In a situation like this you plan for the worst and hope for the best,” said Cape Air CEO Dan Wolf. “Advance reservations are really starting to show the impact.”

    Wolf estimated his airline’s reservations for June through August are down 30 to 40 percent, while closer reservations are down about 10 percent. “If the timing is relatively short, there is time for this to recover, and for us to have a good summer,” he said. “But if this was June right now, we would be expecting a serious decline.”

    Travel and tourism generated over $1.2 billion in direct spending by domestic visitors and $100 million by international visitors to Cape Cod in 2018, said Wendy Northcross of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce. It is an important part of the Cape’s $14 billion economy, employing nearly 10,000 people, she added.

    Sometimes a global crisis encourages more people to travel domestically. That might give a boost to the Cape. The overwhelming majority of visitors arrive here by car and live within a day’s drive.

    Hotel reservations on Cape Cod seem to be coming in at normal levels for summer, but reservations can be easily canceled. “Our primary visitors tend to book very close to the time of travel, thus we may not know of any potential business loss until closer to the summer season,” Northcross said.

    Cruise ships, which have become the most visible incubators of coronavirus, have been a growing part of Provincetown’s tourist economy in the past few years, though the ships that stop here are generally smaller, carrying dozens or hundreds of passengers, not thousands. Luca said six cruise ship companies have scheduled 22 port calls in Provincetown this year, and so far none have been canceled.

    Jim Russo, executive director of the Eastham Chamber of Commerce, said he is already focused on readying solutions for those who may be hit hard later. “My immediate concern is to get the information on business recovery resources, and the tools to implicate such procedures to our members that are or will be affected in some way by COVID-19,” Russo said.

    The challenge for local business people is to make decisions based on facts, rather than fear. The latter, he said “seems the present-day hallmark for even the slightest change in our daily expectations.”

    ECONOMY

    How Was the Tourist Season? It’s Too Soon to Say

    Key tax data won’t be available until Dec. 30

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The tourism industry brings about $200 million into Provincetown every year, according to Tony Fuccillo, Provincetown’s director of tourism. It’s an enormous economic engine that touches nearly everyone in town, regardless of occupation, and with most of the 2019 season in the rearview mirror, it’s common to try to assess how well the season went.

    The short answer: we don’t know yet.

    Because of the way the state handles tax revenue, there will be no information on the most important quarter of the year — the one that includes August, September, and October — until December 30. Aggregate numbers for sales tax, meals tax, and rooms tax receipts capture entire sectors of the economy more accurately than the rising or falling fortunes of an individual enterprise, and these aggregate data is mostly not available yet.

    “The state of Massachusetts allows localities to add ‘local-option’ taxes that are separate from the statewide sales tax,” Fuccillo explained. “Provincetown’s local-option meals tax and rooms tax means that the state keeps a separate tally of these two sectors for us, and then rebates that tax money back to the town at the end of each quarter.”

    That money goes to a variety of municipal funds, but along the way it offers an accurate snapshot of what was sold in town and when. These numbers consistently show that the August-October quarter is Provincetown’s most profitable. In 2018, that quarter accounted for 44 percent of the entire year’s restaurant sales, and 47 percent of its lodging receipts. The May-July quarter is close behind, with the other six months of the year contributing only 10 percent of lodging revenue and 12 percent of meals receipts.

    Restaurant revenue has been going up consistently by about 2 to 7 percent a year for the last six years, according to the data. Lodging revenue has been going up as well, but with more bumpiness — some years have seen big gains, while others have been flat or even negative.

    Restaurant scene in Provincetown
    A diner enjoying a waterfront meal in Provincetown.

    This year got off to a good start, at least. For the six months from February to July, restaurant sales were up about 5 percent over the same period in 2018. Lodging revenue was up as well, but those numbers are harder to compare because of the introduction of the short-term rental tax on July 1.

    “The tax on short-term rentals went into effect for the month of July,” said Fuccillo. “That tax money is being rolled in with the existing room tax that the licensed lodgings had already been paying. They’re paying the same tax now, and the state is reporting it to us in one big bundle. We’re gonna ask the Dept of Revenue if they can split out the numbers for us, so we could give you numbers for short-term rentals specifically, but right now we don’t have that.”

    Other Indicators 

    In the absence of tax data, there are other measures that can be used to infer how tourism is doing — but for a variety of reasons, most of them aren’t especially reliable this year. Parking revenue is often cited, but according to Provincetown Finance Director Joseé Young, “That’s not going to be a good one to use this year. Both the prices and the rules around parking changed over the winter, and you’re not going to get a valid year-over-year comparison.”

    The Cape Cod National Seashore keeps parking and traffic data for Herring Cove and Race Point, but the reconstruction of the Herring Cove parking lot wasn’t completed until July 2019, which threw off all the historical patterns.

    “This is going to surprise you, but we don’t actually charge the tour buses anything, which means we don’t actually count them at all,” said Eric Sussman, the town’s emergency manager and transportation coordinator.

    Ferry traffic, meanwhile, is exceptionally well documented — Coast Guard manifests and embarkation fees document precise numbers. The total number of passengers arriving by ferry has more than doubled in just three years: in 2016 there were just over 120,000 passengers, according to the Pier Corp.’s annual report, and in 2019 there have been 259,000. This is a staggeringly large increase for such a short period, and the town’s overall tourist economy has gone up by only 5 to 8 percent in the same period, making it somewhat unclear how exactly an increase in ferry ridership translates to the broader economy. (A good year for ferries doesn’t appear to hurt though: 2017 saw a big increase in ferry ridership, and was a great year for lodgings and a solid one for restaurants; 2019 was also a good year for ferries, which could be a good sign for the rest of town.)

    Water usage is another indicator that at least has precise numbers behind it. The tourism dept. has water usage broken down by month, including for the August-October quarter of 2019. Water usage doesn’t correlate particularly well to the broader economy, however; 2017 was a good year for lodgings and for restaurants, but water usage went down that year by 2.5 percent. And 2018 was a lousy year for lodgings and a pretty bad one for restaurants, yet water usage went up 4 percent. Water usage in 2019 has been up 2.4 percent so far, but historic data suggest that this figure is an unreliable predictor.

    What About Retail?

    The third big component of the tourist economy is the retail sector, which at around $40 million a year accounts for about the same revenue as lodgings, and about half the revenue of restaurants. It’s captured reasonably well by normal sales tax receipts, with the caveat that articles of clothing under $175 aren’t subject to sales tax — and Provincetown sells a lot of clothes.

    “The problem is the state doesn’t rebate any sales tax money to individual towns,” said Fuccillo, “so as far as the dept. of revenue is concerned, they don’t need to know where it’s collected. It’s not information they’re using. So we kind of have to beg them for it.

    “We haven’t gotten sales tax data for Provincetown for 2017 or 2018 yet, much less 2019,” Fuccillo continued. “Retail is also the most volatile sector — it can go up or down by double digits in a single year. I’m trying to get all three years’ worth of sales tax data in December, so we can fill in some of these gaps and get a better picture of how the whole town is doing.”

    Until all those tax numbers are released in December, the most one can say with real confidence is that 2019 got off to a strong start.

    the observer

    A Model for Bridging Our Divides

    Maine’s Island Institute is helping coastal communities adapt

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Tell me if you have heard this one: A coastal community, remote, popular, seasonal, with a shrinking population because the year-round jobs are disappearing while housing costs climb, driven not by local conditions but by the purchasing power of its second-home owners, while the year-round residents struggle to secure just one. The community isn’t sure what can be done, but tries every avenue open to it. Sound like Provincetown?

    It’s not. It’s one of more than a hundred communities along the coast of Maine that are facing the same challenges as we are. The difference between our situation and theirs is that they have a unique community foundation, the Island Institute, to work on these issues.

    The institute’s mission is to exchange ideas and experiences to further the sustainability of Maine’s island and coastal communities. Through the Island Institute, year-round and seasonal residents have joined to bridge the divide between locals and second-home owners, a divide that seems to grow as the cost of living continues to rise. Since 1983 the institute has focused locally on the economy, housing and community life, and preparing for climate change, even creating and underwriting a local newspaper.

    How do you bridge the gap between the economic extremes, create opportunity, and support a vibrant year-round community? For the Island Institute, it’s a unique program that places interns in individual communities to work for a year on projects that the locals — predominantly the year-round residents — have designated as priorities, underwritten by philanthropy largely by the new money that has helped to alter the local landscape. The top priorities will sound familiar in Provincetown: small business training and support, aquaculture business development, high-speed broadband access, access to affordable renewable energy, and leading coastal resilience efforts.

    The institute’s record is impressive. According to its website, 405 businesses have received coaching and training in the past 15 months; 65 communities have been supported in working toward accessible, high-speed broadband; 45 communities have received technical assistance or training for sea level rise flooding resiliency.

    The institute’s leaders recognized that locals and second-home owners shared a common love for their towns. As Roger Fisher says in his classic Getting to Yes, one way to move beyond conflict is to find a common problem both parties want to solve. Working together builds trust — maybe not at first but over time. The institute, acting as a bridge, mediated conflicting expectations, found common solutions, and built trust and engagement.

    Our core issue is how to bridge the income inequality so present in our community. There are many Provincetowns, and each person’s experience is valid. Each of us in our own way loves and cherishes this town. The question is how we bridge the divides.

    The Island Institute has been responsive to local priorities by listening to and helping the year-round resident while leveraging the second-home owner’s good will and philanthropy. There is a lot of money in Provincetown that wants to do good and find ways to be helpful.

    It’s not clear that a Provincetown community foundation is achievable. We may be too small, or too contentious to unite before the waters rise. But I believe we can address the growing economic divide by looking at successful models like the Island Institute. Its example proves that there are ways to bring people together. It doesn’t require a group hug or forced pleasantries, but it does require hard work and something like a community foundation acting as an honest broker among factions, committed to community engagement and professional management practices, owned by none and open to participation by everyone.

     

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