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Question 7

    CAMPAIGN FINANCE

    Green Was Behind Anonymous Anti-Wind Campaign

    Financial disclosures for ‘Vote NO Question 7’ effort filed belatedly

    By

    WELLFLEET — An anonymous campaign against the nonbinding ballot Question 7, which appeared only on state election ballots in Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, Chatham, and Harwich last November, has now filed its required finance statements with the state’s Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF). The statements, filed on Dec. 16, were due before election day, Nov. 5.

    A “Vote No Question 7” sign and a “SaveCapeCod.com” sign, both paid for by Lilli-Ann Green of Wellfleet, at a bus stop across from the Truro General Store last October. (Photo by Paul Benson)

    The “Vote NO Question 7” signs that appeared on roadways around the Outer and Lower Cape were paid for by Wellfleet resident Lilli-Ann Green.

    Green is Wellfleet’s representative on both the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates and the Cape Cod National Seashore Advisory Commission. She is also vice chair of the town’s energy and climate action committee. She is an outspoken opponent of wind energy.

    Question 7 asked voters in the legislature’s Fourth Barnstable District to direct their state representative to “support offshore and onshore wind power developments in Massachusetts.” Forty-four percent of voters in the district voted for the question while 49 percent voted against it.

    The question had been placed on the ballot by John Leonard of Hingham, who said he gathered the required 200 signatures in one weekend. Neither Leonard nor anyone else ran a “Vote Yes” campaign, but “Vote NO Question 7” signs proliferated. They referred to a website, SaveCapeCod.com, that also did not have an identified owner. Many of the signs remain on the sides of local roads.

    According to Jason Tait, communications and education director at OCPF, there is no “tracking mechanism” for independent expenditures, but individuals who raise or spend money on a ballot question have an obligation to report those activities to the state.

    “If OCPF is made aware that money has been spent by individuals independent from a committee, and there is no disclosure, we work to contact individuals and then provide disclosure,” Tait told the Independent in an email.

    Tait would not say how OCPF became aware that Green was responsible for the signs. The SaveCapeCod.com website existed before her campaign against Question 7.

    Green’s signs were printed at VistaPrint and Staples and cost a total of $1,697, according to her financial disclosure, which she filed on Dec. 16.

    Campaign finance deadlines vary by the type of campaign, but expenditures are generally supposed to be reported before election day, with especially late expenditures being reported shortly after election day.

    In a brief phone call, Green said she created the signs in October because she had been “personally concerned” about the lack of information about Question 7 and wanted to educate voters about it.

    “The report was filed as soon as I understood that even a personal expenditure in opposition to a ballot question must be disclosed,” said Green.

    Green would not say why she had conducted the campaign anonymously and did not respond to further questions from a reporter.

    According to Tait, OCPF has the authority to issue fines for late financial reports, but none have been levied in this instance. The decision on whether or not to issue a fine is made on a “case-by-case basis,” he said.

    Worries About Viewsheds

    Green has spoken publicly in opposition to offshore wind development — including at a meeting hosted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in Eastham last July and a “wind energy informational” meeting hosted by Maine-based anti-wind advocate Jerry Leeman at the Truro Public Library in September.

    At the BOEM meeting, Green delivered a long statement against wind energy that referenced the founding documents of the Cape Cod National Seashore as well as the 1916 Organic Act.

    “The viewshed needs to be maintained for future generations,” she said. If wind turbines are installed “and anyone sees these wind turbines off of the Cape Cod National Seashore, that could be the floodgate for national parks anywhere and national seashores anywhere to have their viewsheds industrialized.”

    Some audience members applauded her comments at the July meeting.

    Question 7 has no legal effect on the future of wind power in Massachusetts, but other elections decided last November will. The future of offshore wind development, including in the Gulf of Maine, is currently in doubt, as a series of decisions and authorizations must be made by federal agencies.

    Last week, President-elect Donald Trump said his administration is “going to have a policy where no windmills are being built.”

    ELECTION RECAP

    County Question 6 and District Question 7 Both Fail

    No clear sentiment on wind power in state Senate race, says Cyr

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Alongside choices for president, Congress, the state legislature, and five statewide ballot questions, voters on the Outer and Lower Cape had two more choices to make on Election Day: Question 6, which would have increased and reaffirmed the budgeting authority of the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates if it had passed, and Question 7, which directed the state representative for the 4th Barnstable District to “support offshore and onshore wind power developments in Massachusetts.”

    Preliminary returns from all 15 towns on Cape Cod show that Question 6 lost by about 3,800 votes — a relatively close contest. The “yes” campaign got 59,475 votes, or about 40 percent of the county-wide total, while the “no” campaign won 63,287 votes, or about 43 percent of the electorate. More than 25,000 voters left Question 6 blank on their ballots — six times the margin that decided the contest.

    Question 6 won in five towns, with narrow victories of less than 100 votes in four of them: Truro, Eastham, Orleans, and Brewster. The “yes” campaign posted its best numbers in Provincetown, where there were almost twice as many yes as no votes: 1,377 to 716.

    The “no” campaign won relatively narrow majorities in Dennis, Yarmouth, and Barnstable, but won by almost 1,000 votes in Sandwich, almost 1,300 in Falmouth, and about 500 in Chatham. Wellfleet voted against Question 6 by 95 votes.

    As a result of the vote on Question 6, the Assembly’s budget powers, which are defined in the county charter, are unchanged. A charter review is supposed to begin next year.

    Question 7 Fails

    Question 7 on the ballot was an unusual “public policy question” asking voters to direct their state representative to vote a certain way on a policy question. It would have had no legally binding effect. The referendum failed by almost 1,400 votes.

    The question was written by John Leonard, a Hingham resident who told the Independent he has “no economic interest in wind power” but wanted to measure support for offshore wind on the Outer and Lower Cape. The question asked voters in the 4th Barnstable District — the four Outer Cape towns plus Orleans, Chatham, and Harwich — to favor “legislation that would support the development of SouthCoast Wind and Commonwealth Wind and other possible future offshore and onshore wind power developments in Massachusetts.”

    Before Election Day, state Sen. Julian Cyr said it was “a deceptive question” because the state legislature has no role in awarding contracts for offshore wind development.

    Nonetheless, many fewer voters skipped ballot Question 7, according to preliminary returns in the seven towns where it was on the ballot.

    The measure passed by 986 votes in Provincetown: 1,701 voted yes and 715 voted no. The margins in Truro, Wellfleet, and Orleans were relatively narrow: Question 7 lost by 57 votes in Truro and 121 votes in Wellfleet and won by 14 votes in Orleans.

    But Question 7 lost by about 300 votes in Eastham, more than 700 in Chatham, and more than 1,100 in Harwich.

    Across all seven towns, Question 7 was approved by 44 percent of voters and rejected by 49 percent, with 7 percent, or almost 2,200 voters, skipping the question.

    In a tally of only Outer Cape voters, the numbers were exactly reversed: 49 percent voted for Question 7 and 44 percent voted against it. The large losses in Chatham and Harwich defeated the measure.

    Given the peculiar wording of the question — mandating that a state legislator vote for nonexistent legislation — its nonbinding nature, and the relatively even split in votes, “it’s hard to see some sort of definitive anti-wind sentiment in this outcome,” said Cyr.

    Cyr Defeats Lauzon

    Another contest that had no direct effect on the future of wind power in Massachusetts but was seen as a potential referendum on the issue by some voters was the race between incumbent state Sen. Julian Cyr and his Republican challenger, Christopher Lauzon.

    Lauzon had challenged Cyr in 2022, but opposition to offshore wind power was a more prominent issue in Lauzon’s campaign this year. “No on Question 7” signs and “Vote for Chris Lauzon” signs were often seen together on the Outer Cape, especially in Cyr’s hometown of Truro.

    As in 2022, Lauzon did not win in any towns this year — but he ran ahead of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump by one percentage point in Orleans, Harwich, and Brewster. Lauzon ran two points ahead of Trump in Chatham and four points, or 75 votes, ahead of Trump in Truro. Lauzon won 14.5 percent in Truro in 2022 and 24 percent there this year.

    In Wellfleet, Eastham, and Provincetown, however, Lauzon’s vote share was almost identical to Trump’s this year and did not change significantly from his vote share in 2022.

    Because Lauzon’s vote share changed in Truro but not in Wellfleet or Eastham, Cyr told the Independent, he thought the results there were more about housing than wind power.

    “I expect this slight diminution in Truro has more to do with how vocal I have been at the local level on housing than with any trend regarding offshore wind,” Cyr said. “If you look at precincts in Osterville and Centerville where wind infrastructure is actually being planned or installed, I carried those precincts this year, and if you look at Nantucket, where the issue is most prominent, my support has remained around 66 percent.”

    Other incumbent state legislators on Cape Cod likewise didn’t seem to face significant erosion of support due to wind power, Cyr said. “In poring over these results,” he said, “I don’t see consistent voter trends that relate to offshore wind.”

    Lauzon said he thought wind power had motivated some voters to switch away from Cyr but added that organizing matters. Truro’s Republican town committee is more organized than Eastham’s, Lauzon said, while Wellfleet doesn’t have a Republican town committee. “Question 7 really came out of nowhere,” Lauzon said. If there had been time to “hammer that offshore wind message a little harder, maybe we would have picked up some more of those votes.”

    ON THE BALLOT

    ‘Dark Money,’ Wind Power, and Question No. 7

    A Hingham man’s solo campaign is behind a nonbinding referendum

    By

    ORLEANS — Until they saw the roadside signs urging them to “Vote NO Question 7,” most Outer Cape voters had no idea there was a seventh question on the Nov. 5 ballot.

    A campaign by an anonymous group calling itself “Save Cape Cod” opposes Question 7 in signs on Route 6. (Photos by Aden Choate)

    The nonbinding public policy question, which appears only on ballots in the seven towns of the 4th Barnstable District of the Mass. House, asks if the district’s state representative should “be instructed to vote in favor of legislation” to support offshore and onshore wind power development in Massachusetts.

    John Leonard is the person who gathered the signatures to put the question on the ballot. He lives in Hingham and told the Independent, “I’m purely a citizen with no economic interest in wind power.” He said he chose the 4th Barnstable District for its proximity to proposed wind energy leasing sites in the Gulf of Maine and growing local resistance to offshore wind. “This is where all the agitation about wind power and whales is happening,” he said.

    Leonard’s is a one-man effort with no budget, but it has spawned an anonymous “vote no” campaign, branded as “Save Cape Cod,” that has thus far not registered with the state as required under political finance law.

    Fighting ‘Dark Money’

    Leonard, 66, introduced a similar ballot question in 2008 on the South Shore, where about 82 percent of voters across four districts supported wind energy development.

    John Leonard, the man behind Question 7, at home in Hingham.

    After reading a 2023 report from Brown University’s Climate and Development Lab mapping the “anti-offshore wind network,” Leonard said, he decided to measure support for wind energy again. “I’m out to fight the out-of-state dark money,” he said, referring to the Brown report’s mention of secretive political spending tied to the fossil fuel industry.

    According to Debra O’Malley, communications director for the secretary of the Commonwealth, any person can pick up blank petitions for a nonbinding public policy question and start collecting signatures. The person does not have to live in the district where the voting will take place or be a registered voter.

    O’Malley emphasized that such questions are essentially polls on specific issues. “The results of this question have no legal impact,” she wrote in an email.

    In June, Leonard showed up at the transfer stations in Orleans and Harwich to gather signatures. He said he chose those towns because they have more conservative voters than others in the district, which also includes Chatham, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown, and he wanted to gauge support for wind energy across the political spectrum.

    In one weekend, Leonard collected the requisite 200 signatures to get the question added to the ballot. The town clerks in Orleans and Harwich certified that the signers were registered voters.

    Four Orleans voters whose names appear on Leonard’s petition confirmed their signatures last week but said they did not know what Question 7 was about or recall exactly when they had signed.

    “I must have signed it thinking I was doing the right thing,” said Timothy Murphy, 64.

    “At the time, I thought the wind fields were what we needed,” said retired Orleans Fire Chief Raphael Merrill, 79. Now he has doubts related to wind turbine blades breaking, potential effects on fishermen, and the costs of development.

    Though he supports alternative energy, Alvin Ruttgers, 86, agreed that the Vineyard Wind blade breakage in July concerned him. “It sounds good, and it looks good, but does it really work?” he asked.

    Shirley Wladar, 83, didn’t recall signing the petition but said she had already voted yes on Question 7 to encourage alternative energy on the Cape.

    An Unregistered Campaign

    The “Save Cape Cod” campaign opposing Question 7 is visible online and in signs along Route 6. No sponsor or funder is named on the campaign website, which claims it is “non-partisan and self funded.”

    Jason Tait, communications and education director for the Mass. Office of Campaign and Political Finance, told the Independent that no ballot question committee opposing Question 7 had registered with that office.

    State law requires committees supporting or opposing a legislative district question to disclose their funding if “money is raised or spent, and whether those resources are pooled by two or more individuals or groups,” Tait wrote in an email. Save Cape Cod has until Nov. 5 to disclose its funding if it was organized on or after Oct. 16, he added.

    Save Cape Cod does not appear to be connected to local efforts opposing offshore wind or Question 7. Truro resident Elena Rice, whose Change.org petition to stop offshore wind leases in the Gulf of Maine is linked on Save Cape Cod’s website, told the Independent that she did not know who was behind it.

    Republican Christopher Lauzon, who is challenging incumbent state Sen. Julian Cyr and strongly opposes offshore wind, said that he is not involved with Save Cape Cod but encourages people to vote no on Question 7.

    “The biggest problem is that the question kind of came out of nowhere,” said Lauzon. “Nobody knew this was going to be on the ballot until a couple of weeks ago.”

    Truro resident Dennis O’Brien also said he is voting no. “The way I interpret this question is that it’s going to give the politicians more decision-making authority at the expense of the voters,” he said.

    “The legislature has no role in awarding contracts to developers of offshore wind,” said Cyr, noting that the governor would ultimately make those awards. “The outcome of the presidential election is more likely to determine whether proposed lease sites move forward.”

    Both Cyr and Hadley Luddy, who is running unopposed to succeed Sarah Peake as District 4 representative, said they would vote yes on Question 7 because wind energy is key to the state’s renewable energy future. They encouraged constituents to do the same. But Cyr added, “It’s a deceptive question.”

    Paul Benson contributed reporting.

    Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article, published in print on Oct. 31, reported that Senate candidate Christopher Lauzon said he would vote no on Question 7. Lauzon votes in the 5th Barnstable District, where Question 7 is not on the ballot; he said he encourages 4th District residents to vote no on the question.

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