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VFW

    PROVINCETOWN: THIS WEEK'S CURRENTS

    Community Engagement on VFW

    By

    Some meetings in Provincetown are in person, some are online, and some are both. Click on the meeting you want to attend on the calendar at provincetown-ma.gov for a link to an agenda with details about the event.

    Thursday, Feb. 24

    • Historic District Commission, 2:30 p.m., Town Hall
    • Public Pier Corp. Board, 4 p.m., Town Hall
    • Planning Board, 6 p.m., Town Hall

    Monday, Feb. 28

    • Select Board, 6 p.m., Town Hall

    Tuesday, March 1

    • Conservation Commission, 6 p.m.

    Wednesday, March 2

    • Harbor Committee public hearing, 5 p.m., Town Hall
    • Historic District Commission public hearing, 3:30 p.m., Town Hall

    Thursday, March 3

    • Zoning Board of Appeals, 6 p.m., Town Hall

    Conversation Starters

    Community Engagement on VFW

    The Community Builders (TCB), the affordable housing developer that won the contract to build at the VFW property at 3 Jerome Smith Road, is presenting in Provincetown on three consecutive nights next week.

    On Monday, Feb. 28, TCB will explain to the select board how their bid can be adjusted to suit community needs. On Tuesday, March 1, TCB will meet with abutters of the property, and on Wednesday at 6 p.m. they will hold a “virtual community meeting” for all interested parties. The Wednesday session will be on Zoom and can be joined at tinyurl.com/JeromeSmith.

    Among the subjects up for discussion: design, building height, parking, outdoor areas, and total unit count at the property.

    TCB’s bid included 57 units in four buildings, with most of those for people making 80 percent of area median income or less. A few units in TCB’s bid were for “workforce” or community housing, for people making from 80 to 120 percent of area median income. Barnstable County’s median income is currently $68,062 for a single person and $77,750 for a two-person household.

    The select board has expressed some interest in increasing the unit count to add more community units, but all of this is “up for discussion,” according to TCB project manager Lindsey Gael.

    “We take the outreach process very seriously,” Gael told the Independent. “We are building this for the community, and in many ways the project really starts with what we hear from the community.” —Paul Benson

    Masks in Schools

    At a meeting on Feb. 15, the Provincetown School Committee unanimously deferred a decision on revising the mandatory mask policy to their next meeting on March 16. They’ll base their decision on school case numbers at that time.

    Gov. Charlie Baker recently announced that he would lift statewide mask mandates, effective Feb. 28. Shortly after the announcement, Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley said the statewide mask mandate for K-12 schools won’t extend past Feb. 28 either.

    This means that whether masks are optional or required for students and faculty is up to the schools, though they are in a municipal building and must conform to local guidelines.

    Supt. Suzanne Scallion said the timing of Baker’s announcement took the administration by surprise. Feb. 28 is the first day Massachusetts schools reopen after winter break.

    “We want our kids back out socializing, going on vacation, or doing whatever families do on February break,” Scallion said. “But to then rip masks off them the day they come back?” Still, Scallion said the administration’s goal is to make masks optional as soon as possible.

    Scallion distributed a survey for parents and staff by email and text that asked whether they feel the school should move to a mask-optional policy. As of last Thursday, results indicated that about 50 percent of families said their child would remain masked no matter what, and a clear majority said three-to-five-year-olds should remain masked. —Abbey Dwight

    HOUSING

    Half-Acre Lot Will Allow More Units at VFW

    Developer will buy adjacent Mendes property for $1.4 million

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — A long-running effort to build affordable and community housing at the former VFW site on Jerome Smith Road received a big boost last week when the developer of the project struck a deal to purchase an adjacent half-acre parcel for $1.4 million.

    According to project manager Lindsey Gael of the Community Builders (TCB), an offer letter has been signed by both the sellers, Paul and Victoria Mendes, and the developer, and the purchase and sale agreement is being drafted. Town Manager Alex Morse told the select board about the deal at their Jan. 10 meeting, and Paul Mendes confirmed the agreement to the Independent.

    Acquiring the half-acre parcel at 55R Captain Bertie’s Way has long been seen as a way to expand the potential of the 1.3-acre VFW site at 3 Jerome Smith Road, which the town purchased in 2013. The town’s request for proposals to housing developers, issued last May, highlighted the potential of the smaller parcel to increase the project’s buildable area and also improve traffic flow with an extra egress.

    Two of the three bidders for the VFW project included the parcel in their proposals. The Community Builders bid was for 47 units on just the VFW property, but with the extra half-acre, the number of units went up to 57. The bid from Pennrose was for 64 apartments spread across the two properties.

    Shortly after the bids were submitted last July, however, 55R Captain Bertie’s Way went under contract to somebody else. TCB had been in “active negotiations” for an option to purchase the property for $1.3 million, according to the bid documents, but those negotiations had been abruptly superseded, presumably by a higher offer.

    An architectural rendering of the affordable rental apartments being developed by the Community Builders at Provincetown’s former VFW site. (Image courtesy TCB)

    “We lost an opportunity to purchase the land adjacent to the VFW,” select board member Leslie Sandberg told her colleagues on Aug. 23. “When an opportunity like that arises, we need to move faster than we were able to,” she added.

    The Community Builders amended its bid the following month, eliminating an entire building and 10 apartments. Its new, smaller bid was picked by the town manager’s review committee and approved by the select board in October.

    A Second Chance

    The Independent has not been able to establish the identity of the private developer who put 55R under contract last August, or the purchase price associated with that contract. Within a few months, however, something was wrong.

    “A couple months in, we heard inklings that perhaps that deal might be falling apart,” said Gael. “So, we were sort of waiting in the wings. By the time we heard that this prior deal had fallen apart, we had gotten official notice from the town that we were the designated developer. Since we felt strongly this project would be moving forward, we felt comfortable purchasing it outright,” rather than attempting to negotiate another option, Gael said.

    The option to purchase is a common arrangement for developers of affordable housing, according to Gael, because of the many twists and turns such projects often face. An option to purchase agreement allows the developer to lock out other buyers for a period of time, paying monthly for the privilege of doing so, but still back out in the event outside forces scuttle the project.

    “What’s hard with these kinds of real estate transactions — it’s just a very unpredictable, reactive environment,” said Gael. “These sorts of situations are challenging for towns to move on quickly. Especially in this fast-moving, competitive environment, a private developer like us can just move more nimbly than a town might be able to.”

    Morse told the select board that the land purchase could add a dozen or more apartments to the overall project. “I want to thank the select board for their encouragement on this property,” he said, adding that he was excited about the opportunity “to continue putting a bigger dent in the affordable housing crisis here in Provincetown.”

    What Comes Next?

    Gael said that TCB is already planning its first community engagement session, probably in February or March.

    “We have heard there is a lot of interest in maximizing the number of affordable units,” Gael said. “You only get so many opportunities to build in Provincetown — there’s a lot of reasons to get as many affordable apartments as you can.”

    But nothing is a done deal, Gael added. “I want folks to know that, for us, it all starts with what we hear from the community. We take the outreach process very seriously.”

    55R Captain Bertie’s Way has been on the market for four years. Paul Mendes said he’s pleased to see that the property will support year-round workers.

    “My mother ran the Long Point View guest house for 55 years, from 1946 to 2001,” Mendes said. “I grew up there. For the whole second half of that time, she was renting seasonally to working people.

    “When we inherited that house, we kept it that way,” Mendes said. “That’s 74 years of continuous rentals. I think it kind of fits in with what the property is going to become.”

    PROVINCETOWN: THIS WEEK'S CURRENTS

    VFW Demolition Set

    Meetings Ahead

    By

    Some meetings are in person, some online, and some are both. Go to provincetown-ma.gov and click on the meeting you want to watch to see if a remote option is available.

    Thursday, Nov. 4

    • Water and Sewer Board, 2 p.m., Veterans Memorial Community Center
    • Zoning Board of Appeals, 6 p.m., Town Hall

    Monday, Nov. 8

    • Public Landscape Committee, 3 p.m., Town Hall
    • Select Board, 6 p.m., Town Hall

    Tuesday, Nov. 9

    • Human Services Committee, 5:30 p.m., Veterans Memorial Community Center
    • Licensing Board, 5:15 p.m.

    Wednesday, Nov. 10

    • Historical Commission, 5 p.m.
    • Human Services Committee, 5:30 p.m.
    • Local Comprehensive Plan Committee, 1 p.m., virtual
    • Public Pier Corp., 5 p.m.

    Conversation Starters

    VFW Demolition Set

    The Lewis A. Young Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3152 building at 3 Jerome Smith Road is scheduled to be demolished on Nov. 8, said DPW Director Richard Waldo.

    The VFW organization sold the building to the town in 2013 for $900,000, and it has sat vacant ever since as the community debated its future. That site has been proposed for a police station, a fire station annex, and, finally, for affordable rental housing.

    The Community Builders, a Boston-based developer, won the bid to construct 47 units at the 1.3-acre site last month. These will be apartments for a wide range of income levels. The current housing shortage is across all price points. This proposal includes market-rate units, which gave it the winning edge.

    GFM Enterprises is under contract to demolish the building for $68,000, Waldo said.

    The post, constructed in 1959, was named for Lewis Armstrong Young. Born in 1896 to Provincetown natives, Young died in 1918 in France, a casualty of the influenza pandemic. He was a member of the Naval Reserve Force and assigned to the U.S.S. Marietta, a schooner-rigged gunboat. He died aboard the Marietta and was later returned to Provincetown and buried with full military honors, according to a story by Amy Whorf McGuiggan that ran in these pages on March 19, 2020. —K.C. Myers

    Veterans Day Events

    Provincetown’s Veterans Day program will be held Thursday, Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. on MacMillan Pier, commemorating the armistice declared at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, at the end of World War I. Nov. 11 became a federal holiday in 1938.

    The program will include the placing of a memorial wreath to honor all service members, and casting of a wreath upon the sea to honor those who served in seagoing services. An honor guard of the U.S. Coast Guard and Provincetown Police Dept. with present the colors, and following introductions by Jim Keefe the Rev. Edgar Miranda will offers prayers and Denise Russell will sing the national anthem and “Amazing Grace.” Thomas Steele, commander of the American Legion, will present remarks and Mike Coelho will play “Taps.”

    HOUSING

    Select Board Picks TCB for VFW Project

    Vote on allocating rooms tax revenue is put off

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The Community Builders, the Boston firm that built 50 apartments at Province Landing on Shank Painter Road 10 years ago, has won the bidding to construct affordable housing at the former VFW property. The select board chose the winner over two competitors on Monday.

    The Community Builders (TCB) was selected in part because it offered the best mix of units across a range of incomes, according to Town Manager Alex Morse and members of the special review committee that examined the bids. The other bidders were Pennrose Inc. of Philadelphia and Commonwealth Community Developers of Cambridge.

    Later in Monday’s meeting, the select board declined to endorse a reallocation formula for proceeds of the town’s newly expanded rooms tax until three committees can examine the question further. The rooms tax on hotels was expanded to cover short-term rentals in 2019, and there is wide agreement that some of the new revenue should be directed toward future housing efforts.

    Questions remain about how much new revenue there is and how to divide it, and select board members said they wanted to hear from the community housing council and the Year-Round Market-Rate Rental Housing Trust again before proceeding.

    TCB at VFW

    The review committee recommended the Community Builders based on its “experience and ability, their familiarity with Provincetown, their ability to secure the financing they’ll need, and their proposed unit mix and affordability levels,” Morse said.

    “This was the only proposal that included a small number of market-rate units. There is also some synergy with their parking and other facilities at Province Landing,” which is a three-minute walk from the VFW site, Morse said.

    “We wanted to see a mixed-income community that met the needs of all income bands in this town,” said review committee member Austin Miller. “This proposal was the one that most robustly addressed that.”

    TCB’s original bid specified 47 units, or 57 if the adjacent parcel at 55R Captain Bertie’s Way were acquired and added to the property. That half-acre parcel is now under contract to a private buyer and no longer available for this project, according to multiple sources.

    An architectural drawing that accompanied the proposal for development of affordable housing at the former VFW site from the Community Builders, which was chosen by the select board this week. (Image courtesy the Community Builders)

    The 47-unit version of the proposal was designed within the town’s existing building height limits. Morse said that “TCB did send us a follow-up after their interview. Depending on height restrictions, we could go up with the number of units.”

    Select board chair Dave Abramson, who also served on the bid review committee, said the same thing. “We could probably add more units, depending on which process we move forward with,” Abramson told the board. “This was one of the only proposals that hit all income levels that we said we were looking for.”

    “I also want the public to know that, with this vote tonight, by no means is the project a done deal,” Morse added. “It depends on financing, site plan review, and a number of inflection points where the public will be able to be involved and ask questions. We’re also encouraging TCB to talk to the neighbors about site design, buffers, things like that.”

    The select board voted 4-0 to give TCB the nod. (The fifth member, Bobby Anthony, was absent.)

    Rooms Tax for Housing

    When it came to the town manager’s recommendation on how to divide the increased rooms tax revenue, however, the select board was not ready to take a vote.

    Before the rooms tax was expanded to include short-term rentals, it covered only stays in “traditional lodgings” — hotels, motels, campgrounds, and bed and breakfasts. That revenue stream, which averaged about $2.1 million per year between 2016 and 2019, increased dramatically when the state legislature expanded the tax to cover short-term rentals starting in July 2019.

    Rooms tax revenue went to $3.1 million in fiscal 2020 and $3.5 million in fiscal 2021. The Covid pandemic fell across both of those fiscal years, however, and data provided by the state Dept. of Revenue (DOR) show that revenue from traditional lodgings actually decreased to $1.4 million during fiscal 2021 (the 12 months from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021), while revenue from the new short-term rental part of the tax was $2.05 million in those 12 months.

    Town leaders have been talking about using short-term rental tax money for housing for years.   Exactly how much there is, and how to carve up the rooms tax so that existing beneficiaries remain funded while new money goes to housing, has been discussed at several select board meetings this year.

    The town manager’s recommended allocation formula, which he presented at a joint meeting of the select board, housing council, and Market-Rate Rental Trust last week, is based on a $3.4-million revenue forecast going forward. It would allocate 26 percent of the total rooms tax revenue to housing. If the total collected were $3.4 million, that would come to $884,000 per year.

    That would be both a brand-new investment in community housing — and, according to state tax data from the DOR, less than half of last year’s short-term rental tax revenue. Three members of the select board said they were not ready to vote.

    “I would like to give the committees another chance to discuss it,” said Leslie Sandberg. “Some people have ideas about maybe capping the tourism fund. It’s interesting, some of the things that are coming up.”

    “As Leslie said, what kind of ideas do we have around getting the maximum amount of money to that [housing] fund,” said Abramson, “without cutting off the others. The revenue estimates are very conservative.”

    “I agree,” said Louise Venden, “and I’m glad my colleagues agree. I don’t think we have had a chance to go thoroughly through all of this. For instance, when we are talking about the amount going to the sewer fund, we are getting $480,000 per year for 10 years” through a county loan forgiveness award.

    “We need to put all the cards on the table here, in terms of what are the other funding sources,” Venden concluded.

    “As we said last week, this is not the only source of money that is going to go toward housing in this town,” said Morse. “When people see an initial number, whether it’s $800,000 or $1 million, the idea isn’t to go out and buy a condo or single-family home at market price. This is about a subsidy, to get private developers to invest, and make a project with higher density more possible.

    “Obviously this money can also be used toward buydown programs and other programs we discussed last Monday,” Morse added. “We do have time to continue the conversation.”

    The board voted 4-0 to direct Morse to draft a slate of housing proposals for spring town meeting that the three boards could discuss at their next joint meeting.

    COMPLICATIONS

    Sale of Adjacent Land Will Affect VFW Housing Bids

    Half-acre Capt. Bertie’s parcel is under contract to private buyer

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — A pending land sale will likely require two of the three companies wanting to build affordable housing here to adjust their plans downward.

    The town’s request for proposals for the former VFW site included an advisory of an adjacent private lot for sale that could be used to “maximize the building area and provide an additional egress.” Two of the three bidders submitted plans that included that parcel, 55R Captain Bertie’s Way. But that property is now under contract to someone else, according to select board member Leslie Sandberg.

    “We lost an opportunity to purchase the land adjacent to the VFW,” Sandberg said at the Aug. 23 select board meeting. “It’s under contract for market [rate] housing. When an opportunity like that arises, we need to move faster than we were able to.”

    The two bids affected are the ones with the largest number of units. Pennrose proposed 64 units on the 1.3-acre VFW site at 3 Jerome Smith Road and the half-acre parcel at 55R Captain Bertie’s Way. Its official bid says that “understanding the Town’s stated desire for a ‘high density’ proposal, we felt the best way to provide a critical mass of units with a realistic amount of parking was to assume the acquisition of the adjacent parcel.”

    The Community Builders wrote in its bid that “including the adjacent parcel … opens up valuable opportunities to more effectively balance the Town’s multiple goals — allowing us to increase the number of affordable units and improve circulation within the site.” That bid was for 57 units. It also said that “our preliminary analysis for the development of only the 3 Jerome Smith site showed a schema with approximately 47 units.”

    The Community Builders’ site development plan, showing three buildings on 3 Jerome Smith Road and one on 55R Captain Bertie’s Way.

    The third bidder, Commonwealth Community Developers, was the only one to submit a plan for just the 3 Jerome Smith site. That bid was for 46 units.

    The town’s RFP specified a minimum of 44 units and said that “should be considered a base number with preferred consideration for additional density.”

    Under Contract

    Paul and Victoria Mendes have owned 55R, which is directly behind their home, for almost 30 years. Paul Mendes said, “I’m usually quite vocal, but I really can’t comment.” Asked if the town had approached him with a purchase offer, he added, “That would have been a conversation between the realtors and the town. They’ve handled that property for four years.”

    The listing agent, Joe DeMartino of Pat Shultz Real Estate, said, “We approached the town and had very, very, very preliminary discussions about the parcel. We were told the town was awaiting an RFP,” which the town issued in late May. Those conversations “never became advanced, and the town never made an offer per se,” DeMartino added.

    DeMartino said he could not comment on whether the town or the affordable housing bidders had the opportunity to make counteroffers. Details of the contract are also not public. The property has a list price on patshultz.com of $1.75 million.

    The Community Builders wrote in their bid that “TCB is currently in active negotiations to put the 55R Captain Bertie’s Way parcel under an Option to Purchase for $1,300,000.”

    “Inclusion of the adjacent parcel will of course be contingent on further discussions with the Town and community,” the bid document continues, “as well as satisfactory negotiations with the adjacent property owner.”

    This raises the possibility that the affordable housing developers may simply have been outbid.

    Both developers wrote that they were seeking some financing from the town, however. Pennrose wrote that “we would look to work with the Town on finding local CPA funds/bond proceeds to fund the acquisition” of 55R.

    This raises another possibility — that the developers and the town were waiting on each other. The developers may have wanted to know what the town was willing to help pay. The town may have been waiting to see how the developers planned to use the extra land. The bids themselves weren’t actually opened until July 29 — six weeks ago — revealing that the two bids that included the adjacent parcel contained 11 to 18 more apartments than the one bid without it.

    Pennrose’s site development plan, showing six buildings on 3 Jerome Smith Road and two on 55R Captain Bertie’s Way.

    Charlie Adams, regional vice president of Pennrose, learned that 55R Captain Bertie’s Way was under contract when the Independent contacted him on Sept. 7.

    “I wasn’t aware of that — it’s news to me,” said Adams. Pennrose had not been in active conversations with the listing agents, he said. Negotiations to purchase “were going to be down the road,” said Adams.

    “No conversations took place between the town and Mendes or anyone involved [with 55R], at least since I’ve been here,” said Town Manager Alex Morse, who began working for Provincetown in April 2021.

    Taken together, the comments of DeMartino, Adams, and Morse suggest that the conversation had not advanced far enough to even reach the question of price.

    “It’s very unfortunate that that piece of land that we all knew about was not pursued,” said select board member Louise Venden at the Aug. 23 meeting. “We are going to do the best we can with what we have.”

    Morse sounded a more optimistic note. “Things are advancing as planned,” he wrote to the Independent. “We are glad to see three strong proposals for housing on this site and we are moving forward with the next step in the process.”

    The next step includes a committee that will review the bids. TCB’s bid includes some clear indications of how its project would look without 55R Captain Bertie’s Way; Pennrose’s bid does not.

    “It’s up to the town how they want to proceed,” Adams told the Independent.

    HISTORY

    Remembering the Young Family’s Service to Town and Country

    A young sailor’s sacrifice was honored by Provincetown V.F.W.

    By

    VFW construction
    Breaking ground at the Lewis A. Young V.F.W. Post 3152 in 1959. From left, under the sign: “Cul” Gouveia, Francis Alves, Joe “Flyer” Sants, Richard Medeiros, Joe Medeiros, and Bob Collinson. The man on the bulldozer is unidentified.
    (Photo John D. Bell)

    PROVINCETOWN — In the 60 years since the Lewis A. Young V.F.W. Post 3152 was constructed on Jerome Smith Road, how many visitors to Provincetown have turned off Route 6 onto Shank Painter Road, glanced at the building, and wondered who Lewis A. Young was? How many of them knew that Young was a World War I veteran who died in France — not in battle, but because of the 1918 influenza pandemic, which infected one-third of the world’s population and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million people?

    In the 1930s, when charter members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars first organized in the basement of Provincetown Town Hall, they named their post in Young’s honor and memory.

    A different kind of corps gathered with tools and know-how in 1959 to raise a building where veterans could come together to share their experiences and enjoy camaraderie. After meeting for years in a school dept.-owned building on Montello Street, Provincetown’s veterans finally had a place to call their own.

    Over the front door and on the lawn they proudly placed signs displaying Young’s name, and they filled the simple rooms with memorabilia. The building soon resounded with friendly banter, raffles, and wild games of whist and bingo. The Ladies Auxiliary, the backbone of the post, enthusiastically planned bake sales, holiday parties, and parade floats. The modest building became the tangible expression of V.F.W. values.

    Did those passersby know that Lewis’s family roots reached deep into the Provincetown and Truro soil? Did they know that along with his own sacrifice, generations of his extended family had served their country and community?

    Lewis Armstrong Young was born in 1896, the son of Provincetown natives William Henry Young (1871-1942) and Anna Morse Hughes (1872-1939), pillars of the community. A banker and founder of an insurance company, William was the first president of the Art Association, president of the Board of Trade, and chairman of the Tercentenary Committee. Both of Lewis A. Young’s grandfathers, Paron Cook Young (1838-1912) and Hezekiah Paine Hughes (1839-1919) were veterans of the Civil War.

    Paron, born in Provincetown to Elisha Young and Betsy Sparks, suffered a gunshot wound in the throat during the war and underwent one of the first tracheotomies. He later was appointed Provincetown’s postmaster. He married Susan Johnson (1845-1903), the daughter of merchant Joseph P. Johnson and the niece of Provincetown’s only War of 1812 veteran, Timothy P. Johnson. Through his Cook family line, Paron could trace his ancestry back to Mayflower passenger Stephen Hopkins. Hopkins’s great-great-grandson, Solomon Cook, was the scion of the Cook family in Provincetown and his son, Capt. Solomon Cook (1737-1819), was recently recognized with seven other town fathers as a Patriot of the Revolutionary War.

    Hezekiah, born in Truro to John Hughes and Hannah Paine, married Truro-born Orianna Armstrong (1844-1930) on July 26, 1862, just days before his enlistment. She was the daughter of Edward Armstrong, born in France, and Hannah Hopkins, also a Mayflower descendant. Hezekiah, a lieutenant in the Third Massachusetts Calvary, suffered “malarial poisoning” during his three-year enlistment. He received an invalid’s pension and returned to Truro, where he served as keeper of Highland Light before working as a dry goods merchant.

    Lewis Armstrong Young followed a proud family tradition of service, enlisting on July 24, 1917, in the U.S. Naval Reserve Force as a machinist’s mate. He was assigned to the U.S.S. Marietta, a schooner-rigged gunboat engaged in convoy duty. On Oct. 15, 1918, he died onboard the Marietta and was buried at Pauillac, France, in a plot assigned to the U.S. Navy. In 1920 he was brought home to Provincetown and buried with full military honors. His younger brother, Arthur Young, a member of the Student Army Training Corps while attending Boston University, was inducted on Oct. 23, 1918, and honorably discharged on December 13, 1918. He died the following June of laryngeal tuberculosis.

    Charter members of Provincetown VFW
    Charter members of the V.F.W. in 1967 were all World War I veterans. Back row, from left: John “Pecy” Cook, John “Bull” Enos, Frank Salles, Sam Raymond; front row, from left: Joe “Zeke” Meads, Joe Marshall, Joe Costa, Clarence Williams.

    Sometime in the next months, Provincetown residents and those still-living veterans who shared friendship and support at V.F.W. Post 3152 will bear witness to a more somber event in the life of the building: not a raising, but a razing, as the building will be torn down to make way for a new venture.

    Ground will again be broken, pictures of dignitaries with their shovels will be taken for posterity, and the new construction may be named for someone in the community. Years from now, folks turning off Route 6 onto Shank Painter Road will glance over and perhaps wonder who that someone was and what he or she accomplished.

    Without the V.F.W. building on the landscape, the name of Lewis Armstrong Young risks being forgotten unless the town and all those who call Provincetown home make an effort to not forget. Everything stays alive as long as we keep it in our collective memories.

     

    PROJECTS

    Provincetown V.F.W. Awaits Transformation

    Jay Critchley’s art installation evolves through crisis

    By

    Jay Critchley at VFW
    Jay Critchley stands outside the V.F.W. front entrance, at a spot where he was hoping to produce performance events during the project’s 10 days. With gatherings of more than 25 people now restricted, whatever happens may appear only online without an audience. (Photos Jane Paradise)

    PROVINCETOWN —Jay Critchley invited members of the community — artists, writers, veterans — to join him on Wednesday, March 11 for a walk-through of the Veterans of Foreign Wars building at 3 Jerome Smith Road. A dozen or so people appeared. They were there to explore ideas for a Provincetown Community Compact project that had been green-lighted a week before by the select board: to turn the building, which will soon be torn down, into a 10-day community-wide art installation, from April 3 through 12. The idea was to transform the V.F.W. into a starlit shrine: filled with artifacts, with no electricity, a “vessel of aspiration,” said Critchley, who, as an artist, has orchestrated several of these kinds of installation-performance projects over the years.

    By March 11, however, the coronavirus pandemic was already a threat.

    The Independent asked photographer Jane Paradise to record the moment. But moments, at this time of crisis, are particularly evanescent. The fate of the project within the building is up in the air.

    “I think that it’s probably going to be canceled,” said Critchley on Monday, March 16. “But it’s not official. We’ll have to see about that. At this point, I want to get artists in the building, working with resilience in the middle of the plague.”

    If they can’t work inside, Critchley may have them work outside. “We’re still accepting ideas for the project,” he said, “whether they are virtual or physical. Regardless of what happens, we’ll create an online presence for the project and the community. This is a time when many artists, writers, and other creatives are making art. The project is morphing into what’s going on in the world. That’s the challenge: to see how it will show itself.

    Inside the V.F.W. hall’s main room, Critchley (center, with a black baseball cap and a hand to his heart) asks those assembled to remain six feet apart. Behind him at left, looking at her camera, is the Mosquito Story Slam’s Vanessa Vartabedian; then, beyond Critchley, left to right: artist Nick Thorkelson, veteran Paul Mendes, activist Char Priolo, Relish owner Frank Vasello, and his husband, actor-director Nathan Butera. “There was great energy,” Critchley said. “People were excited to be in the building. They shared a lot of great stories. It was very emotional, very forward-looking.”

    The V.F.W. basement was open for artists to transform. The place holds lots of memories — dances, wedding and funeral receptions, both straight and gay. Currently, the plumbing is not functioning, and though lights were on during the walk-through, Critchley hopes to keep the project electricity-free.

    “My Pilgrim Barbie!” Critchley said. He also brought “gold” necklaces for the attendees to wear as symbols of power. As planned, the building would be filled with personal artifacts brought by the community.

     

     

     

     

     

    Though the town has mostly emptied the building, on March 11 the kitchen of the V.F.W. still had boxes of books and a bunch of beautiful old doors, which photographer Jane Paradise judges to be too large and too old to be from the V.F.W., which was built in 1959. “They’ve parceled out objects of historic value,” Critchley said. “I’m not sure what will end up there.”

     

     

    PUBLIC ART

    Compact to Turn P’town VFW Into Art Installation

    Jay Critchley invites veterans and members of the community to participate

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — It’s a project Jay Critchley had been contemplating for a while: he knew that the town had bought the Veterans of Foreign Wars building at 3 Jerome Smith Road in 2013 and was planning to tear it down. The hall was built in 1959 by the veterans, and is a place that evokes fond memories for many locals who had spent time there. Last week, the select board approved Critchley’s plans to turn the building into a community-wide art project.

    He has done projects like this before. Critchley memorialized the old Herring Cove Bathhouse, to spectacular effect, before the Cape Cod National Seashore tore it down in 2012, with dozens of artists turning all the building’s various spaces into installations. Now, with the VFW Hall, he isn’t interested in repeating that effort.

    “The more I thought about it, this is a totally different time we’re living in,” Critchley says. “Look at what’s happened in eight years — in the town, in the world, in the environment. I had the idea of darkening the interior of the hall and, as people entered, they would be given solar lights. I’m inviting not just artists, but veterans and people in the community to bring in and install art and artifacts that have personal meaning. It will be like a starlit shrine — a vessel of aspiration.”

    The event will be held under the auspices of the Provincetown Community Compact, which Critchley directs. The first organizational meeting will be on Wednesday, March 11, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the site on Jerome Smith Road. Participants can register at thecompact.org. The installation will be open to the public for 10 days, from April 3 through April 12, including the night or nights of the annual town meeting, which begins Monday, April 6.

    Jay Critchley, AMP
    One of the prints by Jay Critchley in his upcoming show in May at AMP Gallery. Each cow is colored with sand from Critchley’s collection. (Photo courtesy Jay Critchley)

    Critchley has included the VFW project in his “Democracy of the Land” campaign, a subversive twist on Provincetown 400, and added the subtitle “reflections on nature and civic society.” He has two other “Democracy of the Land” art projects unfolding in Provincetown in May: an exhibit at the Fine Arts Work Center and a show of prints at AMP Gallery.

    For the FAWC show, on view May 8 through May 31 and subtitled “The Mayflower Compact Untethered,” Critchley is inviting artists of all media to propose a more “inclusive” compact and to explore decolonization. Applications (at fawc.org) are due by March 27 and should include a budget — some funding may be available.

    The AMP exhibit, which is subtitled “The Moo Moo World,” will feature prints by Critchley of a “re-rooted” cow, an idea that began at a residency he did at Williams College in the ’90s. Each cow print is adorned with sand of unusual hues from exotic locales, part of Critchley’s collection. The cow, he says, is “symbolic of the invasion of Europeans in the Americas and the ecological disaster that followed. Barnyard animals brought diseases,” devastating the indigenous population. The prints are part of a group show at AMP from May 1 through May 23.

    It’s hard to know what the VFW project (unlike the AMP show) will look like. “I’m not orchestrating the project,” Critchley says. “It’s more like baking without a recipe.”

     

    currents

    This Week in Provincetown

    By

    Meetings Ahead

    Friday, Feb. 28

    • Public Landscape Committee, 12 p.m., Lopes Square

    Tuesday, March 3

    • Conservation Commission, 6 p.m., Town Hall

    Wednesday, March 4

    • Historic District Commission, 4 p.m., Town Hall

    Thursday, March 5

    • Zoning Board of Appeals, 6:30 p.m., Town Hall

    Conversation Starters

    A Plan for Indigenous Memorial

    The select board’s Lise King has found a consultant to work with the town to develop a public art project honoring Native Americans. The board unanimously approved $12,607 on Feb. 24 to be spent working with Jennifer Himmelreich, who has overseen the Native American Fellowship Program at the Peabody Essex Museum. Six to nine months will be spent researching and engaging with residents and the tribal communities to come up with an appropriate art project.

    Tribal people call Provincetown “ground zero” for the impact of European colonialism on their communities, Himmelreich stated in her proposal to the town.

    With the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims this year, this is an opportunity to “present a view of the Native American side of the experience,” she wrote.

    The select board also approved words to be etched on a plaque at the Bas Relief and a paving stone at Pilgrims’ First Landing Park. It will read: “We, the town of Provincetown, acknowledge the Wampanoag people of the past and of the present, their heritage and continuance as the indigenous people of this land. While we cannot undo the mistakes of the past, we have a responsibility and opportunity to acknowledge them and work toward a continually better future.”

    Jay Critchley to Send Off Old VFW

    Artist Jay Critchley will hold a “community send-off” of the VFW building, which is being demolished to make way for affordable housing or a police station.

    Used for parties and weddings since 1959, its main purpose was to provide a safe space for veterans, Critchley said.

    Saying good-bye to the VFW will be a meditative experience, Critchley said, spanning April 3-12. He plans to invite people to bring art and personal mementos to fill the meeting halls. On the last two days he will hand out solar lights so viewers can explore the otherwise darkened building and see what has been left.

    Critchley has held two other farewell installations, one at the Herring Cove Bathhouse in 2012 and one at the Meadows Motel, which was demolished in 2006.

    The select board’s Bobby Anthony, a veteran, thanked Critchley.

    “Veterans built that building, not contractors, so I appreciate you doing this, I really do,” he said.—K.C. Myers

     

     

     

    CIVICS

    VFW Building Scheduled for Demolition

    Any use of the land involves removing the structure, officials say

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The VFW building at 3 Jerome Smith Road was built entirely by veterans, says VFW post member Paul Mendes — volunteers who donated their skills as carpenters or electricians to help construct a post building that was a social center of town for generations.

    “It’s a very strong building — it can hold a hundred people on the dance floor,” Mendes told the Independent. His hope that the building could be repurposed and renovated into a police station is shared by many of his fellow post members, he said.

    But town staff and the building committee that was appointed specifically to design and develop a new police station never thought that idea was financially realistic. None of the formal studies for a police station ever involved renovating the VFW hall itself.

    The town plans to demolish the building this spring. Dept. of Public Works Director Rich Waldo said the building would need to be taken down under any plan for municipal use of the site.

    VFW building
    The VFW building, built in the 1950s, is too expensive to renovate for municipal use, say officials. (Photo Paul Benson)

    “First of all, I want to be clear that anything is possible — it’s just a matter of expense,” said Waldo. “I can say that no plan has ever crossed my desk for renovating that building, and I can give you a long list of reasons why. Municipal buildings are governed by a bunch of codes that didn’t exist in the 1950s when that building was built. From handicap access and elevators to fire codes and energy codes, starting from scratch is just easier, especially for the contracting builder, than trying to rework everything.

    “You’re not going to save any money by renovating, and you’re just going to make the construction more complicated,” Waldo added.

    “I can also say those building codes apply for any municipal use,” he continued. “Whether it’s going to be police or housing or something else, you want to demolish it and have a clean canvas for any project that’s gonna move forward.”

    Building committee member Paul Kelly and former building committee vice chair Rick Murray confirmed that when their committee was studying the VFW parcel for a police station, renovating the old building was not part of the plan.

    “The building really isn’t where you’d want it,” said Kelly. “When we were working on a station there we had it off to the side, running along the east edge of the parcel, to open up circulation and parking areas.”

    “It’s too expensive to put the station inside the VFW building,” said Murray. The building committee did consider and present the VFW site as an option, but it was for new construction, not a renovation, Murray added.

    The VFW building contains 6,226 square feet, according to town records. The current police station at 26 Shank Painter Road has 5,976 square feet. Designs for a new police station have ranged from 12,000 to 14,000 square feet.

    Controlling Votes

    A vote to demolish the building took place at the April 2019 town meeting; article 13J allocated $90,000 for the demolition. Article 13 was a 10-part capital improvement plan, however, and item 13J was just one part of it. Other parts of article 13 were the subject of more debate; no one spoke for or against 13J specifically.

    Four and a half years before that, demolishing the VFW was on the October 2014 town meeting warrant. The VFW property had been purchased only a year earlier, and five town meeting voters spoke against its demolition without a clear plan for the site. No voters spoke for it, and the article did not pass.

    Now there is a plan for the property — for about 50 units of affordable housing — and that project will be going out to bid in the spring. Another town meeting vote will be required to approve the winning bid for the housing development and allow construction to begin. Since the April 2019 vote has already authorized the demolition of the VFW hall, the only remaining vote on that subject will be when the select board votes on whether to approve the bid for the demolition work, probably sometime in March.

    “It will take two months to do the procurement part and bring a contractor on for the demolition,” said acting Town Manager David Gardner. “Our intention is to have the demolition done by the spring.”

     

    SPECIAL TOWN MEETING

    Move to Alter VFW Plan Fails in Close Vote

    Voters lament ‘Sophie’s choice,’ want both housing and public safety

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — By a margin of just 19 votes, 157 in favor, 176 against, Monday’s special town meeting rejected Fire Chief Mike Trovato’s plan for the former VFW site on Jerome Smith Road.

    The sole article on Monday’s warrant — initiated by Trovato’s petition, signed by 203 citizens — would have designated the town-owned 1.3-acre parcel for a new police station, a fire substation, and an outdoor training facility for firefighters. The site is currently earmarked for about 50 units of affordable housing. Had it been approved, the article would have put an end to that housing initiative.

    Fire Chief Michael Trovato waits his turn to speak a second time at a crowded Dec. 2 special town meeting. Because so many people queued up at other microphones, he never got the chance. (Photo K.C. Myers)

    LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

    Writing Thursday

    By

    It’s “Giving Tuesday” as I write this, and I can see from looking at the online posts of local nonprofits that people really are giving. We know firsthand about this generosity because so many of you have contributed to our own Local Journalism Project, helping us to build up the resources that will be needed to support young journalists here and make the Independent a stable and sustainable local news organization. We’re still at the beginning of that work, but the signs are encouraging, both from donors and from subscribers — more than 900 of you already.

    There’s another area, though, where we wish our readers were more generous: writing letters. We know you’re busy. And you probably think that anything appearing in print over your name has to be a masterpiece of rhetoric and wit.

    We know you are reading what we write. We hear you talking about it. At Monday’s special town meeting in Provincetown, it was clear that many people had read in these pages Paul Benson’s amazingly complete and digestible history of the VFW parcel at the heart of the controversy. And we see plenty of comments about our work on Facebook.

    But it’s so easy to post a comment on Facebook, you say. Well, we make it easy, too. Just send us an email. We’ll work with you to make your letter even better, if you like. That’s something that Facebook won’t do.

    Sometimes I wish you could all sit in on our weekly editorial meetings here, when we talk about the last edition and the articles that people are working on. It’s very different from my last newspaper job, because this group has so many more voices with varied points of view. It changes and deepens the way we understand and report the news.

    That’s why we need your letters, so that your voices become a part of that conversation. The direct encounter between people with different ideas and opinions who actually listen to each other is the foundation of good journalism — and good government as well.

    After town meeting this week, Fire Chief Michael Trovato, who was on the losing end of a close vote, was none too pleased to be approached by reporter Paul Benson. He gave Benson an earful because, he said, the Independent’s editorial last week had hurt his cause and he had taken so much abuse for his position on the VFW. Benson, ever curious, listened and asked questions about how the town might move forward to address its public safety needs, taking notes for the next story. Soon the two were shaking hands and sharing ideas for the spring town meeting.

    Here’s my idea: Writing Thursday. When you sit down with the latest issue of the Independent and read something that gives you an idea, write it down and send it to us. It’s a gift we’ll make good use of.

    SPECIAL TOWN MEETING

    New Station or Housing? The VFW Parcel’s Long, Winding Road

    Six years of town meeting votes led to the current moment

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The 1.3-acre parcel of town-owned land that was the former VFW post is once again the subject of debate. A petitioned article from Fire Chief Mike Trovato and 203 voters has triggered a special town meeting in the town hall auditorium at 6 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 2. The petitioners want the parcel to be reserved for a new police station, a fire and EMS substation, and an outdoor training facility for firefighters.

    VFW Provincetown
    The old VFW building. At this point, “speed bumps” is an understatement. (Photo Paul Benson)

    But an April 2018 town meeting authorized development of the parcel for affordable housing. The clash of these two priorities — police station vs. housing — is something town officials had worked for years to avoid.

    The Independent talked to more than a dozen people and reviewed footage of several meetings to better understand the votes and decisions that led to this juncture. The central episodes are in 2013, when the parcel was purchased; 2015, when the adjacent Winslow Farms parcel was not purchased; 2017, when the select board (split 3-2) and town meeting (206-35) voted to locate the police station across the street from the VFW parcel at 16 Jerome Smith Road; and 2019, when the price of that project rose from $8.6 million to $12.5 million, and the allocation of the extra money failed to win a two-thirds majority.

    2013: Town Buys VFW

    In the years after World War II, the VFW post was one of the great social hubs of the town. Everyone was a veteran, it seemed, and the building at 3 Jerome Smith Road was built entirely by the volunteer labor of post members, according to Paul Mendes, a Vietnam veteran and one of the few remaining post members.

    The post itself had been started in 1934 by Provincetown’s World War I veterans, and the town helped support it in the early years by giving it exclusive use of an old school on Montello Street, eventually selling it to the post for $1, Mendes said. The post sold that property for $20,000 in 1958 and started work on the building at 3 Jerome Smith.

    Fifty years later, membership had aged and was dwindling. Only 10 or 15 veterans came to meetings, there were problems with the septic system, and the post lost its lottery license.  Receipts were not covering expenses. The post made the difficult decision to sell the property.

    “We talked to Dan Hoort, the finance director at the time,” said Mendes. “We asked him what the value of all that early support from the town would be in today’s dollars. Hoort took out a calculator and said that $20,000 plus repairs back then would be $300,000 now. So we decided to sell the property to the town for $300,000 under market value.

    “Market value was $1.2 million,” continued Mendes. “That’s how we came to $900,000 for a purchase price. We wanted to give back that $300,000 gift.

    “We also wanted it to be for a police station,” said Mendes. “A lot of the post members were retired police officers, including myself. We knew how bad the station on Shank Painter was — it was inadequate the day it was opened. There hadn’t been a decent station in the 30 years I was an officer. We thought we could help fix that.”

    A purchase and sale agreement was signed on Oct. 10, 2013, but it said nothing about how the land would be used. An article authorizing the purchase at an Oct. 21, 2013 special town meeting said the land could be used “for general municipal purposes, including, without limitation, for police station and/or affordable housing purposes.”

    Barbara Rushmore offered an amendment on the floor of that meeting that stripped out the words “police station and/or.” The amendment passed, 113 to 84. “Legally, that amendment has no effect,” said David Gardner, the acting town manager. “A police station is a municipal purpose.”

    And indeed, the annual town reports from 2013, 2014, and 2015 make it clear that town government was hoping to build housing and a police station on the site. The VFW parcel is 1.3 acres, whereas the current police station at 26 Shank Painter Road sits on a third of an acre. The largest police station plan the Independent saw involved two-thirds of an acre. Any police station plan would still leave at least half the parcel available for some other use, and affordable housing has been among the town’s highest priorities for two decades.

    2015: Winslow Farms Passed Up

    Plans to put both housing and police at the VFW took a turn, however, when the April 2015 town meeting rejected the purchase of an adjacent lot. Buying the Winslow Farms parcel, owned by developer Jim Savko, would have connected the two parcels, providing access from the back of the VFW lot to Winslow Street.

    The vote was 173-133, short of the two-thirds majority required. Significant opposition came from neighbors, who argued that the character of the neighborhood would be disturbed.

    “Losing the egress at Winslow Street is really what ended the plans for both police and housing at VFW,” select board member Bobby Anthony told the Independent. “It’s not conducive for housing to be wrapped around the police, to have kids and families sharing the roadway with police cruisers. That egress would have let the housing be oriented to Winslow and not have to go through the police area to get in and out.

    “Also, you really need a certain size for the housing development, for a developer to even consider it,” Anthony added. The back half of the VFW lot, without Winslow Farms attached, might not be big enough. If we had Winslow Farms, the VFW would have been the police station and the housing.”

    VFW Provincetown
    The wooded lot on the left is 16 Jerome Smith Road; the VFW parcel includes the blue building on the right. (Photo: Paul Benson)

    2017: 16 Jerome Smith

    The select board appointed a building committee in 2012 to move the police station forward. After more than 50 meetings, they reported four options in January 2017: rebuild the current station site at 26 Shank Painter; purchase the property next door, Dr. Brian O’Malley’s office at 30 Shank Painter; put the police station at the VFW; or build it directly across the street from the VFW on a town-owned parcel at 16 Jerome Smith.

    O’Malley’s office would have to be purchased, said the building committee, making it more expensive than the other choices. A rebuild at the current site would require temporary quarters for the police somewhere else, which would also make it more expensive. The VFW and 16 Jerome Smith were both already owned by the town, and of those two, the committee recommended 16 Jerome Smith.

    At that meeting, building committee chair Tom Coen said “putting mixed use on [the VFW site], because of access and egress issues, the potential for conflict — we were uncomfortable with that. One of our objectives in choosing the 16 Jerome Smith site was: can we resolve the potential conflict between those two uses [police and housing] and accomplish both?”

    The select board accepted the building committee’s recommendation in a 3-2 vote. Board member Cheryl Andrews was one of the no votes, but she told the Independent that it was the O’Malley property that interested her, not the VFW parcel.

    “The wishes of the neighborhood and the wishes of the VFW post I do not think were variables for us at that time,” said Andrews. “I respect that they have an opinion, but I have to look at all the variables — size, aesthetics, appearance, traffic flow, cost, the overall fit for the town. I understood the night we bought it [in 2013] that we were free to decide how to use it.”

    2017: April Town Meeting

    Article 8.1 at the April 2017 town meeting, asking $8.6 million for a police station at 16 Jerome Smith Road, was the subject of extended debate. Not one person spoke in favor of the VFW site, however. The issues were the importance of the “greenway” at 16 Jerome Smith and the impression a police station there would make on visitors to town.

    Five voters, plus Andrews, spoke for building a station at O’Malley’s property at 30 Shank Painter. One, Barbara Rushmore, had a plan to build a station at Duarte’s, where the CVS now stands. Six voters spoke in favor of 16 Jerome Smith, as did selectmen Raphael Richter and Bobby Anthony and building committee member Rick Murray.

    No one said anything about the VFW post or proposed that it be the site of a police station. After a spirited debate, the article passed 206 to 35. The town had officially chosen to build the station at 16 Jerome Smith Road.

    The Independent asked Paul Mendes how the VFW members felt about the decision. “Having to give up the building was hard,” he said. “We were disappointed [with the Rushmore amendment in 2013], and after that, we moved on. Most of the VFW members don’t live in town anymore. A lot of them have moved to Truro.”

    Tom Coen, Rick Murray, and Paul Kelly all confirmed that no one from the VFW post reached out to the building committee or attended any meetings after 2013. “I think Paul Mendes came to one of the very first ones, to congratulate us for moving things forward,” said Murray. “But in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017? Definitely not.”

    2019: ‘Emotionally Draining’

    Andrews described 2019 as “emotionally draining” this week, an assessment doubtless shared by others. The April 2019 town meeting was forced to vote on an extra $3.9 million for the police station at 16 Jerome Smith. What had been settled was now unsettled, and disagreements about the police station’s size, cost, design, financing, and location all came alive again.

    The extra allocation needed a two-thirds vote to pass and got only 62 percent. A motion to reconsider passed, but the second vote on the article failed again, with 64 percent in favor, eight votes short of a two-thirds majority. The debate consumed more than two hours, but the only speaker to mention the VFW parcel was building committee member Paul Kelly, who briefly described the reasons the committee did not recommend that parcel for the station. Several voters spoke in favor of the O’Malley property.

    The original appropriation of $8.6 million for a station at 16 Jerome Smith still stood, Town Manager David Panagore explained at the meeting. “The $8.6 million can’t be spent at a different location without a separate vote,” he said. “It’s actually a debt authorization, not a pile of cash, and that debt authorization remains valid only for that site.”

    Coen confirmed that point last week. “At this point, we’re pretty set on 16 Jerome Smith Road,” he said. “We’re not looking at any other sites. We’ve looked at so many over the years. The truth is, there’s no perfect choice. The vote for $8.6 million and 16 Jerome Smith still stands. It hasn’t been rescinded.”

    Dec. 2, 2019: The Petition

    Dedicating the VFW parcel to a police station, as Chief Trovato’s petitioned article would do, would effectively moot the prior vote. For supporters like Paul Mendes, who signed the petition, that’s precisely the point.

    A view from the back of the 1.3-acre VFW parcel. (Photo: Paul Benson)

    “When the town purchased the VFW lot, they put the obvious immediate need of a police station behind the future need of housing,” said Mendes. “The priority of a working, comfortable police station has become secondary to the idea that housing is the number one priority.”

    Back when the building committee was entertaining multiple locations, the size and cost of a station at the VFW parcel was identical to the size and cost of a station at 16 Jerome Smith. The drawings and cost estimates are for the same facility. If it’s the same station either way, Mendes was asked, does it matter to the veterans which side of the street it’s on?

    “I’ve always been an advocate, as a neighbor and a post member, that it be a police station,” Mendes said. “I’ve been discouraged by these other options. If housing is so important, put the housing across the street at 16 Jerome Smith and put the police and fire where they belong at VFW.”

    LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

    Letters, Nov. 21: VFW Debate, Orly’s Rope, Artists Identified

    By

    Chief Trovato’s Vision

    To the editor:

    Fire Chief Mike Trovato’s vision for the VFW site as a police station and first-responder housing and substation actually sees our needs. This vision makes so much sense to so many people.

    Proper response is what Mike has been doing for years. He was given an extension on the mandatory rule for retirement because of his excellent record for keeping the town and the first responders safe.

    The select board “came down hard” on Mike’s plan, the Independent reported last week. At the same meeting they voted to give the remaining sewer gallons for housing to a longtime local businessperson for his workers. I agree with the board’s vote to let the businesses provide housing for their workers. Businesses can also pay their workers a living wage so they can live here without having to go through the process for affordable housing.

    We can all agree we need more housing for everyone of modest means. But housing more people before housing first responders is putting the cart before the horse.

    We need the town to provide for first responders so we can all live here safely. Mike’s vision for the VFW site is sound and will meet the needs of the town now with a police station and into the future with fire and rescue. It has been such a drawn-out process for the police station that using the VFW is the best solution.

    We can either see this as our chief and 200-plus residents see it — the perfect opportunity to move forward on a project that has been on hold for far too long — or we can let it get lost again in more process.

    Jean Horner

    Provincetown and Truro

     

    Artists Identified

    To the editor:

    There is a wonderful photograph on page 19 of the Nov. 14 Provincetown Independent featuring many world-renowned artist members of the Provincetown Art Association. The gentleman on the right side of the photo with a beard wearing a bow tie is listed in the caption as “unknown.”

    I am writing to identify him as painter-illustrator Ben Wolf, who was closely acquainted with my uncle, the painter Edwin Dickinson. Mr. Wolf was also my freshman painting instructor in 1957 at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art.

    Frank Foley, Eastham

    Editors’ note: Our thanks to Frank Foley for identifying Ben Wolf at the far right in Arnold Newman’s 1960 photograph of Provincetown Art Association members. Gallerist Berta Walker confirmed that it is Wolf — she contacted the Independent after we’d gone to press and added two other identities: sitting second to the right, below Ben Wolf and Gerrit Hondius, is Harry Engel (whom we guessed might be Will Barnet); and, at the far left, sitting and holding glasses, is Umberto Romano. The man holding a pipe in the center of the photo remains unknown to us.

     

    A Caption Correction

    To the editor:

    While I appreciated the announcement of the Center for Coastal Studies’ Nov. 19 Local Bounty Banquet benefitting our ghost gear recovery project, the caption under the eye-catching image on page 20 of last week’s issue was inaccurate.

    The photo was of Orly Genger’s “Red, Yellow and Blue,” which was installed in Madison Square Park in New York City about seven years ago. It was built with rope from the commercial lobster fishery, which I had secured for the Brooklyn artist. That massive sculpture was dismantled after six months at the park to be installed at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, and after another year went on to become other unique iterations of rope sculpture, such as “Terra” (in Oklahoma), “Current” (in Austin), and “Hot Rod” (in Chicago).

    Working with Orly was a privilege, but I am also honored to know other artists who work with material from the fishing industry and who were represented at the Local Bounty Banquet, including Sarah Thornington from West Yarmouth, John and Alicia Morgan from Sandwich, Cindy Pease Roe from Greenport, N.Y., and Gin Stone from Harwich.

    Laura Ludwig, Provincetown

    The writer is director of the Marine Debris and Plastics Program at the Center for Coastal Studies.

     

     

    HOUSING

    Third Public Forum Explores Possible Outcomes for VFW Housing

    Income levels and funding sources are connected variables

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Providing affordable rental housing here for one underserved income group — those making 60 to 80 percent of the area median — is going to be a challenge.

    At the third community forum on housing at the VFW site on Jerome Smith Road, held on Nov. 13, planning consultant JM Goldson presented a plan with only two units for tenants in that income bracket, even though that is the group citizens have named as most neglected in the current market.

    Goldson explained that state and federal funding is mostly earmarked for those making less than 60 percent of area median income. Providing more units for higher-income residents would require additional funding sources.

    The Nov. 13 meeting focused on how developers might respond to the directives the town will lay out in an upcoming request for proposals, and what the resulting proposals might look like. Goldson was careful to say she was presenting a concept of what might happen, and that the request for proposals itself will ultimately determine what developers submit.

    The model she walked the group through was similar in physical design to those at earlier meetings but had a different mix of affordable and market-rate units.

    A possible site plan for 47 units of housing at the VFW parcel at 3 Jerome Smith Road.

    Before the meeting Provincetown Community Housing Specialist Michelle Jarusiewicz explained to the Independent that affordable and community housing projects generally rely on a broad mix of funding sources, each with different strings attached. One bucket of funding might support eight lower-income apartments, while another bucket supports 10 community-rate apartments, and yet another pays for ADA-accessible or “workforce-rate” housing, she said. If the rents plus subsidies aren’t enough to cover costs, then market-rate units can be added, or the town itself can step in and offer its own alternative funding sources.

    “Local Community Preservation Act money, for example, can be used for units at a higher income level than most state or federal money will cover,” said Jarusiewicz. “Essentially you’re putting together a puzzle, and the mix of funding sources you decide to use helps determine what you get at the end.”

    One Way to Do It

    The model that Goldson described at the most recent meeting was designed to keep the local contribution to the project as low as possible. It would require about a half-million-dollar contribution from the town, out of a total budget of around $11 million. (Specifically, the town would put in $785,000 and then recoup $250,000 by selling part of the lot for market-rate condos.)

    The model includes one apartment building and a cluster of triplexes, in line with the scale and density preferences expressed at the first and second public forums. It offers 38 affordable rental apartments, all for tenants making less than 60 percent of area median income ($38,000 for a single person, $55,000 for a family of four). It also has four affordable deed-restricted condos, and five market-rate condos. Each unit would have one parking space.

    Because it relies almost entirely on nonlocal funding, though, it has only two deed-restricted ownership condos for those making between 60 and 100 percent of area median income, and no rental housing for that bracket at all. (Area median income is $64,000 for a single person, $91,500 for a family of four.)

    The market-rate condos, meanwhile, were added to this model chiefly to help make the overall numbers work, Goldson explained. Market-rate condos were not much discussed at the previous meetings.

    Aerial view of the VFW site.

    “We were trying to keep the local funds down as much as we could,” said Goldson. “We wanted to maximize how much we could get from state and federal tax credits, and so we needed to keep [the units] at 60 percent. You could have more [higher-income units]; it just means it’s going to push the local funds up.

    “When the town writes its request for proposals,” she added, “it’s going to be important to clarify, what are you really looking for on this site? How would you rank the proposals? You can shape the RFP to say lots of different things.”

    The Underserved Bracket

    All three of the forums have also included discussion of an eventual housing plan on the site of the current police station at 26 Shank Painter Road.

    Goldson presented a model for that property as well, with 26 units of rental housing, all for persons making less than 60 percent of area median income.

    Responses from the public to Goldson’s presentation varied.

    At least two neighbors were concerned that the apartment building at the VFW site was too large for the neighborhood. A third citizen wanted more of an urban feel by reorienting the apartment building to face the street. A fourth was concerned that neighbors’ voices weren’t being heard.

    Jarusiewicz repeated her concern about the lack of units for people in the 80 to 100 percent of median range. “I have an issue with that,” she said. “They need to be somewhere, if not in both projects.”

    Select Board Chair Dave Abramson agreed. “Eighty to 100 percent is an underserved area in terms of housing, and I want to see more of that,” he said.

     

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