SUMMER in Town From the Desk of Town Manager Libby Gibson.

What's up in Town Administration?

It’s August and it’s hot and it’s busy. We sometimes think things should be starting to wind down about now, but Town Admin is as busy as the boat basin is full. Equally busy are our roads. Have you considered riding a bike or jumping on a NRTA bus?

Even as we are still in the throes of our busiest season of the year, we are already beginning to think about our next fiscal year which begins on July 1, 2023.

Our current activities include:

FY 2024 Preliminary Budget Preparation

This involves reviewing end-of-year revenue and expenses from FY 2022 (which ended on June 30, 2022) and starting to prepare projections for the coming year, taking into account various economic and other indicators, as well as potential focus areas for the next fiscal year. We are also in the process of preparing our departmental budget planning sessions which typically take place in October and November.

FY 2024 Proposed Capital Projects

Earlier in the summer, departments were issued instructions for the development of capital project requests; we have met with several departments and will be providing the Select Board with a preview of proposed/potential projects for its feedback in mid-to-end of September.

2023 Annual Town Meeting Preparation

Mark your calendars: the Select Board has scheduled the 2023 Annual Town Meeting (ATM) for Saturday, May 6, 2023. The Annual Town Election will follow two weeks later on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. The Board endorsed a timeline for the ATM at its August 3rd meeting.

November 8, 2022 Special Town Election

At the Board’s July 6th meeting, Select Board member Melissa Murphy announced that she will be resigning from the Board to pursue a personal ambition to attend law school, which will commence this month. At its July 13th meeting, the Board scheduled a special election to take place concurrently with the state election, on November 8, 2022. Melissa’s last in person meeting was August 3rd and her resignation is effective November 2, 2022.

Real Estate Activity

• At the 2022 Annual Town Meeting and subsequent Election, voters approved the acquisition of the property at 10-12 Washington Street, known as the “Greenhound property”, where the NRTA Shuttle hub is located. The purchase price was $4,750,000. The property is of strategic importance in the development of the area around the transit center and the redevelopment of the adjacent Harbor Place. The Town closed the purchase on Friday, July 22nd.
• The Town, through the Affordable Housing Trust, will be acquiring the property at 14 Somerset Road in late September to add to its affordable rental inventory. The property currently houses three Town employees whose leases will be extended, securing more year-round public employees housing.

Select Board Annual Governance Meeting

On July 27th, the Board held its annual governance meeting in a workshop setting, in person. For the last several years, following the annual election, the Board has held a facilitated session to discuss topics specific to how it communicates with each other, the community or Town staff. It often focuses on the Strategic Plan or other very current issues. This year, the Board discussed communications issues and specifically focused on the issue of civility. It was generally agreed that communications with the public are especially critical currently, and that additional resources will be needed to more proactively communicate information to the public.

Nantucket Community Association and Nantucket Civic League Annual Summer Community Forum

This year's forum was held on July 18th at the PSF Community Room, and in keeping with prior forums, each Board member spoke on a particular topic and I provided a general overview of Town Administration activities.

I was also honored to be the guest speaker at the Sconset Civic Association annual meeting on July 11th, at the Sconset Casino.

Short-term Rental Work Group

At the 2022 Annual Town Meeting, a work group was authorized in connection with Articles 42 and 43 to examine and come up with a consensus as to zoning for short-term rentals. Earlier this spring and early summer a “pre work group” composed of two members each of the Select Board, Finance Committee and Planning Board developed a proposed framework for the work group, including membership, mission and objectives and who will appoint the members. Town Administration was charged with finding a neutral facilitator for the group.

Two facilitator candidates were put forward and Stacie Smith was selected at the Board’s August 3rd meeting. Also at that meeting, the Board endorsed a timeline for appointments. Meanwhile, Town Administration is working on the development of proposed short-term rental regulations as voted by Article 39 of the 2022 ATM. Those are currently scheduled to be discussed jointly by the Select Board and Board of Health at the Select Board meeting on August 17th.

Projects

Projects currently underway or getting underway, include: Baxter Road Alternative Access; Our Island Home and Senior Center – new facilities; water main extension to properties west of the Airport in response to PFAS concerns along with road paving projects in the area; construction of a third sewer force main; extension of the new Milestone Road-Monomoy-Polpis multi-use path, an emergency subsidy housing assistance program for Town employees, succession planning and classification and compensation study, planning for end of Waste Options (landfill operator) contract and dealing with isolated storm water issues, Summer 2022 Outreach and Education; eDocument scanning and archiving project (Sewer); Lovers Lane roadway reconstruction and multi-use path.

PFAS

Since July 22, 2020 the Town has engaged in eight (8) contracts totally $990,100 to perform island-wide assessments of potential sources contributing to PFAS contamination at municipal properties across the island. The Town’s voluntary efforts are not under a DEP directive and are being undertaken proactively to learn more about potential PFAS issues in the community. These contracts are:

• Island-wide PFAS Assessment (Phase 1)
• Island-wide PFAS Assessment Additional Services
• PFAS Communications Strategy
• PFAS Assessment Phase 2A
• 2021 SRF PEF Application Assistance for MassDEP Grant
• Water System Model & Expansion Planning West of Nantucket Airport
• PFAS Handling and Disposal Protocols
• Waste Water PFAS Influent Testing Pilot Program

To assist with the management of these projects, the Town has created two new positions in FY23:

• ‘Environmental Contamination Administrator’ position. A new position in Public Health approved at the 2022 ATM will be hired in FY23 to assist with these many projects as well as other priority projects in Public Health.
• ‘Public Outreach Coordinator’ position. A new position centralized in Admin to specifically support outreach and education for Public Health and Natural Resources programs such as PFAS, fertilizer program, single-use plastics ban, 100 milliliter or less plastic ban, etc.

PFAS is a class of man-made chemicals which are used in firefighting foam and numerous everyday products, including nonstick cookware, grease-proof food packaging, personal care products, stain- and water-resistant clothing, carpets, and furniture. For decades, these carbon-fluoride compounds were widely used for their water and oil repellent qualities and are resistant to breakdown. Some PFAS has been found to accumulate in the human body and the food chain. The presence of PFAS in the environment (groundwater, surface water, soil, air, and food) is still poorly understood due to very limited testing.

Town of Nantucket launches New CivicPlus® Website

The new CivicPlus content management system will allow the Town to accomplish greater transparency of documents and data, increase resident engagement by offering more dynamic content and more timely news, and improve administrative efficiencies by implementing a website with resident self-service features.

In addition to redesigning the Town’s main website, the Police Department, Culture and Tourism Department, and Nantucket Memorial Airport websites have also undergone a complete redesign, maintaining the Town’s new design elements.

For the past year, the Town’s Public Outreach Manager Florencia Rullo and IT Information Systems Administrator Michael Alvarez worked closely with CivicPlus, a leading civic experience platform with over 7,500 local governments customers, to rebuild and reshape the website.

In addition to English, the website also uses Google Translate to translate the site into multiple languages. The new website was officially launched on July 22, but there are still ongoing improvements and modifications taking place, including a future launch of a new website fully dedicated to Housing. Any issues may be reported to frullo@nantucket-mag.gov.

Volunteer Talent Bank - Serve Your Community!

Town Government needs citizens who are willing to give time in the service of their community. The Talent Bank was adopted by the Nantucket Select Board as a means of compiling names of citizens who are willing to voluntarily serve on Town boards, committees, commissions, etc.

Town Administration shall be responsible for the Talent Bank data and all administrative materials, records and processes. Town Administration will keep your talent bank submission on file for two (2) years and you will be notified as opportunities become available. After two (2) years you must file a new application.

Thank You

July 9th Fire at Veranda House

At the Board’s July 13th meeting, numerous parties were thanked for their contributions regarding this significant fire; and a letter was also published in the Inquirer & Mirror on July 21st. Most importantly, of course, the greatest thanks goes to our Nantucket firefighters who, with help from mainland firefighters, prevented the fire from spreading farther than it did, extinguished the fire, and saved lives. We are extremely grateful for their brave efforts.

Coastal Resilience

Lawn care and bluff erosion

There is a well-established link between improper lawn management and pollution to harbors. This is because improperly applied fertilizer can allow excess nutrients to get into the harbor and cause damage. Did you know that improper lawn and garden management can also impact bluff erosion? The mechanism of the threat is very different though and much more pervasive. It is not the fertilizer that is a threat to the bluff, it is watering and overwatering of lawns on bluffs. To have a vibrant lawn in the summer heat, the lawn needs watering and lots of it. As the water seeps down, it makes its way to the coastal bluff, below the top of the bank. It then softens that part of the bank and causes it to erode unnaturally quickly compared to unwatered bluff areas. This causes seepage erosion, and can also cause other types of erosion too such as rotation, flow and gully erosion.

That well-watered lawn on your coastal bluff is potentially causing you a reduction in the area of your land and bringing structures closer to the edge quicker.

It’s not all doom and gloom on the bluff, and luckily there are things that can be done. Consider these;

• Reduce the watering frequency and intensity of lawns by bluffs
• Reduce the area of lawn to have a greater buffer zone of deep rooted native vegetation to the bluff edge
• Plant the bluff face with deep rooted native vegetation to reduce erosion - Remember, planting on bluffs requires a permit from the Conservation Commission.

Water is coming, sea levels are rising. Let’s not have bluffs erode faster by overwatering lawns.

Coastal Resilience Coordinator Vincent Murphy

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Actions

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee

From March to June 2022, a number of town employees participated in capacity building training to be a part of the Town of Nantucket’s internal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee (DEIC). The internal DEIC is for town employees only and one primary objective for the committee is to assess, prioritize, and produce towards town employees’ DEI aspirations.

Capacity Building Training

Capacity building focused on understanding DEI organizational change strategy from theory to practice. Throughout the trainings participants: discussed the differences between diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ), examined the multidimensions of racism, worked towards developing skills to facilitate dialogues on difficult topics, and more. Specifically, participants discussed and learned about intersectionality, types of privilege, oppression, layers of identity, and talked about how all things mentioned impacts work and the workplace. Capacity building training was facilitated by Dr. Bree Becker with Tangible Development (TD) as part of the DEI consultation contract between TD and the Town of Nantucket.

DEIC Purpose

At the first meeting of the DEIC it was discussed and decided that: The primary purpose and philosophy of the DEIC is to share DEI education with town employees using a variety of opportunities. Committee members discussed the benefits of focusing on DEI education as its top priority to allow for better comprehension on the magnitude of DEI-work.

Inaugural Members - Anne (HHS), Nickesha (PLUS), Jeff (Fire), Lisa (NRD), Mindy (Finance), Dani (IT), Heather (HHS), Richard (DPW), Katie (Admin.), Ardis (Police), Annie-Kay (OIH), and DEI Director

The steady march of variants that gave rise to the Delta Outbreak last summer continues with the rise of the Omicron sub-strain last winter and now a variety of subvariants that have followed. For the past two years, variants have continued to evolve and change, with evolutionary pressures that drive the development of two viral traits: virulence and immune escape.

As people develop immunity to earlier strains of COVID, viruses evolve new traits to continue replicating. The first variants tended to be much more efficient in spreading, allowing them to displace less virulent strains in host populations. Each successive wave that manages to establish itself does so either by spreading faster or infecting better. Last summer’s Delta did both: spreading several times more effectively than heirloom COVID and being much more efficient at penetrating vaccine and natural immunity.

Last fall and early winter, the Omicron branch of COVID emerged as the clear winner in the evolutionary arms race. Nearly all infections this year have been driven by Omicron and descended lineages. Omicron is now more than a single strain, it’s almost a different virus, and its symptomology, rate of spread and efficiency in evading immune response have improved with each sub type.

In fact, COVID in the US is driven by different subtypes of Omicron at this point. The various BAs (BA.1, .2, etc) reinfect people who had developed immunity from earlier strains. The current strain (BA.5) is especially good at infecting those with immunity, with the large number of mutations in its protein spike, which is used to infect host cells, as a likely cause.

The good news is that Omicron subvariants do not seem to be as effective at hospitalizing or killing people with vaccine or natural protection, and that reformulations in the booster vaccines are being targeted to respond to the prodigious number of mutations the variant holds. Masking is still effective in enclosed spaces or over extended periods of proximity, and the various new treatments like paxlovid are proving effective at keeping those with symptoms safe.

Monkeypox

Monkeypox is a rare viral illness with an incubation period of up to 21 days (typically 1 -2 weeks). Illness may begin with flu-like signs and symptoms (fever, chills, malaise, headache, muscle aches/back aches) and swelling of the lymph nodes and progresses to a rash that can look like pimples or blisters that appears on the face, inside the mouth, and on other parts of the body, like the hands, feet, chest, genitals, or anus. Cases identified during this current outbreak may present only with rash illness without any other symptoms or may also develop mucosal lesions or proctitis. Most infections last 2-to-4 weeks and people are considered infectious throughout duration of symptoms.

Symptoms of monkeypox can include:

• Fever
• Headache
• Muscle aches and backache
• Swollen lymph nodes
• Chills
• Exhaustion A rash that can look like pimples or blisters that appears on the face, inside the mouth, and on other parts of the body, like the hands, feet, chest, genitals, or anus. The rash goes through different stages before healing completely.
• The illness typically lasts 2-4 weeks. Sometimes, people get a rash first, followed by other symptoms. Others only experience a rash.

Since May 18, when the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) reported the first case of monkeypox virus infection in a Massachusetts resident, there have been over 16,000 cases identified globally, almost 3,500 in the United States and over 90 cases in Massachusetts. Although the majority of cases have been identified in men who have sex with men (MSM), other states are beginning to identify cases occurring in individuals outside of that social network.

If you believe you have been exposed to monkey pox or you have symptoms, you should contact your health care provider for options.

Housing

The State of Housing: Where we were, where we are, and where we want to be.

On Tuesday, August 23rd at noon, the Select Board will join Municipal Housing Director Tucker Holland for an update on the State of Housing on Nantucket.

Municipal Housing Director Tucker Holland

Human Services

Behavioral Health Initiative Next Steps

The Behavioral Health Initiative (BHI), which spun out of the island-wide study of gaps in mental and behavioral health resources, has moved into the next stage of the ongoing efforts to revamp the island’s mental health and substance abuse systems. For the last several months, in collaboration with consultants Quinlan and Lane, the BHI has developed governance systems, identified initial goals and formed two workgroups to focus on the initial projects selected.

The first two projects are a revision in crisis response, to be rolled out in tandem with state revisions to their behavioral health crisis protocols, and a slate of youth focused educational, outreach and community building programs. These particular goals were selected from the gaps identified in earlier stages of the project due to their severity and wide array of positive secondary effects that could arise from closing them.

The crisis project is centered on defragmenting crisis response, ensuring that in stressful moments there is no confusion as to who to call or what agency is responsible for what type of crisis. Unifying crisis response is one of the major goals of both the local BHI and the statewide revision to crisis, and requires close cooperation between first responders, healthcare providers and therapists, especially as the focus on crisis extends past response and into stabilization. Improved stabilization post crisis will allow more patients to stay on island for their treatment and recovery.

The youth project will focus on resiliency training, education and outreach, beginning with programming aimed at middle school aged students to college returnees. Current projects focus on integrating behavioral health resources into prosocial activities, providing trainings and education to empower youths to identify behavioral health issues early. By targeting prevention and early intervention, the hope is to deliver lasting reductions in the number of individuals who reach crisis situations.

Human Services Director Jerico Mele

Natural Resources Department

• This month, NRD submitted a Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) expression of interest grant for installing oyster reef balls (concrete structure that serves as a substrate for wild oysters to attach) and a living shoreline in Sesachacha Pond along Polpis Road for a stormwater management and water quality improvement project.

2022 State of the Harbor Forum

The Nantucket Land Council's 6th Annual State of the Harbor Forum was held on July 19th at the Nantucket Yacht Club.

Natural Resources Director Jeff Carlson, Water Resource Specialist Thaïs Fournier, and Shellfish Biologist Tara Riley shared the panel with staff from the Nantucket Land Council, and provided an update on the state of the harbor, water quality, and future projects.

The Brant Point Shellfish Hatchery is a Town of Nantucket operated facility that specializes in the production of Nantucket Bay Scallops to supplement the wild population within Nantucket and Madaket Harbors. The Hatchery tours will take place throughout the months of June, July and August.

To schedule a visit for large groups, please send an email to Shellfish Biologist Tara Riley, triley@nantucket-ma.gov.

Our Island Home

Wheelers are back by popular demand!

Wheelers is an adaptive bicycle program that was originally started by Darci Creech and is now run by Tony and Cyndi Cahill. Wheelers started their season program back up with Our Island Home residents in June 2022. Wheelers currently have three working Duet Power Assisted Bikes.

To date, half the residents at Our Island Home enjoy the Wheelers program, always accompanied by "a pilot". There are approximately 15 pilots who volunteer their time to assist OIH riders. The Wheelers' route starts at Don Allen Ford all the way up the Fairgrounds multi-use path to the Surfside Shack at Surfside Beach, where they often stop for and ice cream cone or a lemonade. Wheelers sometimes travel in the opposite direction over to Moors End Farm, where they choose fresh flowers or gourds during the Fall Season. Another favorite destination is Creeks Preserve Park (donated by Lucile Hays).