The I&M's Editorial Staff Is Clearly On Crack.

The Nantucket police like to park their cruisers in the parking lot outside the building which houses the island’s alleged paper of record at night so they can be on the lookout for people who may be driving a little erratically. It’s a sure sign that the operator is under the influence of something.

Perhaps, however, Nantucket’s Finest should get a warrant and enter the I&M in search of illegal substances because from reading their most recent editorial, it’s clear to me that the editorial staff there may be smoking something. Something kind of funny.

First let me get one thing straight. I am not criticizing the paper's endorsement of Patty Roggeveen for Selectman. Patty is incredibly smart and incredibly knowledgeable and I believe would make a wonderful selectperson as would David Gray or Catherine Stover. But in the process of endorsing Roggeveen, they sung Mike Glowacki’s praises and stated that Patty would bring business smarts to a board that has been “dysfunctional since last April’s elections.”

I&M. Wake the hell up. Shake yourself out of your questionable-substance-induced haze and smell the Nantucket Coffee Roasters coffee.

The current Board of Selectmen, despite featuring one empty seat (Mike Glowacki’s) and one empty suit (Brian Chadwick’s) has done more in the past seven months than any board in my recent memory has been able to accomplish in any similar period of time. I should know. I’ve attended a large number of the BOS meetings in the past seven months, (for the entertainment value alone — effective government is actually a pleasure to watch! Interestingly, I have not seen either the editor or the publisher there). And here’s what I see as some of their accomplishments:

First, they’ve actually appointed a few people to various boards and committees who have experience and degrees in specific pertinent areas instead of the usual cadre of cronies and old political hacks that had been appointed in the Chadwick/Glowacki (Chadwacki) era. Imagine, a PhD. in geology and oceanography on the Conservation Commission. Pretty good stuff.

They appointed the sewer committee and in a little under two weeks we will have a pretty substantial sewer policy to vote on and codify. This is something that had never happened in Glowacki’s time. In fact, I can recall two town meetings in a row where we desperately needed a policy to guide town meeting with regard to how new connections should be developed and all we got from Mr. Glowacki was silence and more stonewalling.

The current Board has taken on the concept of growth and has actually sought to do something about it by taking our hapless Planning Board to task to get them to actually do the job for which they were elected — draft and vote on a Master Plan under MGL chapter 41 section 81D. Glowacki had trouble even defining what growth is!

They have addressed affordable housing both at 2 Fairgrounds Road and on town owned property by setting aside $1.25 million each year to purchase land, housing or upgrade existing properties in order to make it possible to fill important town positions with qualified candidates without the cost and availability of housing being an issue. What did Mr. Glowacki do with regard to affordable housing plans? Criticize them.

The current board has welcomed comment and discourse at their meetings. They have embraced and considered the thinking of all and have taken the public’s comments to heart and even put them on the agenda. I personally asked the board to consider putting the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund on the agenda and they actually did so! One of Mr. Glowacki’s first acts as Chair was to publish a rather restrictive list of rules for public comment, as I recall. I doubt he would even recognize me in a meeting had I raised my hand.

The current Board has bravely tackled taxi regs and a new harbor plan, enlisting two hard-working committees to address these two important policy issues. They have given the Beach Management Advisory Committees new life and new purpose with ragard to codifying One Big Beach. They have taken bad policies in the park and rec commission pertaining to turning the Jetties beach bar into the kind of bar that sells beer and turns family friendly spots into adult-only zones. They have worked closely with the Town Government Study Committee and will, I understand, be bringing several new ideas and policies to the voters at town meeting. And they saved the Visitors’ Services committee from destruction at the hands of Glowacki and Chadwick.

How much did Mike Gloawacki’s board get done in the last year he was chair? The answer is on the internet, here in Mike Glowacki’s report to the people from 2005-2006. And the answer is, the Glowacki-led board did virtually nothing! The only accomplishment that Mr. Glowacki can lay claim to in the entire document is the approval of a beach management plan. A plan developed by a previous board!

So, I&M, you say Mike Gowacki was great, but the record shows he was, by any meaningful measure, a pillar of mediocrity. And you call the current board dysfunctional, but the record shows a relatively long and laudable list of accomplishments over the past seven months.

I think given what the record says, it’s high time you stopped calling yourselves the paper of record and started touting the fact that your view of reality is filtered through a haze emanating from a still-warm crack pipe. You’ve clearly drunk the Chadwacki Kool-Aid.

Or perhaps that pipe is filled with Chadwacki tobaccy?

Nantucket First!