Our Dysfunctional Planning Board.

What do you call a planning board that does not believe in planning? What do you call a planning board that continually goes against the wishes of the island to slow growth and curb development? What do you call a Planning Board with several members who have and will benefit financially from development? What do you call a planning board that appears to be attempting to turn Nantucket into downtown Hyannis? What do you call a planning board that attacks its appointed alternates and values politics over policy?

Dysfunctional. Backward. Broken.

Of course, Nantucket, we have no one to blame but ourselves. That’s right. You and me. We continually elect and re-elect the same people to five year terms on the board.

Five years. That’s a long time. In fact, when you take a look at the current board and count up their successive terms and do the math, we have a planning board with well over 60 years on the board. That’s a scary thought. This longevity has allowed the current board to burrow into the fabric of the community like a giant nasty tick, and release their venom slowly over time, largely unnoticed by the general population of the island. A population that is far too busy trying to pay the mortgage and the weekly grocery bill to pay much attention.

Let’s shine a light on a few things, then, for the sake of an informed electorate.

The 41-81d Master Plan

Interestingly, many people do not know that the 41-81d Master Plan is a requirement of the state of all municipalities. The enabling legislation defines a Master Plan under Chapter 41, section 81d as “a statement, through text, maps, illustrations or other forms of communication, that is designed to provide a basis for decision making regarding the long-term physical development of the municipality.” It goes on to say that the plan is broken into nine sections:

Goals and policies
Land use
Housing
Economic development
Natural and cultural resources
Open space and recreation
Services and facilities
Circulation
Implementation program

You can read the rest of the enabling legislation here.

Golly. That would be useful. A plan for how we want the island to be developed. An idea for how the whole island should grow and change over time. Goals. Maps. Plans for services and space and housing. We could really USE that right now. So where is it? The Planning Board and staff announced that it was in the works 18+ months ago. They launched a web site. They spent a pile of money on really bad ads (I’m an expert on ads, folks) and they even vowed to have a special town meeting this fall to go over the plan.

Unfortunately, when you have a planning board that eschews planning the last thing they want to work on is an actual plan! They are, in fact, Anti-Planners. You’d think that with 60 years on the board one of the five could find the time to write a plan.

In fact, someone else had to write it! A very large group of concerned citizens who wanted to have a plan got together a while back and in 2000 released the Nantucket Comprehensive Plan. The ratification of which was approved at a special town meeting and weakened at a subsequent town meeting. This could have served as a basis for the actual Master Plan. In fact, it could easily be the Master Plan with a few alterations and a vote of the Planning Board.

The Comprehensive Plan has (strangely, mysteriously) disappeared from the town web site (there’s a link, but it’s dead…), but I managed to find a copy, inexplicably, on a Chinese-language site. I’ve transferred a .pdf copy to the YACK servers for those who wish to read it here.

The NP&EDC

NP&EDC stands for Nantucket Planning and Economic Development Commission. It’s an important body. Or at least it should be. The problem is, the NP&EDC is controlled by the Planning Board and, as we’ve already established, a Planning Board that is dead-set against planning, is not the best body to run a commission which is supposed to be charged with mapping out the future of the community. The Commission is made up of the five planning board members, three at-large “citizens,” and representatives form the Conservation Commission, Housing Authority, DPW and County Commissioners (BOS).

They have a number of things they could be working on. Not the least of which is a draft of the 41-81d Master Plan, a review of the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund Project, Economic Development projects, Affordable Housing initiatives, proposed changes to zoning, and a number of other issues. The problem is, this commission only meets six times a year. Once majority control of the NP&EDC was wrestled away from a group of citizens who actually liked the idea of planning our future, after several respected members resigned out of disgust for the petty politics of the boardand the hiring of the current Planning Director, the controlling interesting of the commission voted to reduce the number of meetings each year from twelve to six.

Score another one for the Anti-Planners.

The Alternates Brouhaha

The Planning Board appoints three alternates who sit on special permit sessions and fill in for PB members if they go missing. The three planning alternates, Charity Benz, Jason Flanagan and John Wagley have also been publicly vocal against several of the policies of the current board so the Planning Board has mounted a smear campaign against the alternates and in a public letter have accused them of being disruptive, unreliable, drunk, unruly racists who are not team players. Painting these three very honorable and selfless people with such a broad brush is the worst kind of political bovine poo. My head almost exploded when I read the letter. Especially since, it appears to egregiously violate their First Amendment rights of free speech by essentially instructing them to keep their opinions to themselves and not publish them on YACK the Nantucket Online Community. (By the way, Planning Board Member John McLaughlin has been banned from YACKon.com for two months for violating a long-held rule of only distributing information on YACK with the permission of the author and the site owner — me — which he did not do before copying and pasting alternates’ posts into the public record.)

You can read the letter sent by board member Frank Spriggs, admonishing the three alternates here. Hopefully your head will not explode either.

Time for a change

What do you do with something that’s broken, as the Planning Board so assuredly is? You fix it. The Nantucket Government Study Committee is looking at the possibility of making the Planning Board an appointed board rather than an elected one. This would eliminate the long five-year elected terms and replace the current popularity contest we use to choose Planning Board members with a system that values qualifications and vision.

I have heard that this proposal will be brought before the Town at Annual Town Meeting this Spring. I’ll be supporting it, and I hope everyone else will, too.

Because Nantucket cannot afford to have a Planning Board that does not believe in planning for much longer.

Nantucket First!