Nantucket needs to spend more to make more.

The tiny town of Treasure Island Florida pays $80,000 a year (Around $7,000 a month when you throw in lunches and gasoline) to the lobbying firm, Alcalde & Fay, and last year, according to a recent NYTimes.com article, received $500,000 to fix a sewer plant, $625,000 to repair wooden walkways over the dunes, $450,000 for pedestrian crosswalks.

This is a small resort community with 7,500 year-round residents. Hmmm… Know any other small resort communities?

At a recent Board of Selectman Meeting, two of our five elected BOS members, Brian Chadwick and Doug Bennett, bristled at the idea of hiring a lobbyist for $8,000 to help the housing office get vital home rule petition legislation through the statehouse. Brian called it, "A slippery slope." Am I the only person who feels this is rather short sighted? Yeah, uh, Brian, it's a slippery slope, alright. Fortunately, at the bottom of that slope is a massive pile of cash to cushion our fall!

Our legislative liaison, Tim Madden is a peach, but I’m sure he could use a little firepower in his efforts to protect Nantucket’s interests.

Some other ideas:

Hire a full-time grant writer. Such a person would pay for themselves in the long run by applying for and receiving grant money from any number of sources in order to help the town in the areas of human services, sanitation, education and more.

The town could also use a full-time PR person. Nothing would help the town’s situation with policy makers and legislators (not to mention the vacationing and spending public), like some targeted messages in the press. such as person could help increase participation in government by citizens, reduce the likelihood of lawsuits and policy wheel spinning and help the town get more work done more quickly by framing important issues and manufacturing consensus.

I think it’s time we looked at the ways other towns are fixing and avoiding the problems that Nantucket seems to struggle with constantly.

Nantucket First!