Maintaining a community.

Some would try to make Nantucket a resort first and a community second. I think we ought to be a community first. Here's my blueprint for maintaining a strong community.

But what is a community? I define it as the group of residents who are here on Nantucket because of the people and the place first and the paycheck second.

I also like Nat Lowell's definition of community:

"Community to me is waving to people you don't even know, having casual conversations in Stop @ Shop , walking into either post office and still knowing half the people in line, still being able to knock on someones door and poke your head in and say "hello" and the best one for me is when a person comes up to me and starts talking to me and I haven't a clue who they are."

So here's my handy blueprint for maintaining community on Nantucket. I'd welcome any comments and additions.

1. Promote the economic viability of the community.
a. Exercise municipal fiscal restraint.
i. Get the town’s economic house in order by doing the financial analysis to better understand how growth impacts taxes and costs.
ii. Develop a plan to wean ourselves off of dependency on overrides.
iii. Institute performance based compensation for department heads.
iv. Reign in the cost of benefits.
b. Foster a positive cash flow to the island not away from it.
i. Promote local businesses over all others. Make it more difficult for off-island concerns to dominate the island economy.
ii. Promote the growth of a new class of knowledge worker and service jobs as the economy of the island changes from a building economy to a sustaining economy.
iii. Maintain traditional industries. Scalloping. Expert carpentry and trades. Retail. Inn keeping. Tourism/ecotourism. Seasonal service industries.

2. Continuous improvement of the schools.
a. Strive for high test scores and achievement
b. Keep schools safe.
c. Minimize churn among teachers and administrators
d. Promote home-growth teachers and staff.
e. Manage the well being of students carefully.
f. Develop alliances with care providers off-island to develop satellite facilities on island for severe needs special ed students in order to reduce the need for off-island placements.
g. Develop a specialized education approach for children of transient workforce.

3. Preserve and celebrate community character and traditions.
a. Agriculture.
b. Fishing/Shellfishing
c. Community celebrations/traditions old and new
d. Maintain ways we can come together and be a community
e. Improve communication within the community.
f. Maintain town meeting and our citizen-led form of government.

4. Maintain the safety of the community.
a. Strengthen the police force and give them the tools they need to keep us safe. Simultaneously improve the image of the police force as a crucial part of making the island livable.
b. Work on ways to reduce the impact of illegal drugs within the community.
c. Establish neighborhood building practices that bring neighbors closer to one another and help send a message to those who would harm the community that they are in the minority. And that we are vigilant.
d. Promote slowness and caution in traffic patterns and lifestyle.
e. Develop an island-wide healthcare initiative to keep us safe and healthy.
f. Maintain the viability of our year-round healthcare professionals. Doctors, nurses, EMTs.

5. Work to reduce community turnover or churn.
a. Continue work on affordability issues in the areas of housing and daily costs.
b. Make improvements in the above four crucial areas in order to maintain Nantucket as a place where people want to be:
i. Maintain economic viability of the community.
ii. Continuously improve schools to take away a major reason people leave here.
iii. Celebrate community.
iv. Keep the island safe.