How could it be done?

I may have left something out, but I believe that this could be the path to the vision I outlined in last week's blog post. Any thoughts?

Administrative Management

In ten years I envision the emergence of a management system that is clearly aligned, from top to bottom, under the direction of the town manager. Every department head answers to the manager and is compensated based on performance. I also envision a weakening of control by labor unions as more and more department heads voluntarily leave the union in a desire to realize higher incomes through performance based pay. In twenty years, the fruits of this change will be very apparent as trust and respect for town government and what it does becomes common island-wide.

Steps to achieving this vision:

• BOS and voters: Create a town planning department with a planning director that answers to the town manager. (Our current planning department is a state construct that answers to the Planning Commission which only meets six times a year, but answers to the whim of the Planning Board which is a town board. A neat loophole. For the planning folks not the taxpayers.
• BOS and administration: Create and codify a system of performance based pay with strong incentives for town department heads to leave the union and become a part of the solution (and be fairly compensated for it).
• Voters: Continue to elect candidates who are serious about accountability and fiscal restraint. Support the idea of centralized authority and accountability in town government.

Fiscal Management

In ten years I see a finance depart that, having completed a stringent fiscal analysis of growth tied to current zoning five years previously, is working on a five-year update to the data and is using the information uncovered in this analysis to assess fees and taxes equitably and manage our finances with a keen eye on future costs and how to pay for them. Our taxes will be higher, due to costs already voted upon and ear-marked today, but still low enough to ensure that the added cost of living and working in an island does not create a disincentive to maintaining property here.

Steps to achieving this vision:

• BOS: Execute a complete fiscal analysis of costs tied to current zoning and updated every three years as zoning changes or open space inventory shifts.
• State legislature: pass the Nantucket Sewer Act.
• Voters: vote to create a new, elected or appointed Sewer Commission with a staff under the Town Manager.
• Voters: Become educated on true costs of growth and vote to require that growth pay it’s true cost to the island.
• Town department heads: seek and achieve fiscal responsibility and restraint.

Infrastructure

In ten years I see an island infrastructure of sewer lines, cobbled streets in the OHD and town owned buildings that is close to new or like-new. In twenty years, I see a focus on preventative maintenance and forethought employed by the town to ensure that the most cost effective methods for delivering infrastructure services is employed and infrastructure improvements are not put off until such time that they are more expensive than if they had been properly maintained in the first place.

Steps to achieving this vision:

• BOS: adopt a policy of addressing (and directing department heads to address) infrastructure needs as they occur and not when they become a crisis.
• Voters: become educated on the real cost of modern infrastructure and services and vote accordingly.

Ground Water and Coastal Resources

In twenty years I see the beginnings of a reversal of water resources problems. In twenty, I envision Nantucket’s Harbors, ponds, estuaries and beaches to be cleaner than they have been in six decades.

Steps to achieving this vision:

• BOS and voters: promote and adopt the harbor plan.
• (Future) Sewer Commission: Adopt a fee structure to ensure that new growth pays for water resource reclamation.
• (Future) Sewer Commission: Develop a workable solution to Madaket solid waste situation that involves strengthening of septic rules, testing and enforcement and up-zoning to reduce growth there, or down-zoning to increase growth and make a Madaket sewer system economically feasible.

Quality of Life

I see an island that is safer than today in ten years. I see a return of a time when we could leave our doors unlocked. When our kids could jump on a bike and ride to a friend’s house without worry or danger. I see a life that is still more expensive that the mainland but not onerously so. I envision a year-round population that consider itself immensely fortunate to have conserved open spaces and free, universally accessed beaches. Yes, it will still be busy here in the summer. This is how most of the island will earn its keep. Tourism is not going to end if we maintain the island and keep the locals happy and prosperous. We will continue to be a Mecca for the leisure class and we will continue to offer world-class food, shopping and water-dependent activities.

Steps to achieving this vision:

• Promote the economic viability of the community.
a. Exercise municipal fiscal restraint.
i. BOS, Finance Department: Get the town’s economic house in order by doing the financial analysis to better understand how growth impacts taxes and costs.
ii. Administration, BOS: Develop a plan to wean ourselves off of dependency on overrides.
iii. Administration, BOS: Institute performance based compensation for department heads.
iv. Administration: Reign in the cost of benefits.
b. Chamber of commerce, consumers: Foster a positive cash flow to the island not away from it.
i. Chamber of commerce, consumers: Promote local businesses over all others. Make it more difficult for off-island concerns to dominate the island economy.
ii. Chamber of commerce, NP&EDC: 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. Community leaders, consumers: Maintain traditional industries. Scalloping. Expert carpentry and trades. Retail. Inn keeping. Tourism/ecotourism. Seasonal service industries.

• 2. Continuous improvement of the schools.
a. School administration: Strive for high test scores and achievement
b. School administration, NPD: Keep schools safe.
c. School administration: Minimize churn among teachers and administrators
d. School administration: Promote home-growth teachers and staff.
e. Parents and teachers: Manage the well being of students carefully.
f. School administration: 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. School administration: Develop a specialized education approach for children of transient workforce.

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

• 4. Maintain the safety of the community.
a. BOS, Administration: 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. Administration, NPD, NFD: Work on ways to reduce the impact of illegal drugs within the community.
c. Community leaders: 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. Planning Board, NP&EDC, Planning Staff: Promote slowness and caution in traffic patterns and lifestyle.
e. BOS, Administration: Develop an island-wide healthcare initiative to keep us safe and healthy.
f. Employers, consumers, Town officials: Maintain the viability of our year-round healthcare professionals. Doctors, nurses, EMTs.

• 5. Work to reduce community turnover or churn.
a. Housing office/Commission, Administration: Continue work on affordability issues in the areas of housing and daily costs.
b. Various: Make improvements in the above four crucial areas in order to maintain Nantucket as a place where people want to be:
i. Various: Maintain economic viability of the community.
ii. School administration, teachers and parents: Continuously improve schools to take away a major reason people leave here.
iii. Community leaders: Celebrate community.
iv. Administration, NPD, NFD: Keep the island safe.

Housing

In ten years I see a housing crisis that can see the light at the end of the tunnel thanks to the housing bank, the housing office, an expansion of the housing needs covenant to include rental covenants, an ernest attempt at creating more affordble houses in established neighborhoods with a dozen or more “pocket 40B developments” underway, and housing stock owned by the town that makes it possible for the town to hire and house the people it needs in key positions. In twenty years, I envision time when there is no affordable housing problem to speak of. Not everyone will be able to afford market-value homes at this time as home values will remain high. But the available rentals and covenant homes will take up the slack. With regard to other housing, I see, in twenty years, a Baxter Road with 90% fewer homes on the eastern side of the street.

Steps to achieving this vision:

• State Legislature: Apprive the housing bank legislation.
• BOS, Voters: Continue to fund town housing initiatives.
• Housing office: Keep up the good work.

Manage Growth

In ten years I see the result of a community tapping the brakes for several years to bring growth to a manageable pace. I see growth that pays its own way thanks to the town conducting fiscal analysis tied to current zoning. This information will inform the Finance Department as to how much each bedroom in each home built costs the town in services and infrastructure. Individuals who are building their own year-round homes will receive a sizeable reduction in these fees which will be paid by new growth of seasonal homes and subdivisions. In twenty years I envision growth that is fully managed and pays its own way. The number of lots available for subdivision would be very small — with many of the available lots of today either built upon or preserved — and there would be a sizeable financial disincentive to build rather than renovate or maintain private property.

Steps to achieving this vision:

• BOS and Administration: Deploy fiscal analysis tied to zoning.
• BOS and Administration: Adjust fee schedules to make growth pay for itself and to provide for reclamation of natural resources
• Voters: Continue to support candidates with pro-fiscal restraint policies.
• BOS, Administration and voters: Support measures to exempt the building of year-round homes for islanders from above fee schedules.