7 hours ago
The Select Board agreed in principle to a series of comments on Town Meeting warrant articles on Wednesday, including one signalling the board’s support for a new Our Island Home facility. The Select Board’s other comments largely align with recommendations made by the Finance Committee, but the endorsement of the Our Island Home project is a notable departure from the advisory financial body’s opposition to the plan.
The comments will be finalized next week, but the draft discussed Wednesday highlights internal divisions in town leadership over the costly plan for a new skilled nursing facility. A similar article received equally split endorsements last year before garnering the support of a majority of voters on Town Meeting floor and at the ballot box. It was unable to pass, however, as it did not gain the two-thirds support needed at Town Meeting.
The Select Board has long emphasized that if Town Meeting votes against the plan for a new facility again, it is tantamount to a vote to close Our Island Home. There will not be another chance for the nursing home.
“This is the last opportunity for the community to vote to build a new facility and stay in the nursing home business, and this not passing [at Town Meeting and the local election] will initiate a procedure to close the current [Our] Island Home,” Select Board member Brooke Mohr said.
Closure could happen around three to five years after the vote.
“This is basically it,” Town Manager Libby Gibson said. “If this is not approved, there will be steps taken at some point to initiate the closure.”
Proponents argue that the decision is a moral one: if Our Island Home is forced to close, elders may no longer have options on Nantucket, and could be driven off the island for skilled nursing care in their final years, exacerbating costs for families and stripping Nantucket of some of its longest-tenured residents.
But opponents point to the high cost. A new facility will cost taxpayers an additional $119 million to build, on top of the funds that have already been appropriated, and that doesn’t even consider the annual overrides Town Meeting has to approve each year to keep Our Island Home running, which one town estimate suggests could reach nearly $8 million in just ten years.
“If you add up the annual losses that this facility will have, it totals, over 15 years, about $240 million - roughly double the amount of the borrowing,” said Finance Committee member Joseph Wright. “And to me, that's not an investment that makes any sense. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't make sense.”
The Select Board also reviewed a draft of a positive motion seeking funding for the facility. Such a motion will have to be made, given the Finance Committee’s recommendation against the project.
The Finance Committee was itself divided, however, and the vote to oppose the override spending article for the new Our Island Home facility was 4-3.
“We’re as split as the rest of the community,” Finance Committee chair Jill Vieth observed after the vote was taken. “I think we reflect the community.”
The decision on whether to build a new Our Island Home is likely the most controversial one voters will have to make this spring.
The Select Board also expressed greater skepticism than the Finance Committee of a proposed expansion of the geotube erosion control project along the Sconset Bluff. The town and the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund have remained unable to reach a license agreement, and with other major issues looming over the geotubes, the Select Board is not convinced that the project is worth recommending to voters.
“We put this on in the hopes that we would get to an agreement, and haven’t gotten there yet, and I’m definitely not in support of it without said agreement. I think our credibility is on the line,” Mohr said. “The Select Board agreed to include this on the warrant, conditional on the hammering out of a license agreement ahead of town meeting.”
“I can’t probably support this even with a licensing agreement,” Select Board member Malcolm MacNab said. “I’m tired of this always coming up at the last minute. I’ve had it.”
It’s not clear exactly what the Select Board’s comment will say.
The Finance Committee, a Select Board-appointed commission tasked with reviewing warrant articles and town expenditures, generally makes a recommendation on every article in the warrant. Other town bodies, such as the Planning Board and Select Board, also comment on certain articles.
The Select Board does not make comments on every article, and is less likely to make a comment when they support the Finance Committee’s recommendation, but they did weigh in on several of the higher-profile issues that will go before voters this spring.
The Select Board agreed to a comment expressing support for a town employee housing project that received a majority of the vote at last year’s Town Meeting but came up short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass. The Finance Committee narrowly endorsed the article last week on a 5-4 vote.
“I definitely think we should add a comment,” Mohr said. “I, personally, and maybe the rest of the board, strongly support the development of municipally-owned housing for employees as part of our housing strategy, but also to support government operations.”
A similar comment will also be included to endorse the next phase of repairs at the LORAN barracks, used as a seasonal dormitory for community service officers.
The Select Board also supported the Finance Committee’s motions in favor of a sewer expansion slated for the Somerset needs area, in favor of design funding for a new Department of Public Works building, and against a proposal to create a stabilization fund for offshore wind expenses—which the town believes would slow down town operations and institute unnecessary restrictions on spending. All of the Select Board’s comments will need to be officially voted through next week, meaning that they could still change.
