This Morning in Barnstable (Ch. 18)

Wow! The whole town is talking about the exciting new "This Morning in Barnstable" show on Ch.18. It promises to be an uncompromising, no-holds-barred look at our beloved All America City, warts and all. It's good to know all our revenues aren't being wasted on tired old cliches like snow removal. This must be what they mean by the term "appointment tv." If there's anything more exciting than having some guy pitch pre-approved softball questions to Poyant, Geiler, and the rest of those fireballs, I can't imagine what it would be.

On a lower bandwidth frequency, the news is a little different.

sewer guest said...

centralized decentralized descriptions are worthless. They dont describe the issue cleary enough. There are advanced treatment technologies that start at 1000GPD and can be built up to 50 million gpd plants, and these technologies produce effluent as good as drinking water. Dont focus on treatment, its all about the collection system, 80% of the cost is in the piping...

The DEP will never allow hundreds if not thousands of some treatment systems that service less than 50 homes...wont happen. The best cost range is between 500-1000 homes on small package plants in a nice secluded area of the neighbor hoods. The real issue isnt the technology its the town employees, elected officials and the consultants.

And...

Guest said...

The Town needs to stop and not move a god damn inch! Until they work out a financial agreement as to how to pay, (the key word being agreement meaning the home owners agree,) this is a huge problem that will lead to long term litigation and thousands of dollars spent by both the town and home owners.

Would this town just get it right, do it right for once! They have wasted more money, taken more property off the tax rolls and mismanaged our money so many times that it stinks like sh-t again around here.

Get it right once and for all! If ll the south st crew does is talk to each other then they don't get it. Talking to each other is like the blind leading the blind. Get out and talk to the people and find out what they really want. These 13 jerk offs just talk to themselves, Klimm and elves. There all for it and that's all they hear. They have Brain washed themselves!

Or...

Guest said...

99% of the people are not happy. They just are complacent. Once they get the bill for 25K in their mail box they will no longer be complacent. Right now they just don't realize that bill is coming!

Be sure to let me know when you think we're making progress.

Bob Ciolek lets the pig out of the poke

If it is such a great deal, why doesn't anyone want it?

If a majority of Stewart's Creek residents support the sewering of their neighborhood, why is it that less than 20 out of 320 residents have completed a REQUEST FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SEWER MAIN AND WATER?

Details are sketchy, but I'm told that Mr. Sewer, Milton Berglund, is conspicuously absent from the list of abutters who granted the town access to their property for the purpose of construction a town sewer. This tells you just how fraudulent the Stewart's Creek sewer extension project has been from the start.

It seems like just yesterday that Mark Ells denied any knowledge of a plan to build a second $165 million dollar "nutrient" management plant.

But, that was October.

With the municipal elections safely behind them, the Klimm-boobs are pressing forward with their plan to "sewer" the town AND build a second sewage plant.

CFAC sewer financing sub-committee member Bob Ciolek let the pig out of the poke when he was quoted in the Barnstale Patriot as saying...

It’s “no secret at all,” Ciolek said, that treatment of the nitrogen-loaded waters of the Three Bays system will require “a second wastewater treatment plant, or a substantial expansion of the existing one [in Hyannis].”

Mr. MWRA gazes into the future...

Ciolek said he foresaw the need for townspeople to consider exceeding the Proposition 2 ½ tax levy limit at the time when debt service payments for water cleanup costs would be at their highest. The alternative would be severe reductions in municipal operations.

Before all that will come the need for further public outreach. Ciolek said the process “is largely still perceived by people as something happening at Stewart’s Creek” rather than a commitment of the entire town.

As you can see, Ciolek has mastered the language of the Klimm-boob.

In plain English, he's saying that his sub-committee has already decided to recommend a Proposition 2 1/2 tax over-ride to pay of the Town's new "clean water protection program with a sewering component."

There is something fundamentally dishonest about this on again and off again sewer debate. During the election season councilors went to great lengths to assure residents that the sewering of Stewart's Creek was an isolated initiative. Now we learn that Ciolek and others are "charged" with the responsibility of developing a funding mechanism for a town-wide sewer program which the voters have not approved.

You'd think that the local fishwrapper would call into question these antics. No such luck...

The Cape Cod Times continued their assault on the sense and sensibilities of residents advocating for decentralized "waste" water solutions for their communities with this editorial:

We celebrate the sausage making, for there is no better system in the world than one that involves the people at the very foundation of governance, but we also sympathize with the frustration some Cape officials feel over opposition that forms late in the game.

Several important projects have been slowed or foiled by individuals and groups surfacing well after a project has been proposed. While their intentions are good, their questions are often counter-productive.

Not that questions and criticism should not be part of the process. They should. But there comes a point, after a project has been unveiled, after the public hearings have been held, after the votes have been taken, that it is time to move forward.

Now that the sausage is made, where do you think they plan to stick it?

The end is at hand

When I was just a little kid I calculated how old I would be at the turn of the new millennium. I remember thinking that it was such a big number. I couldn't even imagine being that old.

Now, here it is ten years later. All I have to say is...

WTF

I'm ready to kick the first decade of the twenty-first century into the dust bin.

I honestly don't know what the New Year will bring. But, I did remember today why I moved to Barnstable and why I'm not leaving.

Read this story by Tamar Haspel entitled Down on the oyster farm

It's a story about harvesting oysters from Florence Lowell's oyster bed in Barnstable Harbor. This story reminded me of what this blog has lost - a little more Cape Cod Living.

If the world is "mine oyster," I think I'll pry open a few this weekend before the season closes.

Happy New Year, folks.

You missed the boat

Did you see the article in the Cape Cod Times entitled: Late opposition hampers Chatham sewers

According to them, it is time for all of us to move on:

So, when can town officials tell citizens they missed their window of opportunity and that they have to move on?

Legally, it's pretty cut-and-dry: as long as towns fulfill their legal requirements on notifications, public hearings and votes, they can go forward, said James Lampke, the executive director of the City Solicitors and Town Counsel Association of Massachusetts.

In most cases, the law requires some form of notification for either a public hearing, or a vote. Towns sometimes use direct mailings to abutters or affected parties, but in other cases citizens must watch for postings in legal ads or the town Web site.

What if there wasn't a vote?

The Town of Barnstable has never put before the voters a referendum on sewers. Mark Ells has never considered decentralized strategies and no citizens were invited to participate in the evaluation of available strategies. Simply put - there was no process. And, now we have to suffer these miserably uninformed articles in the Cape Cod Times about how we missed the boat.

Maybe we didn't miss the boat. Maybe our not so-elected representatives failed us miserably.

How pugs suffer

It's Christmas and I'll spare you all the usual Pug pictures.

Well, except for this one.

Thanks for stopping by and giving us a read.

In just a few day we'll be wrapping up our fifth season of Cape Cod Living (much to the annoyance of all the usual suspects). It's sort of funny when you think about it. How can you not love a pug?

We sincerely wish all of you a joyous holiday season. May the ice thaw. May the roads clear. May we have a Mayor, please.

Merry Christmas to all.

And, to all a big sloppy pug kiss.

Reason prevails in Falmouth

No signs of intelligent decision making in Barnstable

I apologize for not properly attending to my "chat room" duties these past few weeks. The Waterguy from Austin pulled Rob and I into an extended discussion of decentralized "waste" water treatment strategies which included Falmouth Wastewater Superintendent Jerry Potamis, State Rep. Matt Patrick, and a host of presenters from the recent "sewer summit" in Mashpee.

I've posted a few comments from David "Waterguy" Venhuizen, P.E. already. David's a very bright and very committed activist. In a recent conversation Rob referred to him as a "waste water" artist.

David challenged Potimis and the variety of vendors to put aside their "widgets" to focus on the integrity of the engineering "process" to determine an optimal "waste" water solution for the Town of Falmouth and all of Cape Cod.

David wrote to Jerry Potamis:

Unless the process is reformed, you can bet there will be no "cluster systems" -- or anything else except what the process has "wired" -- on the Cape. Or so things appear to be going at present, from all I have been able to gather.

Well...I'm pleased to say that the "process" just got a whole lot better (at least in Falmouth).

Matt Patrick wrote today:

Last night the Falmouth Board of Selectmen voted to hire a facilitator to organize an outreach process for the next three months. Chairwomen Mary Pat Flynn introduced the motion. Former Selectwomen Virginia Valiela spoke about how the DEIR has major flaws regarding discharge areas and for that reason the DEIR is not ready. I, who previously served with both Virginia and Mary Pat on the board of Selectmen, read a letter which is attached talking about the misinformation about clusters that is in the DEIR and urged them not to send it at this time. Several other citizens spoke in favor of the motion.

The vote was 4 to 1 in favor. Mr. Murphy was the only one to vote in opposition and he is the liason from the Selectmen to the Nutrient Loading Advisory Committee who alledgedly guided this process. His complaint in general was where have we been for the last eight years that this process has been on going. In the next breath he said that the plan could change at any time based on new information.

It is a step in taking back the process.

In a letter Patrick read to the Falmouth Selectmen, Patrick said:

What type of sewer to install will be the most important financial decision we, as a town, ever make in our life time. I emphasize the word "we" because it is a town decision but the process of making that decision is in the care of you, our Selectmen. Our decision will have the power to change the very demographic of Falmouth that we all know and love. The cost of a conventional sewage treatment system has the potential to double or triple taxes for the people that live in the area. That on top of the regular 2 ½ percent increase every year (10 percent every four years) will force many people to leave town.

These people are our constituents and I have come to know them very well as a State Representative. They confide in me their most secret problems to help find ways out of poverty, spousal or substance abuse. There are constant requests for help with rent, mortgage payments or heating bills. Many of my constituents were hanging on by an economic thread even before the recession hit. Doubling or tripling their taxes with betterments, connection fees and user fees will force many of them to leave our town. That is why I have worked so hard to examine alternatives to conventional sewers that will save us money in our worthy goal to clean up our salt ponds and estuaries as well as fresh water bodies....

Sound familiar? From Chatham to Falmouth Codders are reeling from the impacts of an economic downturn that won't quit.

I think that it is very important that we institute in Barnstable a process which allows us to evaluate engineering solutions which can lower the cost of town-wide sewer. Centralized sewer is one of many possible options. And, from what I've been able to learn over the past few months, it is NOT to lowest cost alternative.

I do not believe that Fred Chirigotis' Citizen's Advisory Committee or the CFAC Sewer Financing sub-committee are capable of producing any meaningful evaluation of alternative engineering designs.

A Cape Cod Living reader said the other day:

The town is gathering together their war chest to discredit anyone who is against the sewers. They are rounding up their posse in the form of these useless committees, with all the same town employeed players.

Democracy at work wrote:

For the Barnstable Town Council to move forward with sewage projects without having established costs to each homeowner is criminal. Not only because some residents will be forced from their homes but the home values of those homes will be devalued by the cost of the 20-30 year betterment. If your home is worth 400K you will get 360K because the buyer will expect the owner to pay the betterment. Who would pay 400k for a home and then assume a 30K plus betterment. Guess what Barnstable homes will all loose value.

The costs and how sewage is going to be paid for needs to be stablished up front and placed on a ballot at a NOVEMBER election. (Not a special fixed date by this game playing council.) and let the people decide!

If you want a lower cost solution in Barnstable, we have follow Patrick's example and take charge of the "process."

What we have now isn't working.

Visit Chatham Concerned Taxpayers (www.chathamct.org)

Did you see the letter from Francis X. Meaney in the Cape Cod Times?

The folks in Chatham are much better organized than us, and they are having the same problems we are. Chatham is not planning a town wide vote before committing to a $240 million dollar sewer expansion program

Central sewers will make Chatham unaffordable
December 20, 2009

Chatham's town officials, despite repeated requests, have not published detailed information about the cost of the centralized sewer system they are proposing. However, Robert Duncanson, who is in charge of the project, was quoted in a Dec. 7 article as saying that over 20 years it would cost the average homeowner only $3,500, or $175 a year on average. For a $240 million project, that is an unbelievable statement.

Consequently, Chatham Concerned Taxpayers did its own cost calculation based on publicly available information. Details are on our Web site, www.chathamct.org.

For those connected to sewers, the average homeowner cost over 20 years will be about $44,000, not $3,500, and the average annual cost will be about $2,200, not $175. Payments will continue for 30 more years till all bonds are paid.

We will drive people of modest means out of Chatham and force sales of homes with these unnecessarily high sewer costs.

Using alternatives to centralized sewers such as clusters can cut those costs in half. Chatham officials should do what's best for taxpayers and take cost-effective alternatives into account.

Francis X. Meaney
Co-founder, Chatham Concerned Taxpayers

If you have not visited www.chathamct.org, please do so. You'll learn quite a bit.

According to their analysis:

For those getting sewers in so-called Phase 1 (about two-thirds of all residential properties) the average homeowner cost over 20 years will be about $44,000, not $3,500. Their average annual cost will be about $2,200 or $183 a month over a 20-year period. Payments will continue for 30 more years until all the debt incurred to finance the project is paid. The total financed cost of this property would be about $96,708.

For those not getting a sewer at this time, the average homeowner cost over 20 years will be approximately $22,500, not $3,500. That’s about $1,125 a year on average, not $175 or $94 a month over the same 20-year period. The 50-year cost would be $54,768.

Barnstable's sewer plan is much larger and much more expensive.

The only thing stopping BIG SEWER now is the snow. Hopefully, we'll get a lot more.

For more pictures of the snow storm this weekend, see: www.capecodonline.com