Barnstable County Report

Cape Cod Commission snoozes in Yarmouth

A rogue agency lacking any oversight or restraint
Not a Commissioner attends as Yarmouth burns

By Peter Kenney  

Niedzwiecki brought two pages of commission propaganda which touted  as commission accomplishments things the town of Yarmouth had done for itself by itself...I like Paul Niedzwiecki. I like him as a person and as a public official. When Niedzwiecki was the assistant town manager in Barnstable he always answered my questions fully, honestly and without any delay or pretense of self-importance. When the Cape Cod Commission's executive director fled office as the winds of change started to howl he was my suggestion as a perfect fit for the job. Apparently that feeling was common because six months ago he assumed that role and since then has been working hard and well at a thankless task.

Niedzwiecki for the defense
On Tuesday, the 25th of March Niedzwiecki presented his defense of the commission to the Yarmouth Board of selectmen and a sparse audience of approximately fifty people.

What Niedzwiecki offered is a look at a Cape Cod commission which functions very differently from its first seventeen years under two previous bosses. Niedzwiecki brings to the commission real world experience with municipal budgets, zoning and infrastructure concerns and a no nonsense approach to management, responsibility, goals and accomplishments. He also brought two pages of commission propaganda which touted  as commission accomplishments some things the town of Yarmouth had done for itself by itself or in cooperation with state agencies.

According to Niedzwiecki there will be dramatic changes in the commission's thresholds for review of new projects, raising the minimum size for projects that will not be required to endure commission costs and delays to as much as 60,000 square feet if the project is to be built in an area of a town properly zoned for it. This and other similarly dramatic changes in mitigation costs will be unveiled as part of draft of the commission's regional policy plan  in the coming summer. The regional policy plan must be reviewed, by law, every five years. The present review is approximately two years late.

More openness, language mere mortals can understand, but when?
Niedzwiecki also spoke of a new attitude at the commission; more openness to communicating with the towns and writing a regional policy plan in two parts so that it is understandable for ordinary folks while also laying out the detailed and legalistic meat of its regulations. for lawyers and other practitioners. The trap in believing that this will ever actually happen, in spite of the best efforts of this competent and ethical man was well illustrated last night by the total lack of attendance at this important meeting by any other county officials.

Not a single Commission or Assembly member attended

Commissioners and Assembly delegates might as well have spit on 21,000 facesPaul Niedzwiecki led off the evening speaking for eighteen minutes. I was then given equal time to present the views of those who have successfully  pushed for a vote at Yarmouth's town meeting on May 6th to petition the legislature to withdraw from the commission. We exchanged compliments and Niedzwiecki carried the torch alone. Not one of the three county commissioners attended. Not one member of the Assembly of delegates attended. This is a problem for anyone who wants to see the commission succeed because it is defined in law as the planning department of and for Barnstable County. No changes will occur at the commission unless they are formally approved by a vote of the Assembly of Delegates, no changes at all. The commission is viewed by both supporters and opponents as a major force in the economic health of the county, but not one county official other than the commission's own executive director chose to defend this largest planning agency in New England in the first town on Cape Cod to vote on withdrawing from it.

Rogue agency lacking any oversight or restraint
To the extent that the Cape Cod commission is widely viewed as a rogue agency lacking any oversight and completely without legal restraint son its operations,  methods and decisions last night's performance in Yarmouth was proof positive that the impression is the reality. On May sixth the voters of Yarmouth will have the chance to tell county government that the old ways are done. Sending one decent man to tell Yarmouth about all the great changes he wants to make while not one other member of the county governing body which must approve these changes is even in the hall should tell the people of Yarmouth where they stand. The commissioners and the Assembly delegates might as well have spit in twenty-one thousand faces... wait a minute, they did. the most bizarre aspect of all this that the presiding member of the assembly is from Yarmouth... she is a former chair of our board of selectmen...and she was nowhere to be seen.

The next posting on this meeting will go into dry detail of the changes Niedzwiecki proposes. Somebody call the county and tell them to log in sometime...they might learn something.