Barnstable County Report

More Flights of Fancy

FAA visits its madness on a small airline operating out of the Barnstable Municipal Airport

This is a short, painful story...painful because it made me laugh so hard and painful because of its implications. The Federal Aviation Administration has been getting its face slapped hard during recent congressional hearings into its shoddy inspection procedures and general disintegration as a responsible government agency. The stories from the hearings about collusion with airlines, incompetent FAA personnel/management and what borders on outright lawlessness are scary.

Last week the FAA visited its madness on a small airline operating out of the Barnstable Municipal Airport in Hyannis. FAA inspectors descended on the airport and found that five of the seven aircraft operated by one of the Cape's local airlines were not equipped with a certain type of transponder. A transponder is an electronic device installed into the aircraft which sends out a signal that  air trafic controllers receive. This signal tells the controllers a lot about the aircraft; its type, owner, altitude, direction of travel, speed, etc. Because five planes owned by this particular airline were not equipped with the proper transponder, they were grounded.

FAA issued an order that before the planes could be returned to service the correct equipment had to be installed. So, this little airline lost a day's income. Passengers had to shift over to Cape Air who graciously accepted their neighbor's tickets and the planes were sent off for installation of the new gadget at a cost of several thousand dollars each.

Prior to last week the FAA, which knew that these planes did not have the transponder, allowed the airline to file a document monthly the effect of which was to allow everyone to ignore the situation. There was good reason to ignore it as the airports used by this airline do not have the equipment in their control towers necessary to receive the transponder signal. No wonder Congress is upset with the FAA.

The frosting on this cake is sweet indeed. For some reason the local daily rag of record missed this bit of news. All the passengers who were supposed to have flown to Nantucket on the now-grounded planes simply shifted to another local airline and flew to Nantucket on identical aircraft...which also did not have the transponders.

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Self interest at its worst

When those who benefit the most control the Town Meeting
Teachers and students swing $27M school budget vote in Yarmouth

Members of the Dennis-Yarmouth School District faculty and even student body who are registered to vote in Yarmouth showed up at Yarmouth town meeting again in strong numbers. One by one many of them made it to a microphone to plead with the town's voting citizens to support the school department budget as printed in the warrant; $24,702,551, The finance committee and selectmen recommended a school budget of 22,730,859.  Thanks to a large general turnout on the first night of the three night town meeting and a very strong turnout of teachers and other school supporters the full amount was passed easily.

This means that Yarmouth voters will vote on a proposition 2 1/2 override for $1.6 million in May. If the override fails there could be a special town meeting to take up the school department budget  again. Or, the school department could trim its budget further and/or trim its budget and receive additional funding from the town. Whatever happens it is clear that the Dennis-Yarmouth Regional School District is in tight financial straights. Decreasing state funding is one factor as is the increasing costs of state mandated programs.

Those advocating for approval of the proposed school budget presented their case with eloquent precision. Clearly they swayed some citizens to their side of the argument. And, the three hundred or so hardcore school budget supporters, including many teachers and staff in and of themselves delivered a large portion of the successful vote. Then they left.

The Mattacheese Middle School auditorium where the town meetings are always held was full and there were several dozen people in chairs on the first half of the gymnasium floor adjacent to the auditorium. That was during the first half of the first night of town meeting. Town moderator Thomas George called for a ten minute break after the school budget vote. When the break ended it was clear from the three hundred or so empty seats in the auditorium and gymnasium that the school voters had left the meeting for good.

When the issue of the budget that affected their jobs or their children was open for debate and comment they were engaged; active, eloquent, pusuasive. They spoke of the benefits to the entire town of a healthy school system and asked their fellow voters to support them and their budget. But, when the budget did pass they seem to have found no value for the town or themselves in any of the remaining warrant articles. They did not care to support or oppose a $3.1 million item to fund engineering for the town's new sewer system or the zoning bylaw that will make it possible for the town to implememnt phase 2 of the Route 28/southside growth incentive zone. They left.

They did not care to comment or vote on the expenditure of community development funds on ten different projects. After their pretense of concern for the town's overall well being had secured them their budget approval they left their fellow citizens to run through two and a half more nights of town meeting with their help. The town's future suddenly seemed unimportant to them, its infrastructure and capital needs not worth a few more hours of participation, its ground water not deserving of protection. No, for most of those who had come to show their support for the school budget we can safely say; they came, they won, they left.

What kind of example does that set for our students, our children, even our peers? Perhaps when snow needs plowing, when a fire emergency needs response, when a medical emergency requires an ambulance or when a crime needs police action...we should call the president of the Dennis-Yarmouth teachers union and have  some of these committed, concerned educators rush out into the night and put it all on the line for their fellow citizens. Of course, once they respond they will be required to stay until the problem is solved. It won't be anything like town meeting.

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From L.L. Bean to Brooks Brothers

Or was that L.L. has-Bean?

By Peter Kenney

Whatever did Cape Cod do before we had the Cape Cod Commission? Was there intelligent life on Cape Cod before the Cape Cod Commission? Does the Cape Cod Commission represent intelligent life?

A brief history of two Barnstable county agencies is appropriate as the voters of Yarmouth move toward the town's election on May 6 when they will have the opportunity to vote on Question 5: shall the town petition the Massachusetts legislature to withdraw from the Cape Cod Commission? It is useful, perhaps, to point out that the current Cape Cod Commission, created by Chapter 716 of the acts of 1989 is actually not an entirely new concept, but a successor to a previous county agency, albeit with greatly expanded funding and powers.

"Yup, there he is, the kid from Osterville. He's got a new job ya know...yup...head of this new commission thing. Look at him, he's gone from L. L. Bean to Brooks Brothers...on our money!"
      - Jack Braginton-SmithIn fact, the regional agency, the Cape Cod Planning and Economic Development Council (CCPEDC) was headed by Armando Carbonell. He and his entire staff simply became the nucleus of the newly formed commission. One grim February day as he filled his own bowl with clam chowder at Jack's Out Back in Yarmouthport Carbonell chuckled when proprietor Jack Braginton-Smith quipped, "Yup, there he is, the kid from Osterville. He's got a new job ya know...yup...head of this new commission thing. Look at him, he's gone from L. L. Bean to Brooks Brothers...on our money!"

In addition to sweeping new powers the Cape Cod Commission Act transformed CCPEDC from a small agency ( fewer than ten staff) with a limited budget and a narrowly defined mission (providing technical and grant assistance to the towns) into an agency with a first year budget of $2 million and a dedicated revenue stream from each town. Although the new agency was defined in law as the planning department of the Banrstable County it was clear from the day Governor aMichael Dukakis signed the Act into law in April of 1990 that there would be hands-off policy regarding the Commission; they would be self-governing and self-regulating, virtually an independent county government.

The Commission has two components: staff and appointed commission members. Fifteen of the nineteen appointed members are appointed by the Cape's towns. Appointments are made by the board of selectmen (town manager in Barnstable)to three year terms. It is the appointed Commission members who conduct hearings, comprise the membership of various sub-committees and vote on Development of Regional Impact (DRI) applications, District of Critical Planning Concerns (DCPC) applications and who can forward changes in the Commission's enabling legislation to the County Assembly of Delegates for passage.

CCPDC was considered a valuable resource by the planners in the Cape's towns. They were also highly regarded by town  health agents, DPW directors and town executives. The reason was simple: when a town called CCPDC for advice or help the call was returned promptly. The Commission has yet to returns many of the calls made to it over the years. Most importantly, CCPDC helped towns gain grant moneys from outside sources, federal and state, through an aggressive and skillful grant writing and advocacy process. Cape Cod owes many of its modern capital project financings to this assistance.

CCPDC did all this without any regulatory authority. With less than one quarter the staff and funding of the Commission CCPED was a positive influence on the Cape's governing mechanisms and community development. Then it morphed into the Cape Cod Commission and a suddenly punitive, restrictive, elite agency. The new Commission clearly felt it had achieved a status superior to that of the more plebian town governments and it clearly reflected a desire to place allegiance to traffic studies and prolonged review procedures above the needs of the Cape's population.

Cape Cod's indigenous culture has always been Levi's and Carhart,  over boots or boatshoes, or no shoes...not even L. L. Bean. Brooks Brothers belongs where it is...somewhere over the bridge. Come to think of it, that is where Armando Carbonell is now.

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Seven may be the lucky number for some at the Cape Cod Commission

The real scoop on the Commission's new staffing
Several long time, senior staff members to go

The real meat of the Cape Cod Commission's announcement yesterday about a major reorganization is what has happened to seven of the agency's staff. Two positions are being reclassified to fit within the new structure for the largest regional planning agency in New England. But, five staff will be gone from the Cape Cod Commission by the end of June. They are all  senior staff members and long time employees of the commission.

In a telephone conversation yesterday  executive director Paul Niedzwiecki described what he has done. The five departing staffers will not be named until it is determined on what basis they leave. All have been offered a severance package. Each departing staff member is being given the option of accepting the severance offer or being terminated without  any payment.  Niedzwiecki said that he expects the commission's staff to number up to forty when his reorganization is complete. Currently the staff numbers forty-one positions, not all which are filled at this time. From these numbers one could draw the inference that five staff are being jettisoned for cause or for poor performance. Senior staff at the commission have long been controversial among developers and the business community for some time.

Dorr Fox & deputy executive director position to go
One staff member whose departure appears certain is Dorr Fox. Fox has been with the commission since its inception in 1990 and has served as its chief regulatory officer. Niedzwiecki's reorganized commission will see the regulatory staff reporting to the commission's counsel instead of to a chief regulator. And, the regulatory staff will be separated from the rest of commission by what Niedzwiecki described as a firewall. He has told Cape towns that the revised Regional Policy Plan (RPP) will be written in two parts, regulatory and planning. It appears that the RPP and the agency itself will be organized according to central plan.

"There was no management here." - NiedzwieckiAlso disappearing will be the position of deputy executive director, to be replaced primarily by a chief planner acting in concert with general counsel. The position of chief traffic planner will be combined with at least one other presently independent staff position, perhaps wastewater. Niedzwiecki's overall plan is to change the commission's basic structure from one of horizontal organization to a more vertical agency in which the lines of authority and responsibility are clear not only to staff but to applicants and the broader community.

During an earlier conversation Niedzwiecki described his suprise when he first arrived at his commission job; staff simply came into his office whenever they wanted to speak with him, unannounced and with no scheduled appointment. On for his revaluation of the commission's management methods he laughed and answered, "There was no management here." He has been candid about the fact that the commission's staff are talented and hard working but were not used to the best advantage of the commission or the community it serves because the internal structure of the commission was seriously flawed.

"Well, we've been telling them for eighteen years to fire some of those folks. I guess we were right, but look at the damage they've done."New emphasis will be on planning, more "user friendly"
The reorganized Cape Cod Commission is intended to be mainly a planning agency but will retain substantial regulatory authority. Niedzwiecki said he will make the commission  more user friendly and will also have the staff and the agency communicate freely with the Cape's fifteen towns. In the past the Commission has actually told its nineteen appointed members not to speak with their boards of selectmen. Former exceutive director Margo Fenn  went so far as to say, "....that might even be illegal." When asked about this policy Niedzwiecki said shortly after his appointment that there never was any written policy on such matters and that her advice had been wrong. Niedzwiecki himself is a lawyer.

Reaction among citizens attending last night's Yarmouth town meeting was perhaps predicatble. One man said what many others hinted at when he laughed, "Well, we've been telling them for eighteen years to fire some of those folks. I guess we were right, but look at the damage they've done." The timing of Niedzwiecki's announcement cannot be overlooked; a few hours before the opening of Yarmouth's annual town meeting. Yarmouth voters will vote on May 6 at the town's election on Question 5; that the town of Yarmouth shall petition the Massachusetts legislature to withdraw from the Cape Cod Commission. If the majority of those voting vote yes Yarmouth will proceed to petition for withdrawal.

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Yarmouth Persecutes Fifty-year Resident

Rose Marasco is eighty-nine years old
Inertia, indifference and drift denies justice

BCR offered a piece not long ago about funny business in the Yarmouth Building Department, unexplained difficulties when a citizen asked for copies of building permits. BCR followed up with telephone calls to the Yarmouth building Department and received the royal run around. Now BCR can tell more of the story.

Rose Marasco has lived in an ancient house in the Bass River section of South Yarmouth for fifty years. Her husband died suddenly several years ago and Rose discovered that she was a trustee of a trust formed by her husband. Her son, William Marasco, MD. and her daughter Maria are also trustees for the proerty. But, it is Rose who has paid the taxes and upkeep and operating expenses of what she considers her house. Rose Marsco's old house has a kitchen built in an el, an addition to the original house, with no basement and no heat. Rose Marasco's pipes freeze every so often and she is never comfortable in her own kitchen in the winter, on Bass River.

So, well over a year ago Rose applied for a building permit to repair her kitchen and install heat and upgraded plumbing and wiring. A well known local builder applied as her agent. Another very well known figure in Yarmouth apparently had asked the town's building inspector to let him know if Rose Marasco applied for any building permits. This other person was told about the application and challenged it claiming that Rose Marasco was merely a trustee, not the property owner and that she could not authorize the permit application.

The person who challenged Rose Marasco's building permit application is her own son, Dr. Bill Marasco. He is also and was at the time a member of the Yarmouth Board of Selectmen. Can this story get any worse? Oh, yes it can and yes, it does.

Dr. Bill Marasco has sued his mother and his sister, who is also a trustee for this property in Land Court in Boston. The original suit was filed in february of 2007 and challenges ownership of Rose Marasco's house, her and her daughter's rights as trustees for the property and presumably Rose Marsco's right to live in safe and comfortable circumstances in her own house. The Yarmouth Building inspector refused to issue a building permit until he received an opinion from the town's attorney, John Creney.

Creney recused himself because he felt a conflict of interest existed. Attorney John Creney, long time attorney for the Town of Yarmouth, is the lawyer who represents Dr. Bill Marasco, a sitting selectman in the town, in this legal action against Rose Marasco, Dr. Bill Marasco's mother. Creney has yet to file a notice with the town of his intent to represent a town official.

James Brandollini, Yarmouth's Building Commissioner then asked Attorney J. Douglas Murphy of Hyannis to render an opinion in the matter. Murphy was presumably a good choice to fill in for the conflicted Creney. Murphy's opinion, read by BCR, is a masterpiece of convoluted reasoning ending with the simple advice that he would prefer not render an opinion but that the parties should seek guidance from the court. At this writing Mr. Murphy has not answered BCR's request to learn how much Yarmouth will pay for this opinion.

A little more than a month ago there was a hearing in Land Court in Boston. Rose and Maria Marasco appeared as did John Creney. Dr. Bill Marasco did not appear personally. At that time Mr. Creney told the court that he had only recently learned of certain facts in the case which he clearly had known since he filed the original law suit. Creney's honesty is at best suspect in this regard.

In its written opinion the court said clearly that Rose Marasco had the right to apply for the building permity. Mr. Creney and/or his client Dr. Bill Marsco neither liked nor agreed with that judgment so Brandollini again asked Attorney Murphy for an opinion. Murphy's response was that he did not like the language of the court's finding and would prefer other language which he suggested. So Rose Marasco's second attempt to get a building permit failed.

BCR has spent considerable time trying to confirm that J. Douglas Murphy has legal standing in the Commonwealth to overrule the language contained in a judicial finding. All efforts to do so have failed.

However, the Yarmouth Health Department has no problem agreeing with Rose Marasco that she is the actual owner of  the house she has lived in and paid taxes on for fifty years. So, the Health Department issued her contractor a permit to replace her antiquated septic system with one that both works and complies with all applicable state and local codes. As this article goes to e-press the new system is being completed. The Health Department required neither a legal opinion nor a court judgment. Apparently no one from the selectmen's office has intimidated the Health Department or exerted undue and improper influence over their operations.

So, Rose Marasco can now at least flush as she freezes without polluting Bass River. As far as is known she alone paid for the new septic system with no help from her son, the doctor.

An interesting piece of Yarmouth history is the following:

In 2001 Dr. Bill Marasco applied for a building permit in Yarmouth. He wanted to build a garage on property owned by his mother, adjacent in fact to her house. He applied to the board of Appeals for a special permit and his request was granted, although the garage he actually built varies significantly from the plan on which he received approval. When Dr. Marasco applied for his building permit he declared that Rose Marasco was the owner of the house to which he intended to attach this new garage and he presented paperwork with what he claimed was her signature authorizing him to apply for the permit.

In 2001 Dr. Bill Marasco declared that his mother owned the house in which she lived. In 2007 Dr. Bill Marasco declared to the Town of Yarmouth and to the Massachusetts Land Court that his mother does not own the house where she lives, where she has lived for fifty years.

BCR would like to know what would be the results if handwriting analysis were performed on all the documents submitted by Dr. William Marasco to the Town of Yarmouth Board of Appeals and Building Department in 2001 in the matter of the garage he built on his mother's property in South Yarmouth.

Rose Marasco is eighty-nine years old.

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Nothing short about these circuits

 New Circuit City is coming to Route 132

Well, they finally got their approval from the Almighty Cape Cod Commission, Circuit City, that is. There is a brand-new retail building, a Circuit City store coming to Route 132 in Hyannis. On February 7 the commission voted 10 - 3 to approve the project after a limited DRI review. The review was confined to issues of community character, economic development, stormwater management and transportaion. The nonsense factor does not seem to have been included in the commission's review, but then again, it is an automatic part of anything the commission does.

Take the stormwater issue, for example. There are state and local codes that make the process of dealing with stormwater fairly straightfoward. While the commission frequently claims when seizing a project for review that, "We can make it better," there is little chance that anyone on the commission or the commission's staff has any chance of improving on the work of an applicant's registered professional engineers or the state codes regulating such matters. The 'state of the art' biofiltration drainage system to be installed at Circuit City did not originate with the commission. This project fronts on a state highway, Route 132,  and therefore cannot allow its parking lot to drain onto Route 132 and since the new store will be a high end electronics store it is  unlikely that  either the developer or the store management will be satisfied if the parking lot fills with water to form puddles or ice rinks. But the commission will make the drainage plan better, somehow.

As for the community character issue, who is kidding whom? The new store will be an improvement on the larger of the two buildings now occupying the site, the battered and closed restaurant/nightclub.  And, a casual look around the adjacent lots shows stores, restaurants, a derelict restaurant, a large paint-peeling of the concrete block walls telephone company garage, a huge traffic rotary and an airport. Where is this community character we hear so much about? The transportation issue is perhaps a valid concern, but again the curb cuts will involve a state highway...guess who is in the driver's seat on this one? Is the commission going to outdesign the applicant's traffic engineers to tell the state what is required? Unlikely.

But the final straw has to be the economic development component of the commission's review. According to the current issue of the Cape Cod Commission  Reporter, the commission's monthly propaganda newsletter, the project developer, Berkshire-Hyannis LLC will give the commission, "....details on the number and types of new jobs created by this project, the number filled by Cape Cod residents, and the wages and benefits provided." When the commission itself is entirely staffed by Cape Cod residents such a demand would still be unreasonable. Hell, the Barnstable County Administrator does not even live on cape Cod, thanks to a special change made in the county charter to suit him. As for the number of jobs, the types of jobs and the wages and benefits paid...all that is usually set by market conditions, not commission fiat. Oh, I forgot, the commission can make it better.

$870,000 of your tax dollars spent 

And what does all this improvement cost the applicant? No one outside the applicant's bookeeping and executive offices really knows. The commission application fee is in the five figures, plus there was a fairly expensive traffic study, legal and engineering fees, etc. So, we are looking at six figures, at least. A quarter of a million dollars is not out of the question. But the real magic of Cape Cod Commission review is the blackmail called mitigation they impose on anyone who wants to develop property on Cape Cod. With straight faces and no guns the commission got from Berkshire-Hyannis LLC the following:

1.    $800,000 to help buy the empty Chili's restaurant at the Airport rotary.
2.    $30,000 to the Barnstable Housing Authority for affordable housing.
3.    $30,000 to Cape Cod Community College for worforce training.
4.    $10,000 worth of equipment vouchers for the Barnstable public schools.

The total tab for mitigation comes to $870,000. This, for a new building of 22,475 square feet comes to $38.71 per square foot of building space. Now, who do you suppose will be paying off that little nugget...Circuit City or Circuit City's customers. Welcome to Cape Cod where the Cape Cod Commission can make it better.

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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.

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Cheap Air - Dropping in sometime soon?

Fly now, Pray later

Is it possible that there is a rogue airline operating out of the Barnstable Municipal Airport? No, not Cape Air or Island Air or Nantucket Air, the other one; the one that appeared very recently and while operating the same equipment on its shuttle flights to the Islands was somehow able to beat everyone else's ticket prices. Some people are supsicious that maintainance costs might be where this new operator found room for savings. Events durting the past three weeks should probably scare anyone who flies on this airline or lives near its flight paths.

The sprinklers would not have worked in case of a fire, a fire at the airportTwo weeks ago FAA inspectors arrived in Hyannis to inspect one of this company's planes which had hit the tail of its fuselage pretty hard on the ground. When the inspectors asked that the plane be rolled into the airline's hangar for inspection out of the weather, use of the hangar was denied by the fire department. It seems the cost control department of the airline had saved a little money by not 'charging' the building's fire suppression system. All this technical talk simply means  that the sprinklers would not have worked in case of a fire, a fire at an airport.

Then there are the famous non-lights. A recent face-to-face poll of several people at the airport in Hyannis yielded scary results. People, crew members on other airlines, frequent passengers to the islands, airport ground workers...all said they has seen this little airiline's planes in flight, taxiing on the runways, taking off and landing in the dark with no lights visible  from the planes. The stories are legion about pilots in other planes using their radios to advise the pilots for Cheap Air to turn on their lights. Sometimes the reported reply is, "Oh, yeah, gee, thanks."

While conducting the poll described above Barnstable County Reporter was told by a man at the Cafe at the Airport that he had been flying to Nantucket as a daily commuter on business for years, that he had flown the new cheap airline a few times and that he would never fly on them again. He cited fear as his reason.

Last week a flight was halfway to Nantucket when something mechanical went wrongFor those in Yarmouth disturbed by early morning flights to Nantucket that occur earlier than the airport has agreed for a starting time and at lower than prescribed altitudes, the suspect has probably just been identified. It is the new Cheap Air operation.

Last week a flight was halfway to Nantucket when something mechanical went wrong and the pilot turned around, landing back in Hyannis. Dozens of witnesses saw ten people emerge from the plane. The allowable maximum load calls for eight passengers plus one pilot. That means nine people on board is the maximum allowed load, not ten. Reportedley this overloading practice is not just common, it is standard procedure for Cheap Air.

Also last week, the same aircraft aborted a takeoff from Hyannis. No information is available about the reasons for this plane twice experiencing mechanical problems in one week, at least none that Barnstable County reporter can acquire. There are, however, stories about this airline's planes failing to observe minimum vertical and horizontal separations in flight: flying too close to other planes. Mechanical failure in mid flight plus flying too close to other aircraft is an interesting approach to public safety.

There is a digital record of flight operations available on line that shows actual flight paths for flights from Hyannis to Nantucket, as well as the entire U. S. The record of one recent day shows two planes approaching Nantucket in a graceful  curve around the island, their altitudes  clearly shown. Suddenly a third plane appears on the chart, moving straight, fast and low  across the island toward the Nantucket airport. This third plane is the Cheap Air flight racing to beat the other two flights to the landing strip and its altitude over the middle of Nantucket island is less than three hundred feet. This is irrefutable because planes drop off the screen when they fly below that altritude and Cheap Air diasappeared.

Barnstable County reporter will ask the Barnstable Municipal Airport, the FAA and Cheap Air to explain these events in the coming few days. It should be noted that Quincy 'Doc" Moseby, manager of the Barnstable Municipal Airport said when asked that he forwards all complaints about airline operations to the FAA and that both the authority and the responsibility for investigating such matters and issuing findings is theirs. He said he has little power in such matters and would not comment on any ongoing investigations.

The obvious and unavoidable question is: how big a disaster will be required for someone to do something effective about this situation? How long will it be before Cheap Air drops into a neighborhood near you?

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Never send a lawyer to do an ordinary person’s job

Simple Is Usually Better -- and Cheaper
What is being done with $370M retirement fund that has not been transferred to state

By Peter Kenney

An envelope was recently given to me by a man who did not know exactly why he was giving it to me. And, he himself had nothing to with the contents of that envelope. Oh well...such is the life of anyone who wants to be known for writing about how things work and how things fail to work. What awaited me were several pages of information about the operations of the Barnstable County Retirement Association. The last I knew this little operation had 47 units as members; fourteen of the Cape's towns (not Falmouth) and assorted fire districts, housing authorities and other groups. Included were a lawyer's letter to a citizen who had filed a freedom of information request and the Expense Fund Budget for fiscal years 2006 and 2007.

Never straightforward, never simple

Barnstable County government has never been straightforward or simpleWhy it was necessary to have the association's lawyer write a five-page letter in response to what appear to me to be fairly simple questions is unclear, especially since some of the questions asked were not answered. In reading the mystery material I felt I was reading a lot of stuff that have could have been better answered with a simple telephone call to the requesting party. But, Barnstable County government has never been straightforward or simple.

For example, the question was asked what is being done with $370 million of the retirement fund that has not been transferred to state management. There is no complete answer given to this question, only partial mutterings about here and there and Massachusetts general laws. With a total trust of $570 million, the county retirement fund is bigger than the proverbial breadbox and a simple answer should have been given to a simple and legal question. Never send a lawyer to do an ordinary person's job.

How much does their attorney, James Quirk, pay for the space he sublets from the retirement board?Subsequent questions asked for the nature of county investment of retirement funds, to which the vague answer was given that they were invested in closed-end real estate investments. The who, where and for how long never did appear in the so-called answer. Also asked were questions about how much the county pays in rent for its office space in Independence Park, how much their attorney, James Quirk, pays for the space he sublets from the retirement board and generally how much it costs to administer the retirement fund.

Dripping with attitude, stifling dissent

LeClair was part of the nearly successful effort in the mid 1990s to destroy the then special sheriff and deny him his pension.While the smaller items were answered well and completely, there is still an attitude dripping from the pages of Quirk’s letter. One might almost say that he is conveying his client's sneer. County Commissioner Mary LeClair and County Administrator Mark Zielinski are both members of the board that governs the retirement association. And LeClair was part of the nearly successful effort in the mid 1990s to destroy the then special sheriff and deny him his pension. Lately, he has been asking around about the missing art that the county received and then seems to have lost.

Here is how Mr. Quirk dealt with the rent question: "Answer: Since the information requested here is both the System's and the Landlord's, I will contact the present and past Landlord to advise them of this request prior to releasing this information. I believe answers to your questions are contained within the budgets."

See what I mean about lawyers? The rent figures are clearly stated in the budget copies provided. And the lease between any public agency and any landlord is a public document. For fiscal year 2007 the rent for the county retirement association is $147,048.00. Since no income statement accompanies the expense budget we do not know how much Mr. Quirk pays to sublet his space. Sloppy, very sloppy.

That’s some fringe

And there are more interesting numbers: $179,227.00 for “Employee Fringe Benefits” for fiscal 2007. Divided among the system's eight employees, that gives us an average cost of benefits per employee of $22,403.38. A lot of people on Cape Cod do not earn that much in a year. Then there is the overall employee payroll of $381,597 which yields a per employee average of $47,699.63. So, the average cost for an employee at the Barnstable County Retirement Association is $70,103.01.

Why are they so skittish?

It's time to look at how this pension fund has been performing in the marketEarning just south of $100,000 per year we can assume that the System's executive director, Debra Cohen is a competent person. Why not have her answer the questions? Mr. Quirk is paid $160 per hour for his time and he presumably expects to be paid for drafting this five-page letter. Who will pay: a citizen asking reasonable questions or the Retirement Association? It may be all those years watching Boston politics or even these past thirty years watching how the county malfunctions but my little voice is asking, "Why are they so skittish?"

Maybe it is time to look at how this pension fund has been performing in the market. We may find that all is well. Of course, first we'll have get past the guard dog at the gate.

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SUBSIDIZING DIRTY SECRETS

Some secrets are dirty and some of life's dirtiest secrets are subsidized by their victims. The Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) given by the federal government to producers of so called green energy, such as wind power, are among the dirty secrets of today's envirinmental pseudo consciousness. Here are two disturbing quotes taken directly the American Wind Energy Assocviation web site: "Those who are most efficient at generating renewable power will end up producing it, and those who cannot efficiently produce it will purchase Credits on the competitive market." And in another statement; "The Credit system provides compliance flexibility and avoids the need to 'track electrons'."

 

RECs are granted on a one-to-one basis; one megawatt hour of green power equals one REC. They can be sold or traded separately from the green energy that earns them and anyone in any industry can buy them. In fact they must be sold or traded because they have date-certain expirations. One local example of how RECs are used is the purchase Harvard University made two years ago. Harvard signed a contract with the town of Hull, Massachusetts to buy the renewable energy credits the town will receive for ten years as a result of the operation of a town owned wind turbine. (Harvard also buys around $2 million of RECs annually. Its electric bill tops $40 million annually.) Because Massachusetts is one of the nation's twenty-five states, along with the District of Columbia, to have a Renewable Portfolio, Harvard is required to meet the standard of that portfolio for green energy use.

 

The idea of RECs was probably righteous. States having Portfolio Standards for renewable enrgy have enforced a minimum quota for green energy on electric wholesalers and large energy users, such as Harvard. For example, electric wholesalers such as ISO New England are required this year to have 3.5% of their total electricity sold qualified as green (renewable) energy.  Next year, 2009, will see a .5% increase in this quota to 4% and it will continue to rise annually until it reaches 5%. The problem is that there is not enough green energy available to meet the requirements. Enter the Renewable Energy Credit.

 

A producer of green energy, such as  Cape Wind Associates, LLC who want to build wind farm in the  middle of Nantucket Sound will be given RECs as they produce electricity. Cape Wind, heavily subsidized for its capital costs, will then have RECs to sell as a way of offsetting their capital and operating costs. They could sell their RECs to ISO New England who will then use these RECs to help meet their Portfolio standard of up to 5% green energy. And, they can do so without actually buying or selling any renewable energy.

 

What this means environmentally is interesting and perhaps frightening. As the American Wind Energy Association says (see quote above) RECs eliminate the need to track electrons...they make it a moot point whether a power wholsaler  actually  buys as much as  5% of his total electricity from green generators or not. Instead of following electrons to their source to see if that source is a wind farm or solar plant we will simply count RECs as actual megawatts and achieve compliance the old fashioned way: smoke and mirrors.

 

A quick look at how electric wholesalers do business is interesting, and also frightening. Any wholesale purchaser of electricity buys the cheapest power first. This means coal.  Then come oil, gas, nuclear, hydro  and green. In the case of wind power its electricity, according to a nationwide chorus of energy experts seems to be competitive with other power sources but only if the wind power is land based. Off shore wind is still twice as expensive at least as conventional electric generation. So, rather than lowering our electric rates off shore wind will raise them, but only slightly because as yet there is no off shore wind power in the United States. If ISO New England does buy power from Cape Wind it will still not have enough green power, power from various sources such as wind, solar, biomass, etc. to meet its Portfolio Standard requirement so it will do the next best thing: purchase Renewable Energy Credits. This means that the worst of all problems in power generation, stack gas emissions such as CO2 will not only not be abated, they will be subsidized and continued. Because the cheapest power comes from the most serious polluters such as coal plants and old oil fired plants, having RECs available to the wholesalers almost guarantees that they will continue to operate. Almost? Remember, there is still no cap on the emission of CO2.

 

So, how do we view our bretheren in the environmental community who sing the praises of alternative and green energy yet fail to challenge this reward system of RECs which those very producers they love so deeply use to pay their own costs and subsidize the problems they claim to solve? Is the word hypocrite too strong, or just too late? Or fool, or insincere neophite? Hardly.

 

I spoke with Jim Gordon, the head of Cape Wind Associates, LLC two weeks ago. He called me to challenge what I have said here. He also wanted to challenge the findings made by the U. S. Mineral management Service in their recently released draft Environmental Impact statement on the Cape Wind project in which they pegged Cape Wind's cost at double other energy costs. Gordon told me that there is a statutory provision prihibiting the uses of REcs I have cited. The problem is that I cannot find anyone else anywhere who knows what that statutory prohibition is. Even his own industry association, quoted twice here, seems to disgaree with Gordon. People at the U. S. Department of Energy's Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado disagree, people at ISO New England disagree.

 

Finally, as I roamed the wide open spaces of the internet recently I came across a web site for a company in Texas called Element Markets. (elementmarkets.com). Here is one fascinating quote from this web site (I may send it to Jim Gordon...they could help him sell his RECs): "Producers of "green" power can sell REcs as well as the power itself, increasing their profits, while other interests can buy or trade RECs for reasons ranging from improving corporate image to satisfying regulatory compliance."

 

I will tell you a dirty little secret;  when I called Element Markets and asked if I could speak to someone about RECs they asked who I am and I told them I write...they do not speak to the press, ever. 

 

Jim Gordon says that Cape Wind will reduce CO2 emissions buy 880,000 tons per year by virtue of the clean power it produces. this is just plain false. If his RECs are used as they can be used...they will assure the continued belching of 880,000 tons of CO2 into our air forever. Yet we here no questions or concerns from the Conservation Law Foundation, Greenpeace, Audbon, the Sierra Club...or in fact any credentialed environmental group...nor from the federal government or our governor, a staunch Cape Wind supporter.

 

The wind may be free, as Gordon is fond of saying, but Cape Wind is costly in too many ways. Why should we turn over Nantucket Sound for profit to a man who will guarantee that  our electric bills rise and that coal plants thrive?

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