EXTRA...

Tropical depression 300 miles east of Chatham as town meets to decide on filling breakthrough and just off-cape pollution matters

 Tropical depression between Cape and Bermuda this morning
Heading north-north-east at increased speed at 5am Tuesday

Radar of TD Chantal at 6am todayA tropical depression formed late Monday between Bermuda and Cape Cod and was expected to briefly become a tropical storm.  The storm center was 380 miles east of Chatham where voters will decide tonight whether to spends over $4 million to fill in a break in their barroier beach caused by an April storm. The system wilkl probably become a Tropical Storm briefly and could affect Newfoundland late Wednesday or early Thursday, but it will not be too strong.

While this is the  third depression the 2007 hurrican season, it comes quite early and is expected to increase in strength today. "As a tropical system it has a very short life ahead of it," said senior hurricane specialist James Franklin. the National Hurricane Center.The depression was about 380 miles north of Bermuda and 380 miles southeast of Chatham on Tuesday morning, according to the Hurricane Center. At 5 a.m. EDT, it had top sustained winds near 35 mph and was moving toward north-northeast at 21 mph, forecasters said. That's an increase in speed since a 16 mph reading at 11 p.m. EDT.

The depression will be named Chantal if it reaches tropical storm strength with winds of at least 39 mph. There have been two named storms in 2007: Subtropical Storm Andrea, which formed in May, and Tropical Storm Barry, which formed June 1, the first day of hurricane season.  Read the Sun-Sentinal story here.
_______________________

Chatham watching nature alter their landscape as it meets tonight

With valuable real estate and the town's harbor hanging in the balance, Chatham voters must decide whether to try to push back the sandsCHATHAM -- From Minister's Point in North Chatham, where million-dollar houses ring Pleasant Bay, the breach in Nauset Beach makes for gorgeous scenery: Where a bar of pale sand once stretched uninterrupted across the horizon, blocking the force of the ocean, blue-green water now swirls through a widening gap.

The 1,000-foot break in the landscape, picturesque as it is, has raised weighty questions about how this town at the elbow of Cape Cod should respond. Tonight Chatham's 5,500 voters will decide at a special Town Meeting whether the town should spend $4 million to fill the breach with fresh sand, undoing changes wrought by a pounding storm in April and restoring a natural barrier that protects coastal property.

Threatened homeowners and town officials moved decisively in the weeks after the storm... But many residents say that the push for Chatham to assert its will in shaping its coastline has failed to gain traction in the face of a more popular philosophy: Let nature take its course...  Read the rest of this Globe story here. 
________________________

The politics of pollution:
The world faces a potent political struggle as it grapples with global warming

SOMERSET — Perched like a fortress at the edge of Mount Hope Bay, Brayton Point power plant is a prominent landmark in SouthCoast — a region struggling to reinvent itself as a center for clean, renewable energy.  Brayton Point (on right) is one of the biggest electricity producers in Massachusetts. But each year, its smokestacks release several million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — inefficient generators and high-carbon coal fuel make it one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the Northeast... 

Even among politicians who are endorsing action to combat global warming, there are varying degrees of commitment, notes Sue Reid, a staff attorney at the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation. She pointed to Sen. Edward Kennedy and Congressman William Delahunt's opposition to the proposed Cape Wind project off Cape Cod as an example of how political positions on climate change can be fickle...  Read the rest of this Standard-Times article here.  

1 comment »

Being against renewable energy is like being against puppies; Dow Jones has until 5pm today to decide about Murdoch

 

 Jerkass of the Week Award:
Senator Lamar Alexander- a true dunce of the highest order

To a lot of people, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would actually be against renewable energy. It’s a little bit like being against puppies. Yet these opponents exist, and I’m sorry to say some are warming seats in the United States Senate.

Take Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, for example. Sen. Alexander hails from a part of the country that is home to “six of the nation’s 10 largest carbon-dioxide-emitting coal-fired power plants,” according to Tennessean.com. You might think that Alexander is somehow beholden to the coal industry because of this, or that his Martha’s Vinyard property and the debate over the Cape Wind project might influence him, or that the campaign contributions that flow his way from the most carbon-dioxide producing utility in the country are the source of his clean energy antipathy. Not so, says the Senator. He doesn’t like wind power, he claims, for aesthetic reasons. “I think they absolutely destroy the landscape.”   Read the rst of this PlanetSave article here.
_______________________

Dow Jones/Ottaway owners have until 5pm today to decide
Bancrofts' jockeying over Murdoch deal goes down to the wire

Some family members have committed to vote in favor of a sale, but others oppose the deal for fear that News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch's style of journalism would damage the integrity of Dow Jones's publications... which includes The Standard-Times in New Bedford and The Cape Cod Times in Hyannis The Bancroft family and its advisers headed into the final hours of deliberations over the fate of Dow Jones & Co. Sunday amid heated jockeying and negotiating that threatened to create a rift between the company's board and some family advisers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Still, the company's fate remained too close to call, these people said. Michael B. Elefante, the family's lead trustee, indicated to some on the board last night that he has slightly less than 30 percent of the overall vote. News Corp. likely needs family votes representing roughly 30 percent of the overall vote to succeed. Mr. Elefante has given family members a deadline of today at 5 p.m. to present him with voting agreements to sell shares to News Corp., which has offered $60 a share, or $5 billion, for the company...  Read the rest of this Standard-Times story here.   

1 comment »

Jack Kerouac left Cape 0n trek 60 years ago; Owner died, Cape mutt gets new leash on life; Barnstable museum honors rescues at sea

On the (wrong) road with Jack Kerouac
Trek began 60 years ago hitchhiking from Ptown to Ely Nevada


Long road, long write
Legend has it that Kerouac wrote On The Road in 1951, in three Benzedrine-fuelled weeks, with no margins or paragraphs, on a single scroll of paper 121.39 feet long. Certainly, such a scroll exists. It was bought in 2001 by Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, for $2.4 million. It's comprised of pieces of tracing paper taped together and was typed from the notebooks in which Kerouac had written segments of the book as they happenedAs he set out, albeit unwittingly, to change the literary landscape, Jack Kerouac started off by going the wrong way.

Sixty years ago this month – July 17, 1947, to be exact – Kerouac, then 25, left his mother's house in the Ozone Park district of Queens, New York, on the first of four treks around the United States and into Mexico that would lead to the publication 10 years later of his autobiographical novel On The Road.

September will mark the book's half century. It remains a steady seller. Biographies and critical studies of the father of the Beat Generation appear regularly. Kerouac, who was already developing a drinking problem when he hit the highways, died in 1969, aged 47.

As he tells it in On The Road, he'd been "poring over maps" and thought he'd hitchhike to the West Coast along "one long red line called Route 6 that led from the tip of Cape Cod clear to Ely, Nevada, and there dipped down to Los Angeles... To get to 6, I had to go up to Bear Mountain."

Kerouac took the 7th Ave. subway to the end of the line at 242nd St. and then a trolley to Yonkers. "Five scattered rides" took him to Bear Mountain, where it began to rain "in torrents... I began crying and swearing and socking myself on the head for being such a damn fool... I looked like a maniac, of course, with my hair all wet, my shoes sopping. My shoes, damn fool that I am, were Mexican huaraches, plant-like sieves not fit for the rainly night of America and the raw road night."  Read the rest of this Toronoto Star story here.  
_________________________
Owner died, Cape mutt gets new leash on life
“That woman saved Adison's life by finding him"

WAREHAM — Adison, a lhasa apso-mix dog believed to be around 9-years old, was in rough shape (see before & after photos on right).  After he was discovered last month in a home on Cape Cod after his elderly owner died, he had six inches of matted hair on the top of his head, said Lauren Biagiotti, volunteer shelter manager of A Helping Paw Humane Society.

“You couldn't even tell he had eyes until we pried the fur away. His feet were bloody raw and soaked in urine and feces,” she said.  He'd been taken by the town's animal control officer to a shelter where he would have been euthanized because of his condition, but he was rescued just in time by a relative of his former owner, who brought it to A Helping Paw.

“That woman saved Adison's life by finding him. She called us and asked if we could take him and of course we said yes. He needs a really good home, likes cats and dogs, but not small children. He's been through a lot of trauma, but loves attention and loves to ride in the car. It takes time for him to warm up to people, but be patient and give him love and a backyard to run in and he'll be your best friend!”  Read the rest of this Enterprise story here. 
______________________

Barnstable museum honors rescues at sea

BARNSTABLE -- Ralph Jones stands before a tailor's form draped in the crisp blues of a Coast Guardsman's dress uniform, complete with cowl collar and square-knotted tie. "I had a uniform just like this," Jones recalls, "the flat hat and everything. I used to fold the pants and put them under my mattress to keep them flat."

Jones served in the North Atlantic from 1946 to 1952. Now he volunteers in the red brick landmark building on Cobbs Hill in Barnstable village (on right)... Now it's home to the Coast Guard Heritage Museum, which focuses on the Life-Saving Service and the Coast Guard on Cape Cod...

The exhibits range from Cape Cod to the world theater. Photographs show the 11 lightships that warned vessels off the shoals of Cape Cod from 1910 until 1968-69. A replica of the Race Point Lifeboat Station on the Outer Cape serves as a reminder of the US Life-Saving Service, a forerunner of the Coast Guard...  Read the rest of this Globe report here. 

Leave a comment »

Some claim Casino was defeated yesterday in Middleboro; PM and Pres spend first night together

 Hearld, Blue Mass Group report a different version of events

While all the media outlets rushed to press with the 65% approval story, a few dug deeper yesteday in Middleboro, and the ever-watchful Dan Kennedy wrote another column which is a must-read today.  Here is the start;

"Overwhelmingly defeated"

Laura Crimaldi's story in the Sunday Herald says that the casino was "overwhelmingly defeated" when it was finally put to a vote. This despite the fact that Middleborough officials were so disrespectful of the process that they staged a signing ceremony after the agreement with the Wampanoags was approved, but before the non-binding advisory question on the casino itself was put to the voters. No wonder people left early.

Sabutai's account says that the show-of-hands vote on the casino was "much closer" than an earlier vote to cut off debate, but he doesn't say how close. No doubt accounts will differ. I hope we see something more definitive. Not that the margin matters, but, symbolically, it would be helpful if everyone understands that people voted against the casino....  One major note in this meeting was the "Orange Shirts".  Money came from somewhere to emblazon stickers, hats, and t-shirts with the slogan "vote YES for Middleboro's future" adorning several dozen attendees.  An IBEW bus dispatched about a dozen such people right as my bus was letting off, all with matching chairs and carrying spring water.  We entered the registration area together in front of my bus. They did not register or receive a ballot, but sat with Middleoboro residents and participated in voice and hand votes....   (Photos courtesy of BlueMassGroup.

Read Dan Kennedy's Media Nation here.
______________________

Gordon and George spend their first night together
Frequent Cape vacationer usually romped with the Kennedys

When they meet today, Brown is looking for a relationship with Bush which is neither shoulder-to-shoulder nor cold shoulderTheir joint press conference the morning after will be subject to the most searching scrutiny for what their words and body language say about the relationship. Tony and George were an odd couple. Gordon, the serious Scot, and George, the Texan with a taste for frat-boy humour, is an even more intriguing pairing of opposites. So there is quite a lot of apprehension on both sides about what will transpire when Britain's new Prime Minister and America's decaying President have their first proper date. In the nightmare scenario which terrifies diplomats, the two men will find they have nothing in common except their initials. Brown will invite the President to agree to his grand plan for eradicating world poverty; Bush will respond by asking the Prime Minister to sign up to the nuking of Iran.

Even if their talks are perfectly amicable, there will be long shadows on the walls of the log cabins in the Catoctin mountains of Maryland. There will be the shades of conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq. And there will be the ghost of Tony Blair. Both the GBs had an intensity of relationship with TB that neither will ever have with each other.

At his first Camp David meeting with George Bush, more than six long years ago, Tony Blair was told that his host wanted to be informal. Eager to please, he wore a pair of bollock-crushingly tight jeans and seemed to try to ape Bush by adopting a sort of cowboy gait.

'Gordon does not do jeans,' as one of his friends puts it. Nor does he do cowboy. Gordon Brown only has two outfits in his prime ministerial wardrobe. One is a suit. The other is a suit without a tie. The latter is as informal as he gets. Relaxed but businesslike is the impression that Mr Brown would like to be projected from Camp David...  For all these differences of tone and approach, Gordon Brown is an Atlanticist who has long been enthralled by the idea of America. This year he will be making a domestic political point by taking his summer holiday in the English countryside. Before he had a family, he almost always spent August in Cape Cod, playground of the Kennedys. Many of his political heroes are American. He has almost boundless admiration for Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve. The two men were talking on the phone the other day about a book Greenspan is about to publish which is called The Age of Turbulence...  Read the rest of this Guardian story here. 

Leave a comment »

Middleboro signs pact with Wampanoags; A sense of resignation preceeded vote

64% of Middleboro voters approve casino deal
Selectmen immediately sign contract with tribe

What's next?
With the favorable vote comes a pledge by the town support the casino in the next steps of the process, which could take more than a year. The casino developers must negotiate a “compact” with Governor Deval Patrick to set terms for a waiver of the state prohibition on slot machines in exchange for the state receiving a share of slot revenues. Most legal specialists also believe the state Legislature must approve the compact.Voters in Middleborough today approved a historic agreement to bring a casino to the semi-rural town 40 miles south of Boston.  By a margin of 2,387 to 1,335, voters approved the agreement between town selectmen and the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe that calls for the town to receive at least $11 million a year for hosting the $1 billion resort casino.

Town officials immediately took steps to sign the agreement.  The vote was announceed at about 3 pm at a town meeting held on the high school athletic field.  The voters, however, sent a mixed message yesterday. In a separate, non binding question before the town meeting, the residents voted no on a proposal to have a casino in the town. Town officials insisted that the open ended question -- approved by a voice vote -- had no impact on the agreement with the Wampanoags. But casino opponents were nonetheless cheered by that result...  Read the rest of thie Globe story here.
_____________________

A sense of resignation hung over voters

Voters at a massive outdoor Town Meeting today overwhelmingly approved a deal with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe that could bring casino gambling to the state and millions of dollars to the town...  Saturday’s vote came after about 2½ hours of debate on the athletic field behind the high school where residents gathered for the historic Town Meeting. Casino advocates argued it was a lucrative deal and a tremendous opportunity for the struggling town to get needed funding. Opponents said the deal wasn’t generous enough and was reached without sufficient public input.

Residents carted in lawn chairs, food and umbrellas Saturday morning in anticipation of the lengthy meeting .  Town Meeting in Massachusetts dates back to the early 17th century, but Middleborough’s meeting was unusual in its size and scope. Roger Brunelle, the town’s information technology director, handled logistics and compared the security to a visit by a head of state. He estimated it would cost the town $100,000.

A sense of resignation that a casino was a done deal drove the decisions of several voters interviewed as they walked into the meeting...  Read the rest of this Standard-Times story here.

1 comment »

New report supports lobstermen's line on fishing rules; Insurance chief backs Fair Plan rate hike; British PM won't visit; Rep. Turner to honor injured Trooper

Tony Blair's replacement stays home this year

For the first summer in year's Gordon Brown won't be spending his holiday here. He  normally goes off to Cape Cod - a stolid and sensible choice of vacation mirroring his personality - and rubs hide with the local Democrats who also vacation here each summer. This year, as the new Prime Minister of Great Britain, he has vowed to stay in England, leaving 1,000 bed and breakfasts from The Lizard up to Cape Wrath living in terror lest he and his family crash squawking, suitcases and all, into their
vestibule.  Read the Yorkshire Post column here for more on our English cousins.
______________________

 Trooper injured by drunk driver may receive a highway honor here
Rep. Turner proposes named Mid-Cape interchange for Ellen Englehardt

Brian Gilmore, owner of Cape & Islands Shredding Service, never met Trooper Ellen E. Engelhardt, at least not formally. But he saw her smiling face every day, as did thousands of other motorists on Route 6 near Exit 7 on Cape Cod, where Engelhardt was a regular detail officer during highway reconstruction work...

Hit 4 years ago today
Doctors said Engelhardt, 54, is in a permanent vegetative state; she can no longer walk, talk, eat, or communicate

It was exactly four years ago today that Engelhardt of Marion was seriously injured on Route 25. Her parked cruiser was rear-ended by a vehicle operated by a drunk driver at nearly 100 miles per hour. She is now a resident of the Middleboro Skilled Nursing and Specialized Care Center, said her daughter, Lora Tedeman of Plymouth...

(When asked for permission to set-up a roadside memorial) State Representative Cleon Turner went one better: He suggested naming the interchange off Exit 7 on the westbound side of Route 6 the "State Trooper Ellen Engelhardt Interchange."  "From all I'm told, she did a great job there, and this seems a fitting tribute," Turner said. "There aren't a lot of interchanges named after people. Bridges, yes, but naming an interchange is more unusual."   Read the rest of this Globe story here.   See previous BU report here.
______________________

Insurance chief backs Fair Plan rate hike
Cape Cod group objects

Insurance Commissioner Nonnie S. Burnes yesterday filed a legal brief supporting her predecessor's decision to increase the rates of the state's insurer of last resort by an average of 12.4 percent statewide and 25 percent on Cape Cod. Attorney General Martha Coakley is suing the Division of Insurance and the Massachusetts Fair Plan, alleging the state's former insurance commissioner, Julianne M. Bowler, made several procedural errors in approving the hefty rate increases last year. A Cape Cod citizens group last week urged Burnes to side with the attorney general and show her opposition to what the group's spokeswoman called illegal rate increases. See Globe story.
_______________________

New report supports lobstermen's line on fishing rules
Maine lobsterman's group says rules OK here but not there

“The federal government is trying to find a one-size-fits-all approach. The regulations just don’t work for us, and they don’t make sense. In Cape Cod Bay they make sense. In the Bay of Fundy they make sense. But in Maine there’s a huge economic burden for what?” -Patrice McCarronA report from the federal Government Accountability Office supports claims by Maine lobstermen that proposed new fishing gear rules that would require changes in the rope that connects lobster pots could be prohibitively expensive and put some fishermen out of business.

The report was released on Friday. The Maine Lobstermen’s Association is heading to Washington, D.C., this week to lobby Maine’s congressional delegation using its results.

“The timing of their ruling is beneficial to the fishing industry,” said Patrice McCarron, director of the MLA. “The final rules have not been released, and this report can actually be included in the final record.”

Those rules are the latest iteration of regulations from the National Marine Fisheries Service designed to protect the North Atlantic right, humpback and fin whales, whose numbers are declining. Data show that three-quarters of the right whale population and half of the humpbacks have scars caused by entanglement with fishing gear.

Some whales can free themselves from gear entanglements, but others die. The situation is particularly critical for the right whale, because scientists estimate there are only about 300 of them in existence....  Read the rest of this VillageSoup story here. 

Leave a comment »

Middleboro asks state to intervent, stop meetiing; Warming waters force cod northward; Oil Spills Are Commonplace

Middleboro casino opponents ask state officials to intervene

“Please explain what is going on in this process,” Powell pleaded in a letter to Coakley that also said voters have been denied timely information and the town is incurring costs for town meeting without the availability of funding.MIDDLEBORO —Casino opponents are asking state officials to intervene as the town finalizes plans for Saturday's historic vote on a multi-million casino pact.  Resident Jessie Powell on Wednesday asked Attorney General Martha Coakley to rule on the legality of the town meeting and the Middleboro-Lakeville Clergy Association has asked Gov. Deval Patrick to reject the extension of gambling in the region...

This comes as Secretary of State William F. Galvin continues to question plans for the town meeting vote. A representative from the secretary of state's office will be in Middleboro Thursday to meet with town leaders, Galvin's spokesman Brian Mcniff confirmed Wednesday...  Read the rest of this Brockton Enterprise story here.  
__________________________

Report: Warming waters may force cod northward

If the pace of global warming is not slowed by reducing fossil fuel emissions, by mid-century increasing water temperatures could drive cod from Georges Bank, according to a new report on climate change.

In its consideration of cod, primary attention was given to likely water temperatures and conditions on Georges Bank, an oval underwater plateau about 70 miles offshore situated between Cape Cod and Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia, which separates the Gulf of Maine from the Atlantic.But even if emissions are reduced, the report of the Union of Concerned Scientists found that with more slowly rising water temperatures, while "Georges Bank would remain suitable for adult cod ... yield and productivity may decline as these waters become less hospitable for the spawning and survival of young cod."

Lobsters on Georges Bank will fare better

The report offered little long-term hope for cod fishing south of Georges Bank, where only a small fraction of cod are caught - less than 1 percent of the regional total. The report predicted that cod would move north to find optimal temperatures and provide improved fishing in the Gulf of Maine...  As waters warm, south of Cape Cod is expected to lose its coastal lobster fisheries by mid-century, but "Maine may see its lobster habitat expand," the report said...  Read the rest of this Gloucester Times story here.   
_____________________________

Oil Spills Are Commonplace, Decried, and Tolerated

Far from isolated mega-catastrophes -- such as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska's Prince William Sound -- oil spills occur routinely around the world, causing environmental and economic damage, provoking investigations by regional governments, and often leaving the victims unsatisfied.

Entering the words "oil spill" in the Google News search engine returned more than 2,500 distinct articles published in the last 30 days on the topic.  At the top of the news right now is the 100-foot fountain of petroleum that smothered the Canadian town of Burnaby this week, after a pipeline was pierced by a road-excavation crew.

Fifty homes were evacuated and the contamination spread to the nearby Burrard Inlet, a harbor and wetlands ecosystem home to a variety of marine wildlife, inclding four species of salmon.

..In Massachussets, a state senator complained that four years after a "catastrophic" spill near Cape Cod, coastal waters are still vulnerable after the state's Oil Spill Prevention Act was largely nullified by a federal court. The U.S. Justice Department successfully argued that coastal regulation was the domain of the Coast Guard, not states. The ruling is currently under appeal; the Standard-Times of Bedford, Mass., reports that more than 2 billion gallons of petroleum products pass through Cape Cod every year...  Read the rest of this NewsDesk story here. 

Leave a comment »

State to monitor M-Boro casino vote; Checking The Bay for invasive species;

Scientists to check Cape Cod Bay piers for invasive species

"Invasive species can have devastating consequences for native marine ecosystems, and present unique challenges for managers of bays, beaches and estuaries - the very places that define the special character of the Massachusetts coast, said Ian Bowles, secretary for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, in a press release. "This week's survey will give us the up-to-date information we need to safeguard natural resources along the commonwealth's shores."For the second time in a decade, a group of scientists will evaluate ocean organisms growing on the sides and underneath Jodrey State Fish Pier.  The concern is that nonnative plant and animals species could harm the marine environment, the economy and public's health.

The Gloucester study will be conducted Thursday by the Massachusetts Bays Program as part of a seven-day inspection of floating wharves and piers at 20 sites from Cape Cod to Penobscot Bay, Maine.

The study aims to collect, identify and catalogue the different species to develop an inventory of marine species, identify recently introduced species, and to help prevent and control future invasions of nonnative species...  Read the rest of this Gloucster Times story here.  
____________________________

Secretary of State wants more details on casino vote
Middleborough to set procedure

Galvin said he expected a final plan for the Town Meeting to be published by the town on the Internet and on paper by today. As many as 10,000 of the town's 15,000 registered voters are expected to attend the meeting. According to the town clerk's office, 600 new voters have registered in the last two weeks.Secretary of State William F. Galvin said yesterday that Middleborough town officials had made a lot of progress in detailing procedures of the Town Meeting planned for Saturday to vote on whether to welcome a casino, but cautioned that more work was needed.  "They're making progress, but I will not be satisfied until we've finalized a plan that can be published," Galvin said by telephone.

He said one issue centers on the procedure for checking in voters as they cast ballots.  Galvin said Middleborough Town Clerk Eileen Gates said she was recruiting town clerks and assistants from neighboring communities to assist in the check-in at the ballot boxes.  There will be an initial check-in just to enter the athletic fields at Middleborough High School where the Town Meeting will be held. Thirty election workers will check in registered voters at one of six entrances, corresponding to their precinct....  Read the rest of the Globe story here. 

2 comments »

Tribe wants funding for roadwork; Group says town is "being rushed"

Tribe wants funding for roadwork near casino
$172m planned to fix streets in Middleborough

Town land must be a "reservation"
If town voters approve the agreement, town officials will be obliged to write letters in support of the casino to the state and federal governments. The US Department of the Interior must approve converting the land into a reservation, and the state must approve an exemption to the state prohibition against slot machines.
   No action is expected by the Interior Department during the next 18 months, because President Bush's administration has said it will not approve applications by federally recognized tribes to create reservation land.MIDDLEBOROUGH -- Five days before a town vote on the state's first casino, Middleborough officials disclosed in documents yesterday that the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian tribe plans to seek state and federal help to fund a major makeover of the area near the planned $1 billion resort, including three interchanges on busy Route 44.  The $172 million in road improvements constitute the biggest chunk of $250 million in one- time infrastructure work the tribe promises around the proposed casino. The tribe does not specify how much of that $172 million it seeks from government agencies.

Under the pact, announced Friday, the tribe would pay the town at least $11 million a year, $4 million more than previously agreed, by adding revenue from a hotel room tax. The payment, to compensate the town for hosting millions of casino visitors, would be $7 million the first year and increase by 3.1 percent a year indefinitely. But the fine print of the 45-page deal, posted on the town's website yesterday afternoon, also says that the payment cannot exceed 2 percent of the casino's net revenues in any year...   Read the rest of this Globe story here.  

See PDF of complete "Intergovernmental agreement between the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and the town of Middleborough" document here.
_____________________

Middleboro rushing casino vote, critics say

“I’m hoping the people will take a look at the agreement logically and realize the only way to preserve the town is to support it,” - Middleboro selectman Adam BondCasino critics today slammed Middleboro town bosses for rushing residents into making a decision on a  deal that could net the town a cash jackpot. Residents vote Saturday to either accept or reject the lucrative agreement that could bring Middleboro $11 million a year for hosting the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s resort casino.

But the 45-page agreement was only posted on the town’s Web site yesterday, leaving residents just days to read it and reach a decision. “We have got a 45-page document to read and then have five days to make an informed decision. It is ridiculous to expect us to do that,” said Middleboro resident Jacquie Tolosko, president of anti-casino group CasinoFacts.org.  “This is a complex agreement which is going to take much longer to read. I feel like we are being steamrolled here. It is just crazy.” As well as the $11 million annual payment, the deal would also give the town a percentage of the casino’s gaming revenue and a $250 million one-time payment for infrastructure improvements... Read the rest of the Herald story here. 

1 comment »

Mihos recovering from cancer; Buzzards Bay still not protected; Summer rental market going strong;

Christy Mihos upbeat after undergoing surgery
Former Governor candidate had prostate cancer

The Boston Globe reports today that "though he's not exactly comfortable, Christy Mihos is at least resting after undergoing surgery for prostate cancer."

"I thank my lucky stars they caught it early enough" - MihosThe former gubernatorial candidate has lost a lot of weight, but is optimistic that he'll make a complete recovery. "I thank my lucky stars they caught it early enough," the Globe reported that Mihos told them yesterday. "As soon as it was found, I said, 'Let's get this thing out of me.' "

The owner of 14 Christy's Markets on Cape Cod, Mihos also was recently diagnosed with skin cancer, for which he underwent a separate procedure. "Can you believe I'd never spent a night in the hospital in my whole life?" he said. Asked what might have happened if Governor Mihos had been stricken, he replied with a joke. "There would have been a lot of diagrams in your paper," he said.
___________________________

Buzzards Bay still "unprotected" in oil spill aftermath

More than 2 billion gallons of petroleum products move through the Cape Cod Canal annually on more than 1,200 barges, according to Coalition for Buzzards Bay Executive Director Mark Rasmussen.NEW BEDFORD — More than four years after a Bouchard oil barge struck a rocky ledge in Buzzards Bay, causing a catastrophic spill, the risk of another incident remains just as high today, according to Sen. Mark C.W. Montigny, who has introduced a new bill to protect the bay.

"We feel that this bay is as unprotected now as it was when Bouchard criminally abused it, and we feel that perhaps the abuse from the Coast Guard is even more shocking," the senator told a Joint Committee on the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture Monday afternoon.  The committee was at the UMass School for Marine Science and Technology to hear testimony on a variety of bills relating to the waters of the commonwealth.

Sen. Montigny's comments were directed at a July 2006 federal court decision that weakened the state's Oil Spill Prevention Act. The act required oil transporters to use tug escorts, designated routes, vessel tracking systems and local pilots while transiting Buzzards Bay. The Coast Guard and the barge industry opposed these provisions...  Read the rest of this Standard-Times story here.
__________________________

Summer rental market going strong

The traditional summer exodus to Cape Cod is already in full swing. Yet, as hundreds of New England families scurry to load their sport utility vehicles with overpriced gas, beach gear and screaming children, another Cape seems to be drawing more and more attention.

"Togetherness"
"The buzzword right now is 'togethering," said Sharoff, whose properties range from $650 to $15,000 per week. "Children are getting married and moving all around the world and the only time the family can spend together is when people take vacations together. If you rent a house by the beach, it is an adventure. Everyone is happy, and they get along."Carole Sharoff, president of Atlantic Vacation Homes and former director of the tourism committee for the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce, said her 200-plus vacation homes on Cape Ann are renting at an unprecedented rate in her 25 years of business.

"The rental market is far better than any summer we have ever experienced," Sharoff said. "(While) not every single house is booked at every single moment in time, for the most part, we have done really well."

Elizabeth "Betty" Pool agreed. This summer, the waterfront homes the rental manager for Carlson GMAC Real Estate rents in Rockport are attracting many vacationers.  "Rentals this year are going better than last year," said the longtime Cape Ann resident. "I find the Internet has generated a constant steady stream of people wanting to come."

While both real estate agents believe that technology has enhanced their ability to attract visitors to Cape Ann, the Internet has done little to stem the tide of what seems to be an increasingly bleak rental season for other coastal communities such as Salisbury Beach, Plum Island and towns on Cape Cod...   Read the rest of this Gloucester Times story here. 

1 comment »