The Great Gadfly

Equal and Opposite Reaction

A well known rule of physics is that for every action their is an opposite and equal reaction. Is there ever. Let's take a walk down technology Lane and see how we are doing as a nation environmentally. We could start with ethanol, that gift of the gods to the farmer, the oil companies and the politicians who sing its praises. Ethanol allows farmers to sell for a market rate  corn that they used to discard as unsaleable...or feed to their livestock. Now the dumpster and the herd go hungry as this formerly unusable grain is shipped off to refineries where it is converted into an alcohol that is mixed with standard gasoline to produce a supposedly cleaner burning fuel.

 

So far this sounds great, doesn't it? Sure it does. Excpet that it is raising hell with the price of feed and that in turn is raising the price of meat. And, now many farmers are raising inferior grains for ethanol instead of the grains they used to raise for food so our bread prices are rising. Pizza is no longer a cheap date. Even better is the fact that to produce one gallon of ethanol requires one gallon or more of petroleum. So, how are we saving oil and easing the energy crunch? We are not. But, everyone seems happy to be burying their snouts in the ethanol trough; farmers, refiners, oil companies and politicians...now there's a marriage for you.

 

Then there are  hybrid cars...part internal combustion and part electric. They use batteries, lots of batteries in all those environmentally sensitive little cars, big batteries. Forget about how we will dispose of them after their useful lives are expended...and batteries are among the really difficult and nasty things we have to dispose of. Just think about all the nickel that goes into them...torn from the earth in mining operations that make Armageddon look like a walk in the park. In Canada, for example, one of the two largest nickel smelters in the world killed off the vegetation for a hundred or more square miles around the plant with the acid rain it caused and the result was soil erosion so that now over a hundred  square miles of land are bare blackened rock.

 

This is the Inco mine in Sudbury, Ontario, 307 miles from Detroit and 267 miles from Buffalo, as the wind blows. The Inco mine at Sudbury has the tallest smokestack in this hemisphere...the second tallest in the world and it belches sulfur dioxide at the rate of dozens of tons per day into the atmosphere where the westerly winds carry it down over the United States. The next time some snotty Canadian criticizes U.S. environmental policy ask him about Sudbury, Ontario. And the next time Toyota tells you how clean they are as a company ask them if they but nickel from Inco.

 

We just are not too bright, we humans. If the congress had the guts to do it, they could save up to fifteen percent of our residential electric use by banning incandescant light bulbs in favor of the readily available energy saving fluorescents. But Congress loves tradition and stupidity is among their oldest and proudest. They could mandate vehicle size by fleet

average, mandate higher fuel economy standards and do all sorts of things to make our energy future more secure. But then they might have to turn down the air conditioning in the Capitol in the summer...or take the summer off and do no harm for three months. Having spoken with various people at the U.S. Department of Energy Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, I can say that it is a widely held opinion among energy experts that the fastest way to save energy and lower energy prices and create thousands of new energy related jobs is to institute serious energy conservation programs now, today. We have the technology; do we have the will?

 

All for now.

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VOTE YES ON QUESTION 5 IN YARMOUTH

Town would have saved $207,000 this year WITHOUT the Commission
And they have spent $3 million of Yarmouth's money so far

The people of Yarmouth will go to the polls tomorrow to vote on millions of dollars in overrides, one selectman's seat and the Cape Cod Commission. The Cape Cod Commission question is #5 on the ballot.

Commission has been in business for eighteen years and has spent over $55 million in Cape Cod  taxpayer money.A YES vote will require the town to file a petition with the Massachusetts legislature allowing Yarmouth to withdraw from the Commission. This year alone that would have saved Yarmouth tax payers $207,000.

Let the voters be heard
Yarmouth citizens voted at the town meeting of 2007 to post this question on the ballot and since then the board of selctmen have tried, sometimes in underhanded ways, to oppose allowing the the voters to be heard. Now the selectmen actually support the notion that the Commission deserves to be given more time to present us with changes in how they do their job. Another eighteen years, maybe? A few million dollars more, maybe?

The Commission stifles any and all tax base growth
Yarmouth's commercial tax base is not growing primarily because the Commission stifles any and all growth. The recent passage of the Growth Incentive Zone for the motels on Route 28 has already triggered millions of dollars in sales of older motels and three major motel renovation/construction projects. The net increase on revenues to the town will exceed $100,000 every year. This Growth Incentive Zone was made possible by a zoning bylaw that was written by the town and approved by Yarmouth voters. The Cape Cod Commission had nothing to do with it. Then, once the town meeting had approved the plan it took another six months for the Assembly of Delegates to hold pointless hearings and finally approve the plan. Now motels on route 28 can renovate, replace and even combine various types of housing and commercial growth without having to spend a year or more and hundreds of thousands of dollars going through review by the Cape Cod Commission process.

Yarmouth can do its own zoning and planning
There has been no economic development in Yarmouth because the Commission has failed to do any economic development work.Yarmouth can do its own zoning and planning. Yarmouth does not need and cannot afford the Cape Cod Commission. Yarmouth coordinates transportation improvements such as the new Willow Street with the state without help from the Commission. Meanwhile, after eighteen years the Commission still has not produced a Cape wide regional transportation master plan. There has been no economic development in Yarmouth because the Commission has failed to do any economic development work, even though the law that gave us the Commission requires them to do so.

The Cape Cod Commission has been in business for eighteen years and has spent over $55 million in Cape Cod  taxpayer money. Close to $3 million of that came from Yarmouth. If Yarmouth votes YES ON QUESTION 5  tomorrow we will begin a process that could take two years or more to complete and during that time the Commission will still rule and they will have ample opportunity to make the changes we all know are needed. But, Yarmouth must keep the pressure on. Caving in to the selectmen will not help the town grow its commercial tax base. And, not one of them has done anything to help Yarmouth's commercial tax base grow or to create jobs....not one of them has done anything but they want us to wait for improvements at the Commission.

If not now, WHEN? If not here, WHERE?
After eighteen years it is fair to say the Commission has had plenty of time to hear our complaints and change. They have had plenty of time to do their job as spelled out in their authorizing legislation, but they have failed to do so. They have had plenty of time to help grow our economy and foster job growth. How much more time do they deed? How much more money?

The Commission has a new executive director only because Yarmouth spoke at town meeting last year and put fear into their hearts. But, he is only one man. We cannot even get our representative to the Assembly of Delegates to propose changes in the Commission's enabling regulations. And she is the President of the Assembly. Have the three county commissioners shown any concern for the changes Yarmouth has clearly said we need? NO! Do Yarmouth citizens want people from Brewster or Truro telling us how big our buildings should be and what kinds of businesses we should encourage? NO!

One man is not enough to change the Cape Cod Commission, but one town has proven it can. VOTE YES ON QUESTION #5 and keep the pressure on.

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Three Blind Mice or Moe, Larry and Surly

The media have annointed three semi finalists in the presdiential sweepstakes, two Democrats and one Republican. As usual what we are fed by the majority media is both unsatisfying and incomplete. Let's go through these jokers one by one:

Hillary Clinton -

Lately the Clinton's have shoved their daughter Chelsea onto the national stage to flog the former first lady's presidential campaign. They and the media are surprised and shocked when people ask Chelsea rude questions.

While I agree that it is totally inappropriate to ask Chelsea Clinton about her father's trysts with a brainless White House intern, what annoys me more are the questions not asked. For instance, "Chelsea, you are clearly seen in video footage of you and your mother landing in Kosavo when she claims she was the target of sniper fire; what is your recollection of this fantasy?" Or, how about, "Does it bother you that your father comitted perjury while president and that your mother defended him in the international press only to have his perjury proven?" Maybe, "How do feel about the fact that while your mother was co-governor of Arkansas a major national child advocacy group filed a successful class action lawsuit against Arkansas for its barbaric neglect of children in state care and that your mother now claims to be a staunch advocate for decent child care?"

"Gee, Chelsea, your mother says she will maintain a strong military but as co-president she said nothing when your father offered military career personnel a choice: take a pay cut or a reduction in rank by one step. How do you respond to that?"

 

Moving on to Barack Obama

He tells us he wants to lead the most powerful nation on earth and that he wants to be a unifying leader but for twenty years he respected as his pastor a man so hate-filled he stands out even in Chicago. Even Jesse Jackson has had the sense not to defend the Reverend Wright. He is a grerat orator but Reverend Wright is an effective speaker also.

 

And then we have John McCain

McCain said recently that the government should not bail out irrsponsible borrowers or banks. This is quite a change for McCain who was one of the "Keating Five." In 1989 -1991. Along with senators Dennis DiConcini, John Glenn, Donald Riegle and Alan Cranston McCain was investigated by the Senate Banking Committee for official corruption (influence peddling) and in 1991, after a lengthy and very public cycle of hearings was found by the Senate Ethics Committee to have engaged in improper activities. Cranston was recommended for sanction. At issue was the influence of the Keating Five as they attempted to call off the dogs when a rogue banker, Charles H. Keating, Jr. who controlled the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association in Irvine California was under federal investigation.

Keating had bankrupted the bank and eventually cost  American taxpayers an estimated $3.4 billion. McCain family memmbers had invested in a shopping center owned by Keating and he had received six-figure campaign contributions from Keating. Time has certainly changed John McCain.

 

All three of the presidential candidates are currently serving as members of the United States Senate. They are drawing full salary and benefits to serve in the senate while they travel the country promoting their candidacies. If recent history tell us anything it might be that none of these three has a clue what this country needs.

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Everyone Should Be Angry

Perhaps no disclaimer is required because I am a well known opponent of Cape Wind's plans for a wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal. Balancing my opposition is the long standing and well known support enjoyed by Cape Wind at Cape Cod Today. It is a credit to Walter Brooks that he allows and does not interfere with non-inflammatory comments opposing this project. And it is unfortunate that some, on both sides of the issue, have sunk to incredible lows in their comments.

 

So, here we ego: From the very beginning of the federal review process, now in the neighborhood of six years, the only thing more stunning that the vitriolic persnal comments about Kennedy and others or the similar comments made by anti Cape Wind agents against Cape Wind supporters has been the utter and seemingly  not-to- be-overcome incompetence of two major federal agancies. First there was the Army of Engineers in our hall of shame and now the Minerals Management Service. In my opinion the outrage caused by their incompetence should be shared equally by both sides of this debate. Jim Gordon should be purple with rage that he has been forced to spend probably $10 million more than he should have because the USACE review was shoddy enough to allow Cape Wind opponents to argue successfully for review by another agency. Gordon's opposition should be boiling mad that the USACE review was so sloppily done that it could not be used to kill the Horseshoe Shoal siting. Now, we have an even more amateurish effort by the Minerals Management Service, which flagrantly violated federal law in several key regards.

 

We here on Cape Cod and we the citizens of the entire country should be camped on our congressman's and senators' doorsteps demanding to know why the Cape Wind matter was not settled three years ago or more. People on both sides of this issue have been done a disservice by lawless an incompetent federal officials.

 

Here are some of the failures and breaches by MMS:

 1.     The Envirinmental Policy Act 0f 2005, signed into law on August 18 of 2005, commanded that MMS promulgate and put into effect a full rule making no later than 270 months thence. That meant that in May of 2006 MMS was to have all the rules and policies in place for such things as the erview of the Cape Wind application. As of today those rules and policies have not been written, much less published and put into play.

 

2.     Section 338 of this same law commands MMS to work with all other relevant federal agencies when doing such things as reviewing a Cape Wind application.  Really? Well, here are some of MMS omssions:

        A. The Coast Guard was supposed to have full terms and procedures published sixty days before the MMS could issue  a Draft Environmental Impact 

              Statement. These terms and conditions do not extist, even in draft form,  and the Coast Guard has said it does not have the funds needed to perform.

        B.  The FAA issued a letter of presumed hazard months ago but MMS went ahead with release of it DEIS and based its findings of no hazard to aviation on

              information from 2002 which is now being reviewed and possibly contested by the FAA.

        C. The Army Corps was given a failing grade for its review of the Cape Wind proposal under the Endangered Species Act by EPA but MMS used the USACE

             report as the basis for its own DEIS.

        D. MMS admits that its own financial analysis, if published in full in the DEIS might *"tend to mislead" so they simply stated their conclusions, which even Jim 

             Gordon are incorrect, without supporting documentation. We are left not knowing how much Cape Wind's power will cost or if the project is economically  

             viable at all. 

             *This remark is actually made in the DEIS by the MMS staff member who did the economic analysis. See Appendix F, response to peer review.

 

3.     MMS was required to evaluate alternative sites. they pretended to do so but easily elimianted seven out of nine and assumed the same power output from

         each site in spite of a report by Walt musial, chief of engineering for the National renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado that shows clearly the 

         more constistent winds at greater water depths and the higher yield of power at deeper sites.

 

And on, and on, and on. We should have had a decision by a federal permitting agency three or four years ago. But we have instead nonsense. Those who support this project should blame, not the opposition, but the very federal agencies whose charge it is to make renewable energy happen. None of us in the opposition told MMS to be stupid and sloppy and incomplete. They did this all on their own. In fact, someone arranged for a midnight change in the Environmantal Policy Act of 2005. Without publication of the change, without hearings on the change, without the chance for public comment or floor debate a small provision was slipped in (how do you spell Pete Domenici?) that exempted two offshore wind projects, specifically two, from certain rules and procedures, such as competitive bidding for sites. The two projects exempted, ignoring two others also in the pipeline, were Horshoe Shoal and LIPA's project in Long Island Sound...both Jim Gordon's projects. (Gordon eventually dropped out of the LIPA project and it is now dead.) So, we cannot say that some advantage was gained for Gordon in the same way as that rediculous and bizarre mess given to us by Alaska's Ted Stevens. As long as the United States Congress continues vipers will never be an endangered species.

 

The point is that our federal review and regulatory agencies are woefully inadequate at doing their jobs. Because of this inadequacy we are left with moribund projects, enormous expense for aspplicants and no clear direction for our energy future. While I would argue that a proper review would have rejected Cape Wind's proposal Jim Gordon and his supporters would argue the opposite. But the fact is that we share a common enemy...our own government agencies who produce not results but uncertainty and inertia. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory lost over one hundred staff last year alone and the Coast Guard cannot perform the work needed to develope the terms and procedures the Cape Wind project requires. One critically important study needed by MMS would cost $4 million but the country cannot afford it while we spend $12 billion every month in Iraq.

 

These are my observations and I oppose Cape Wind on Horseshoe Shoal. Where are its supporters in the face of such dereliction of duty?...poking fun at a fat senator or a man who once worked for a coal company. If we don't all smarten up and pull together we will all find ourselves shivering in the dark, but probably still bickering. 

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Public Disservice

 Now you see it... now you don't

Well, here we go again, the local daily rage-of-record is once again excavating deeper to find its new standards in community service. They have so far failed to hit oil but China cannot be far off. They have been digging continuously for years. While I tend to admire honest effort and the kind of grit it takes to continue an unpopular fight just because it is the right thing to do I have to say to the rag-of-record ....enough already!

No matter which side one takes in the debate over Cape Wind the idea that our local puppy pad told us that their weekend edition would dish new dirt on the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound only to leave us wondering on Sunday where this momentous story had gone, without so much as a whisper of explaining is rediculous. Did someone jump the gun? Did someone fib to an editor? Did someone simply screw up? Be still my heart. This followed what I thought was a simply stupid piece telling us how many times candidates for local public office had voted over the past few years. With  a war raging @ $12 billion per month, towns facing shrinking revenues, national recession, local crime on the rise and all the other goodies available for reporters to chew on...what the hell was that story about?

This country finds one half of one percent of its people serving in the military and another one percent serving time in jail. When there are twice as many people locked up as locked and loaded would you think the local newspaper could find something meaningful to write about? Well, I can and here it is: the local daily newspaper does an absolutely lousy job of covering local politics and government, absolutely awful. In particular our local daily rag-of-record is an embarassment and a public disservice. The Barnstable Patriot is a marvelopus little weekly newspaper that picks clean the shell of town of Barnstable doings every week. The Community Newspapers do a fair job and freely admit that they are limited by time and budget. CAPECODTODAY daily beats the CC Times to traffic accidents, local affairs, county scandals  and assorted doings. But the Times, with its billionaire owner and its pompous executives consitently fails to deliver the goods.

Here is a question for the Times publisher; since we are talking about the past record of individual voters, implying some connection between the number of times they have voted and their worthiness to run for or hold public office...how many weekly meetings of the Board of Selectmen in Yarmouth does the Times cover, start to finish? For that matter, how many meetings of any and all public bodies Cape-wide are blessed with live coverage by Times staff on a regular basis? Where does the Times get the notion that it is competent to comment on local affairs?

I think we should develop a local affairs test and see how many people on Main Street in Hyannis can pass it. We shall start with Peter Myer, the Times publisher. We shall publish the test questions and his answers...and his pathetic reasons for the failure I feel certain he will achieve.  Over the years we have all watched helplessly as good reporters were shifted from assignment to assignment, beat to beat. We have seen the Times descend from being a pretty fair local paper to being what it is today, wall-to-wall carpeting for bird cages. The staff who can research and write are increasingly not given the resources or the back up to perform as they could and would like to do; the paper's substantial net income never makes it to the local bank but is skimmed by far away ownership so that the rich get richer and we get re-heated syndicated tripe instead of hardhitting local news. And sometimes the pain-in-the butt variety are kicked upstairs called editor and allowed to do real damage, instead of being shown the door. What can we expect from a newspaper that cannot get rid of incompetent management but cannot keep good reporters?

Times are changing for nearly every industry and type of commerce. The newspaper business is not exempt from these changes, but the lack of originality in how newspaper management approach the challenges of these changing times is stunning. Happily, the world of the blog is expanding. It is no longer necessary to have one's mind formed by schools of journalism and one's views dictated by Daddy Warbucks, right or left.  Unhappily, anyone can blog.  Oh well, at least bloggers can claim amateur status while outfits such as the Cape Cod Times are hard pressed to justify their professional journalists' credentials.

I'll let everyone know when we will be administering the local affairs knowldge exam, or AKE. Right about now Peter Myer is probably developing a severe head AKE.

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You Could Be The Next Poker MILLIONAIRE

You Could Be The Next Poker MILLIONAIRE
Who needs a casino when a laptop will do?

By Peter Kenney

Recently released figures show that various interests have combined to exceed in $2 billion in expenditures for lobbying in the year 2007. The cause that earned such support...online gambling. Even the giant credit card company Visa, which had in the past lobbied hard against allowing online gambling, has now joined the chorus. It is amazing to me that people are asking “why, how could this happen?”. It is the age-old motive -- money. There are staggering amounts of money to be made and handled.

Poker – the new spectator sport

Consider, one of the fastest growing spectator events on cable television is gambling, primarily Texas hold'em poker. What was once a game that had just one annual national tournament is now at the center of a yearlong calendar of tournaments played at casinos and resorts all over the United States and in the Caribbean. Winners of these events can take home cash prizes of several-hundred-thousand dollars for each tournament. And there are huge prizes for as many as six or more placing behind the winner.

The World Poker Tour, as this new attraction is called, is truly a world tour and it is growing by leaps and bounds. Some of its perennial top players, professional gamblers, have become so recognizable to the general public that they command high fees to appear in television commercials. Since total strangers do not command high fees, that means a lot of people, tens of millions, must know who they are on sight. That is a large market.

The Web and gambling -- a potent cocktail

An interesting development in the world of high-stakes competition is that now anyone can enter a tournament, make it into the poker tour with a chance to win right along side the hardcore professional gamblers who play at the tour. For some, this means coming up with as much $10,000 to enter. For others, there is the chance to win a place at the table by playing poker and winning online. As with any good sales effort the enticements are huge and loud or subtle and everywhere. And herein lies a partial explanation of the vast amounts of money being poured into lobbying efforts supportive of online gambling.

Consider, advertising interests have recognized the power and value of the Web. So, they want online gambling because it will bring more prospective buyers of their wares to the Web. Also, banks and credit card companies want to lend more money to more people at high fees. After all, when a person sits down at a home computer and logs on there is no cash being taken from a pocket, it’s just a matter of typing in a series of digits. The combined addictive aspects of the Web itself and gambling make for a potent cocktail.

Who needs a casino when a laptop will do?

Best of all is this: there is no need to go through the regulatory hassle and huge expense of getting a state-issued gaming license. Who needs to build a billion-dollar casino when a laptop will do...and the gambler pays for the laptop! There is no need to spend money for the travel required to go to a casino; all that money can go towards a devastating evening trying to beat the pros at Hold'em.

Here in Massachusetts, for example, our horse racing business is nearly dead. But, a race track could install computer terminals and charge a fee for using them to gamble online as well as taking a share of the "drop" or "handle” -- the total amount gambled by each player. Churches, social clubs, hotels and resorts, bars and restaurants...any place with a roof and electricity plus an Internet connection is now potentially a casino. Of course there is money being spent on lobbying for online gambling.

Online gambling is increasingly seen as a way to save fading resort and recreation venues such as aging coastal resorts and hotels in cities. Slumping racetracks, out-of style restaurants and probably convenience stores and neighborhood bars will be the Babylon of poker. How about a boozy night at the local strip club with a wallet full of credit cards? Now there is a recipe for disaster.

Pimps, dope dealers, bookies – and Visa

People will still travel to Las Vegas and Reno and Atlantic City and Connecticut, but they will also now be able to lose their shirts at home or at a whole new range of convenient locations nearby. Pimps, dope dealers, bookies and assorted con artists now have high-class company -- Visa and many more respectable American commercial giants. As I heard one celebrity commentator crow recently on cable television at the end of one of the new poker tournaments -- "Visit us online at www...com and YOU could be the next poker MILLIONAIRE!

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Building Commish Keeps File Under Wraps

Building Commish Keeps File Under Wraps
Public records elude citizen’s inspection

By Peter Kenney

“I’ll see if he’s in his office.”

These words, heard over a telephone, are as chilling and bleak as “I'll have to put you on hold for a minute" or, in an electronic drone, "XYZ appreciates your business. Our next customer service representative will be with you shortly. The average wait time today is three-and-a-half hours."

We’ll call back

I knew I was in trouble when I made the first of four calls to Yarmouth Town Hall on a recent Thursday morning. At 9:00 a.m. I got a recorded message asking me to leave my name and telephone number, advising me that my call would be returned. It was not. I was calling the Building Commissioner's office.

The reason for my call was simple. I wanted to know why the Yarmouth Building Commissioner had not wanted to give a copy of public records to a citizen. The reason for my call was simple. I wanted to know why the Yarmouth Building Commissioner had not wanted to give a copy of public records to a citizen. The details and names of the parties involved are not appropriate for publication at this point. But a Yarmouth resident had gone in person to the Building Commissioner's office and asked for a copy of each of several building permits taken out over the past few years by another person for work to be performed in Yarmouth.

The Building Commissioner asked why the requesting party wanted the records. What is the legal basis for him to ask such a thing? I can find none. At a later date he was asked again and he said he would have to charge for the time to "research" and copy the documents.

Are things different in Yarmouth?

My experience with various town halls when it comes to getting copies of documents is that a helpful person goes to the files, finds the document(s) I want, makes the copies and hands them to me. Sometimes there is a fee of a few cents per copy. Apparently, Jim Brandolini, the Yarmouth Building Commissioner, has a different idea about what his responsibilities and rights are.

Back to the telephone calls. I heard nothing from Yarmouth Town Hall so I called again shortly after noon. This time the same pleasant voice I had heard on the earlier recording said, "If you wait just a minute, Mr. Kenney, I'll see if he's in his office." I waited.

The cheery voice returned and asked, "Jim wants to know if he can call you later." I said yes and made sure she had the number. Oddly, I received no call. So, at 3:40 p.m., I called the building commissioner's number again and spoke again with the cheery voice. She asked me to wait just a minute.

She returned shortly to say that Jim wants to know if he could meet with me in his office on the twenty-first or the twenty-second (This was January). I said I just wanted to ask him why he was making it so hard for a citizen to get what should be instantly available -- copies of public records.

Then the cheery voice asked if maybe she could help and I told her what I wanted -- copies of certain building permits. She said she would check the file. This time I waited longer than before and when the voice returned I was told, "They must be in Jim's office. I'll check for you."

Under lock and key

When the voice came back on the line she told me that the permits I was looking for were not to be found, that they must be in the file -- which she could not find -- and that the file must be "locked in Jim's desk."

She offered as a reason that, maybe, Jim was working on the file.

Then she told me something surprising. Jim Brandolini was on vacation for all of that week and the next. "He won't be in the office until the twenty-first."

Why hadn't she told me this at noon?

Why had we gone around and around about searching for the file? Why did he want to see me in person to discuss what I thought was a fairly simple matter?

Why, exactly, does Jim Brandolini, in his official capacity as Yarmouth Building Commissioner, resist providing copies of basic public documents to a citizen?

And why does he then go on vacation and leave the entire file for a house -- complete with its history of permits and inspections -- locked away for two weeks, denying anyone and everyone access to the contents of that file?

This may not be Denmark but something is surely rotten. I still want those copies, Jim.

10 comments »

If Glenn Marshall is the Wampanoag Judas, what do we call the governor?

Governor What’s His Name

By Peter Kenney

While Governor Deval Patrick's opposition to the Mashpee Wampanoag federal land trust application may make him the Deval Custer of Mashpee history, what do the rest of us call him for the deals he is making behind our backs to gain legislative support for his gambling bill? “Judas” seems to fit the bill, and I do mean bill.

There is no such thing as a legislator who will change his vote from one opposing the governor to one helping him without some sort of reward, bribe, gratuity, pork-barrel project or favor. A simple kiss on the fanny will not do. The problem is that the cost of these arrangements is never paid out of the governor's personal funds but ours...the citizens of Massachusetts. How much has it cost us to help the governor convince fifteen state legislators to support his gambling bill?

After all, this is Massachusetts

We know that the governor -- Custer or Judas -- whatever his name is -- has already included hundreds of millions of dollars in anticipated gambling proceeds in next year's budget. The fact that these revenues are nowhere in sight at the time the budget is cast seems to trouble no one. After all, this is Massachusetts.

The most likely chain of events is that Judas expects to be able to get the legislature to pass his gambling bill this spring. Then there will be a flood of $400 million or more paid to the state by two or three applicants for casino licenses. BINGO...$400 million or more...just as Judas promised. But, the crapshoot goes on to even higher stakes.

It is good to be king

Once our normally restrained and thrifty legislators saw the budget projections Judas waived under their noses, once he showed them a loading dock crammed with unopened pork barrels and let them smell all that fresh meat, they did the only respectable thing and started caving to their various constituencies.

Local schools and public works projects, jobs programs for out-of-work hacks, guarantees of thousands of new union jobs so that union members could pay millions more in dues to their leaders who could then “re-invest” all that hard-earned money to support the right kinds of candidates. WOW...what's not to like? So, fifteen members of the legislature -- according to whoever counts the pieces of silver on Beacon Hill -- have come around to the governor's way of thinking, again. It is good to be king.

Cue the floodgates!

There is not one casino application yet, because there is no gambling law yet; there is not one dime of taxes from a casino because there are no casinos yet; there is not one union construction job or service job in a casino yet because there is no gambling bill, no gambling applications and no casinos.

But, already there are programs to be funded and hacks to be hired to manage those programs and it will all work out just fine because there will be a gambling bill and its passage will open the floodgates of casino applications and each one will be accompanied by a treasurer's check for at least $100 million. WHEW!

Deval – he’s biting off more than WE can chew

Now, since the approval process will take some time and since it will take much longer than a year to build a casino and start the river of cash flowing to Beacon Hill, how will we support the expenditures Judas has projected for the next three or four years, the period between now and whenever the casinos commence operations? Simple. We will cook the books again next year and the year after that -- maybe lay off some more folks at the Registry or in the courts.

Silly me. That's next year. Why worry? Is it even polite to suggest that, once again, the Governor has bitten off more than we can chew?

Hey, kiss ME first

Hey, Judas...next time kiss me first. What I want to know is how badly did the man with the Harvard Law degree sell us out this time?

Remember, while he was somewhere else doing other things we were all here celebrating the success of the sales tax that cured our fiscal crisis...or was it the state lottery?

The sales tax was passed as a "temporary" 3 percent tax...and it was temporary. It quickly jumped to 5 percent where it has stayed. What a hangover that victory party caused.

A novel solution -- smoke 'em if ya got 'em

My solution for the state is to use $200 million of Judas's anticipated $400 million in casino application fees to advertise the benefits of cigarette smoking. Then, add two bucks to the price of every pack of cigarettes; require smoking by state employees and all police officers standing in the road on a detail; institute a mandatory hiring policy for private employers that requires every third person hired to smoke at least one pack a day; and levy a poverty tax of 5 percent on every thousand dollars a Massachusetts worker earns BELOW $25,000.

Look, Judas, if you are going to screw the people, let's really let 'em have it. You can hang yourself later.

Got a butt...?

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Vista Stinks!

In technical terms – it’s a pig

Bully Gates rides again

By Peter Kenney

Perhaps “Bully” would be a better name for Bill Gates than Billy. He may have built one of the largest fortunes in history by becoming the king of software but his marketing methods are pure hard sell. Consider his latest offering, the operating system known as Vista. My personal choice is anything by Apple for a number of reasons, but none of these really has anything to do with this piece. So, let's just deal with Mr. Gates and Vista. In a word, and according to many, many people whose comments I heave heard, Microsoft's newest operating system stinks. But, anyone who buys a new computer other than one made by Apple with an Apple software system installed will be forced to have the Vista experience.

She's some slow, ain't she?
The problem with Vista is that it has a few large problems. The first and most obvious is that it is, in the latest technical terms, a pig. This means it consumes a lot of the space in a computer's memory that could be used for other applications. A further problem is that it is slow.

Example: I have a friend here on the Cape who is a master carpenter and an accomplished videographer. In fact, he has won several awards, first as an amateur and then as a professional videographer. He has become very computer savvy as his editing methods progressed from old-fashioned tape to the off-line and digital technologies.

He recently helped his neighbor set up a new home computer, one that came with the Vista operating system software installed. (The instruction book for Vista is intimidating both in its size and in the fact that it reads something like the instruction manual for a nuclear submarine, or perhaps a space shuttle. Mere humans need not apply.) Once the computer was plugged in and booted up, he and the neighbor took it out for a test spin on the information super highway, the World Wide Web.

Armed with Microsoft's latest software and a brand new and highly rated computer -- not to mention the fastest Internet connection available to mortals -- the two watched the monitor expectantly. They watched and held their breaths for as long as they could, then took another deep breath and waited some more. It appears that Vista resembles the old Mercedes diesel engines...zero to sixty sometime before lunch. In his best Cape Cod drawl the neighbor observed, "She's some slow, ain't she?"

In fact, just for comparison's sake, my friend uses a ten-year-old computer that has never failed him. He has added considerable memory for video editing and various software packages -- all Windows-based -- for editing and word processing and he has even added Photoshop. Being thrifty, he still uses his original dial-up web access, which also seems to serve his needs quite nicely. He can boot up his ten-year old computer and be well beyond the entrance ramp to the information super highway before his neighbor’s Vista machine is any where near up and running.

Any operating system you want…as long as it’s Vista
I know another fellow, a man whose full time employment finds him producing video, editing video, and doing countless other very technical things with his computer. This is a man who used to build all of his own computer hardware. He just bought a brand new (and huge) HP laptop. This thing is a monster with a twenty-inch-wide screen and allegedly all the bells and whistles needed to run a major film studio's production department or, perhaps, even a small country.

This fellows comment on the Vista system is damning indeed: "I don't like it. It's slow and it doesn't do all the things they said it would or all the things I need it to do. The older Windows XP was much better." Hmm, my carpenter friend is still using exactly that, Windows XP, with superb results. Microsoft claims it is obsolete, but for my award-winning friend it is fast and reliable.

But here is the point: Microsoft leaves purchasers of new computers no choice. Remember, Microsoft does not produce, assemble or sell hardware. It is strictly a software company. So, every so often it must roll out a major new product and sell it to huge numbers of people or it will wither as a company. And, it must find ways to force, er...convince people to buy these new products.

Gates and his cronies have hit on an interesting, almost novel approach. It is called extortion. Undue pressure. Some might even say monopoly. This arm-twisting works in a deceptively simple way: any computer hardware manufacturer...any one...even the mighty companies such as HP and Dell must agree to sell all their new computers with only the Vista operating system. Dealers will and do tell prospective computer purchasers that they can still buy older Microsoft systems such as XP.

But as my professional video friend found with his new HP laptop, it appears impossible to install the Windows XP operating system once the Vista monster is in place. HP told him he could do so, but with all his years of technical expertise he has been unable to pull it off.

Software but hard sell
Leaving aside the issues of undue market influence and all the other nasty descriptors that might be applied to the Gates/Microsoft marketing strategies we must still reckon with one inescapable fact: Microsoft is forcing virtually every one who purchases a new computer -- other than those who opt for Apple -- to use an operating system that is slow, cumbersome and piggy when it comes to memory. If the people with whom I have spoken, including friends, computer professionals, and computer sales and marketing people are any indication -- Vista stinks!

But, should we assume Microsoft cares? Let's see...software but hard sell, hmmmmm. Bill Gates has certainly realized the ultimate American dream. But has he created the ultimate software nightmare? He truly is a genius. Who else in today's world can gain a net worth north of fifty billion dollars and maintain it by forcing people to buy crap?

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If gambling is the new buffalo, what does that make the Guv?

   No Candy for Deval

State vs. Tribe – follow the money 

By Peter Kenney

The first non-white governor in Massachusetts history has filed a formal opposition to the petition of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribeWhat would life be without irony? The first non-white governor in Massachusetts history has filed a formal opposition to the petition of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe to place land in federal trust for various purposes. The Mashpee are primarily interested in placing into federal trust more than 500 acres of land they own in Middleboro so they can develop a gambling resort there. However, they also want to place land they own in Mashpee into trust, land on which they have their tribal council headquarters and where they hold their annual powwow and other tribal functions.

Outside looking in
Last fall the governor released his 78-page proposal for gambling legislation in Massachusetts. His opposition to the land trust application, filed with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), a division within the United States Department of the Interior, is 125 pages long. Even in summary form the governor's document is poorly camouflaged. Stated simply, here is the governor's objection: if the Mashpee are allowed to exercise their rights fully under the terms of their unconditional federal recognition as a tribe, a sovereign nation, and if in exercising those rights the Mashpee develop a gambling enterprise, the Commonwealth will be left like a child with his nose pressed against a candy-store window looking at the sweets inside but unable to reach them...no tax revenues will flow to the state.

For all the governor's posturing in his BIA objection, talking about issues such as affordable housing, consumer protection, employment opportunities, traffic and environmental concerns, the simple and unavoidable fact is that if the tribe tomorrow agreed to pay the  $100-million-plus application fee and the minimum annual tariff contained in Patrick's gaming proposal plus sales and other taxes collected at the casino he would not object for one minute. He would drill a hole for a scallop shell earring through his tweedy ear lobe, stick feathers in his hair and dance for joy that the tribe would build its casino. But, in fact, he has made it very clear from the start that he opposes tribal gambling development in Massachusetts. That was the clear intent behind his statement last fall that he would consider reserving one of his proposed three gaming licenses for one of the Commonwealth's two recognized tribes.

A series of troubling questions
Out of all this there does – or should -- emerge -- a series of troubling questions. Supporter though I am of tribal gambling being allowed if that is what the Mashpee want, there are some very serious issues yet to be addressed by the Commonwealth and the federal government. Normally, the development of five-hundred acres for anything would trigger a review process at the state level that would resemble the planning of the D-Day assault on Europe. It would also trigger at the town level reviews by the conservation commission, the health department, the planning board, the police and fire chiefs, the zoning board of appeals, the building department, the public works/highway department and perhaps even the town meeting but certainly, at least, the Middleboro board of selectmen.

Another Harvard lawyer
This is not Connecticut and what the Mashpee are proposing has never been done in Massachusetts before. There is precedent -- although it involves only an oyster shack on Martha's Vineyard -- for saying that the local authorities can enforce various state regulations, including the state building and zoning codes, on structures erected on Indian land. But, here is a list of questions that have bothered me for some time around the whole issue of tribal sovereignty versus the rights and powers of the states in which the sovereign tribes live. Without answers to these questions non-Indian governments will always have the ability to oppose Indian enterprise. Make no mistake, Deval Patrick and his opposition to the Mashpee is all about taxes, money, gold. The environment, traffic, employment (except as jobs generate taxes for the state) have nothing to do with his latest ambush. Follow the money...

Questions:

1. Will structures built on tribal land be required to comply with Massachusetts building, fire and other safety codes?
2. Will Massachusetts law enforcement personnel be allowed free access to the tribe's property?
3. Will the tribe or its casino enterprise be liable for damages should a patron become drunk on its property and then cause property damage or personal injury outside the tribe's property? 
4. Will various state and federal laws apply within the boundaries of tribal property in such matters as employee and patron safety, employment conditions, environmental matters, drinking age, and so forth?
5. Will tribal gambling operations be required to report winnings to either the state or the IRS? What about employee withholding taxes?
6. Will the tribe and/or its investors or its gambling entity maintain their own internal security operation/personnel? Will there be armed agents of the tribe on the casino property?
7. Will Massachusetts companies be allowed free entry onto tribal property for purposes of general commerce without any penalty or restriction by the state? (Liquor wholesalers, food wholesalers, etc.)
8. Will tribal casino employees be protected to the same extent as other workers in Massachusetts by worker's compensation insurance, social security, etc.?
9. Will the tribe be afforded the protections of Massachusetts and federal law in contract matters involving the tribe and its investors, suppliers, contractors, etc.?
10. To what extent will the tribe continue functioning as a tax exempt organization using the federal 501(c)(3) IRS designation as opposed to operating simply as a sovereign nation?

Missing: A fair and predictable process
These are some of the questions that occur to me. It is clear from what Governor Deval Patrick has filed with the BIA that he will pose -- and already has posed -- many of the same questions and more. The point is this; after more than three centuries of history involving American Indians and everyone else, and after more than two centuries of the United States of America's sovereign existence and after the nearly thirty-year struggle by the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe to gain federal recognition we appear to have more questions than answers. Is it not time for someone, some courageous figure -- with or without a Harvard Law degree -- to demand answers? Or to propose answers? I do not see a whole hell of a lot of progress toward anything remotely resembling a fair and predictable process for the Indians or for us or for the combined issues that affect us all. Congress and virtually every state have failed utterly to clarify what exactly is meant by the sovereignty implied when the federal government grants recognition to a tribe. The tribes and all the rest of us deserve answers. The tribes deserve a clear statement of what they can do and where and under what conditions.

In the state we trust?

I am reminded of what happened nearly a year ago when two Mashpee Wampanoags met with state senator Dianne Wilkerson in her Beacon Hill office -- at her invitation -- to discuss the tribal turmoil surrounding the leadership of Glenn Marshall and his handling of tribal finances. Claiming that he just happened to stop by while they were there, David Friedman, Attorney General Martha Coakley's assistant, told Amelia Bingham and her son, Stephen, that he wanted to assure them that things would be taken care of, that a full investigation would be undertaken and that the wrongs would be made right. To date, nothing has happened.

And now, after their lands have been carved up by and for others, after a largely successful effort to bury their language and an unsuccessful effort to destroy their culture and cultural identity, after enduring two centuries during which it was a crime punishable at law for anyone in Massachusetts to teach an Indian to read and write; now that the Mashpees' long awaited dream of economic prosperity for them and their descendants appears to be nearing final realization...now this state's first non-white governor has formally declared the Commonwealth's opposition to the tribe's plans.

The never-ending larceny
It appears to this spectator that Governor Deval Patrick has declared war without any attempt to negotiate a peaceful solution to this controversy. What further indignities must the Mashpee endure before they gain what should be theirs? Perhaps they need a good civil rights lawyer. Then again, Deval Patrick used to be one. Now he is no more than a glorified tax collector. History seems to tell us that -- little by little -- the Mashpee were robbed of everything that was rightfully theirs. Now our governor wants to rob them of the benefits of federal recognition in the name of the taxes they might not pay to Massachusetts.

If gambling is the new buffalo, what should we call Deval Patrick?

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