Cape & Islands News

Revere welcomes a Wampanoag Casino

Revere official moves to change bylaws to allow Class III Casino
A welcome mat in Revere for  Cape Cod's Indian tribe

A story in today's Gambling Magazine describes a Revere City Councilor's move in that north of Boston town to grease the skids for Mashpee's Wampanoags to have a future casino in that North Shore oceanfront city,

In anticipation of the Mashpee Wampanoags gaining full federal recognition, (City Councilor George) Rotondo presented a request at Monday's City Council meeting to amend Revere's land-use ordinance to allow construction of a Class III casino gaming and entertainment complex in the city. He hopes this could facilitate the development of a casino at one of the local racetracks, Suffolk Downs (top) or Wonderland (bottom).

The story also mentions what is currently allowed in the state;

Under current state law, the tribe would be allowed to seek land to establish a bingo-style casino, because bingo is legal in Massachusetts. Special state approval would be needed to build a full-scale Class III casino, like Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. 

The story goes on to remind readers that although the tribe won preliminary Federal recognition last month, it must now wait another year to allow comments before final approval by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington DC;

If the federal recognition stands, the tribe would gain sovereignty and the state would be required to negotiate a compact with the tribe involving gambling rights.  Under current state law, the tribe would be allowed to seek land to establish a bingo-style casino, because bingo is legal in Massachusetts. Special state approval would be needed to build a full-scale Class III casino, like Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. 

Read the story in Gambling Magazine here, or  the Globe story here, and comment below.
Read the recent stories about the Wampanoags, the casino and gambling here.

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More insurers depart both US coasts

We are still (and will always) pay for Katrina
"There is a potential market failure here"

The Washington Post reports today that more insurers are giving up offering property  insurance coverage on both US coasts one month before the start of the next hurricane season:

Alarmed at the sharply rising cost of hurricanes and other disasters, home insurers are pulling back from some U.S. coastal markets, warning of gathering financial storm clouds over how the United States pays for the damage of catastrophe.

The development is yet another legacy of Hurricane Katrina, whose mounting toll of destruction along the Gulf Coast has crystallized a growing industry debate about the combined effect of climate trends and population growth in coastal areas. Some believe the two are creating a risk of losses so large that insurers could be pushed to the breaking point, leaving the government and taxpayers holding the tab for the next disaster.

Since Aug. 29 -- when the hurricane made landfall along the Gulf Coast -- Allstate Corp., the industry's second-largest company, has ceased writing homeowners policies in Louisiana, Florida and coastal parts of Texas and New York state. The firm has stopped underwriting earthquake coverage in California and elsewhere. Other firms have pulled back from the Gulf Coast to Cape Cod, notifying Florida of plans to cancel 500,000 policies.

The complete story here goes on to quotes Robert E. Litan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who is working with state regulators in California, Florida, Illinois and New York on a plan to reshape catastrophe insurance saying,  "There is a potential market failure here, if not already an actual market failure at work.  If we have another hurricane season this year like we had last, I wouldn't be surprised if you see a stampede of insurers trying to get out." 

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How Kennedy stopped the wind

A nod and a wink at a Senator's wife's funeral killed Cape Wind
April Fool's Day suggestion by a conservative old lion

The Boston Globe today reveals the specific whisper on the way to a graveyard which lead to a deal between the Senate's #1 Artic Oil promoter and Massachusett's #1 environmentalist.

The story states that it all happened at a funeral on April Fool's Day,

As Kennedy filed out of Memorial Baptist Church in Arlington, Va., another colleague of nearly four decades, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, approached him and offered a favor.

Stevens, an irascible conservative Republican, told Kennedy, the stalwart liberal Massachusetts Democrat, that he'd figured out a way to block the wind farm proposed for the waters off Cape Cod: Stevens would insert a provision in a sure-to-pass bill funding the Coast Guard that would give the state's governor the ability to veto the project.

''That sounds fine," Kennedy recalled replying, in what he said was a five-second conversation.

 The Globe goes on to state that Kennedy reminded Stevens of the plan a few days later.

But this was not the first time the Massachusetts Senator had used his mastery of US Senate rules and favor-tradiung to try to protect the view from his Hyannisport  Compound;

The bill Kennedy teamed up with Stevens on was the culmination of an extensive -- though mostly behind-the-scenes -- campaign by Kennedy to block the 130-turbine project that would tower over the water just a few miles from his home in Hyannis Port. At least twice previously in recent years, he has worked quietly with Republican senators to delay or halt the project through other avenues.

Environmentalists across the country, as well as many other leading Senators on both sides of the aisle, strongly criticize the so-called Steven Amendment which was tacked onto the completed $12 billion dollare Coast Guard Reauthorization Bill after it had been accepted by both houses of congress.

"Dark side of his bipartisan organizing power"

Seth Kaplan, a senior attorney at the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation, told The Globe, ''It's the dark side of his bipartisan organizing power. We have to be building wind power turbines. It is tragic for a master of the Senate like Ted Kennedy to be standing in the way of this most important of movements."

cribing other US Senators opposed to this stealth amendment, John McCain, Peter Demenici, etc., the story reminds readers of the other times Senator Kennedy has used his decades of power in Washington to stop the same project;

In 2003, he worked with Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, to try to amend an energy bill with a provision that would have given any governor veto power over offshore wind farms... In 2004, Kennedy supported an effort by John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, that would have indefinitely delayed the Cape Wind project by suspending all applications for offshore wind farms until Congress produced a set of guidelines for such projects.

The complete story in today's Globe is here. 

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Truro Community Center axed (again), Ptown's Bergman bows out, Art for Africa

Outer Cape news of the week
April 27, 2006

Cape artists give to help Cape children, in South Africa
PROVINCETOWN - When Karin Anderson White visited KwaMpisi, a tiny poverty-stricken village in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, last September, she saw things that most Americans could never imagine... John Clayton’s oil on board “Sunny Lane" (on right), will be up for grabs at a benefit auction that will help fund a preschool in KwaMpisi...

Community center voted down again
TRURO — One year after voting down a proposed community center that came in higher than the original cost estimate, voters again rejected the plan at Tuesday’s Town Meeting.  The vote capped off one night of emotional speeches and one year of planning, wrangling and budgeting ...

Bergman takes a bow
PROVINCETOWN — The chances of the Proposition 2 1/2 override passing at Tuesday’s election may have improved this week. Town Manager Keith Bergman, whose popularity with residents has waned noticeably in the last several months, announced on Monday that he does not intend to request an extension of his employment contract next May...

Ice show features Cape tip talent
TRURO — Sixteen-year-old Jennifer Milewski is among eight Cape figure skaters who will be performing solo  at Charles Moore Arena in Orleans this weekend as a prelude to the main event — a performance by Olympic Bronze Medalist Jozef Sabovcik ... 

Advocate Archives
April 28, 1932
NEW STANDPIPE TO BE CAMOUFLAGED
Work has been started on the painting of the new standpipe situated behind Town Hall...

April 28, 1962
OPPOSITION RAISED TO POSSIBILITY OF CAROUSEL ON COMMERCIAL STREET
More than 50 opponents, reinforced with a petition signed by more than 65 voters, registered their opposition Monday night to work under way on the premises at 234 Commercial Street, adjacent to the Universalist Church, which the petitioners said “appears to be a carousel”...

Read the rest of these Banner stories here, and comment below. 

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Brush fires, Horse hit in Eastham, Hyannis OUI

SUNDAY APRIL 30th, 2006
DRY CONDITIONS SPARK BRUSH FIRES
YARMOUTH – Dry conditions kept Cape firefighters busy with numerous brush fires. This one was in the area of Long Pond Drive and Mercury Lane and was pretty close to some homes. No one was injured in any of the blazes. Firefighters may get some relief as an ocean storm backs into the region and spreads some cold showers our way.

ONE INJURED IN MASHPEE CRASH
MASHPEE – One person was taken to a hospital following the latest crash on Route 130. Another victim was treated at the scene of the crash at the intersection of Lovell Road around 8 AM. The crash is under investigation by Mashpee Police.

HORSES STRUCK BY CAR IN EASTHAM
EASTHAM – Two loose horses were struck by a vehicle on Route 6 near McKoy Road about 1 AM Sunday. The driver escaped injury but at least one of the horses reportedly suffered serious injuries. It’s not clear how the horses became loose apparently from a nearby stable.

SATURDAY APRIL 29th, 2006
NO INJURIES IN HYANNIS ROLLOVER. OUI CHARGED
HYANNIS – No injuries were reported in a two vehicle crash in Hyannis shortly after 6 PM on Route 132 at Bearses Way. A Dodge Durango collided with a Pontiac Trans Am. The impact caused the Durango to rollover. The driver had to be cut free from her seat belts which likely prevented serious injury.

Route 132 traffic was impacted for about 2 hours while the crash was investigated and the mess cleaned up. Police say Mario Widener, 31, was driving drunk when he collided with an SUV on Route 132 in Hyannis Saturday night.

FRIDAY APRIL 28th, 2006
TRUCK FIRE STALLS YARMOUTH TRAFFIC
YARMOUTH – It was just after 4 PM when several Cape fire towers reported thick black smoke rising from Yarmouth.

The fire was a dump truck towing a landscaping trailer at the intersection of Higgins Crowell Road and Buck Island Road. The driver was able to escape but the truck was totaled.

Two Yarmouth engines poured water on the scene and checked for any hazardous materials that might have been involved. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Traffic had to be stopped and rerouted until the fire was knocked down.

TEEN CHARGED WITH MV HOMICIDE IN BREWSTER CRASH
 BREWSTER – A Marstons Mills teen will face motor vehicle charges in connection with a deadly crash in Brewster on March 3rd. According to the Times 17-year old Daniel Stapleton will also be charged with operating to endanger, speeding, and marked lanes violation when he is arraigned on June 9th.

Stapleton was allegedly behind the wheel of a Toyota Camry on Route 124 when it collided with a pickup truck. 16-year old Melissa Gifford a passenger in the Camry was airlifted to a Boston hospital and died later that day.

Another passenger 17-year old Clinton Perry of Marstons Mills was seriously injured and also flown to Boston. The two Medflight helicopters landed on a snowy field next to Brewster Town Hall. Stapleton escaped serious injury.

Read the rest of these Cape Wide News stories here, and comment below. 

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Orleans Red Tide, Brewster in Bloom + a Town Meeting

Lower Cape news of the week
April 28, 2006

Read the rest of these stories from The Cape Codder here, and comment below. 

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Rocky Moutain News on Ted Kennedy

Major drilling for oil and natural gas on the outer continental shelf is banned along all but a small stretch of America's coast - an absurd policy given the vast amount of fuel that could be extracted, according to the Interior Department.

Now Congress is facing a test over whether the same self-destructive, not-in-my- backyard policy will apply to wind power as well, thanks to Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Kennedy has long opposed a plan for what The Boston Globe describes as a "130-turbine, 24-square-mile cluster of windmills . . . about 8 miles from Kennedy's home in Hyannis Port." So Kennedy convinced a cabal of Senate colleagues to insert a provision in a Coast Guard bill that would, again according to the Globe, "give Gov. Mitt Romney, another wind farm opponent, the power to veto it, even if the project clears all other hurdles."

Finally, however, this brazen act of hypocrisy (Kennedy is a noisy supporter of renewable energy) has provoked stiffening resistance, with the House even delaying a vote on the measure in order to give opponents more time to marshal forces.

In response, Kennedy wasted no time in resorting to his stock in trade - demagoguery - denouncing a "wealthy developer" for trying to "ride roughshod" over his state (what would an "impoverished developer" look like, one wonders).

But with talk of renewables all the rage, a majority in Congress may be driven by sheer embarrassment to reject an attempt to block what would be the largest use of offshore wind power on Earth.

The wonder is that Congress isn't equally embarrassed by the moratorium on drilling on the outer continental shelf, where estimated reserves of oil and gas are many times the annual national usage of each fuel. Drilling rigs miles off the coast are not even visible, whereas the Cape Wind project will amount to a tiny bump on the horizon for Hyannis Port millionaires; sensible policy would exploit both energy sources.

Vincent Carroll, editor of the editorial pages, writes On Point several times a week in The Rocky Mountain News. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.

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Hyannis "Art Attack", Cops need more overtime money

Barnstable news of the week
April 28, 2006

‘Art attack’ seen as key to downtown revitalization
By Edward F. Maroney. A temporary harborside stage nestled at the back of Aselton Park for
"Shakespeare by the Shore" performances by Barnstable High School students and weekly concerts sponsored by The Arts Foundation of Cape Cod. Painted buoys on slender poles waving as high as 21 feet above the park to signal the new activity there. Wider sidewalks leading down to the boats. A farewell to the Bismore Park parking meters...

School start compromise sought
By Edward F. Maroney. Parents of elementary school children don’t want their first graders jumping off the bus into the darkness of a January evening, but they say they understand that high school students need more sleep in the morning to function better in classes ...

$50K sought to cover police overtime
By David Still II. The department is looking far an additional $50,000 to cover overtime costs for the rest of the year. But looking ahead to next fiscal year, which begins July 1, the department is seeking another $450,000, which would restore cuts to overtime made over the past four budgets ...

HannaH’s, upstairs condo dweller asked to work out noise ...
By Heather Wysocki. Conflicting testimony led the licensing authority to postpone deciding whether entertainment at HannaH’s Fusion ...

Labor market information captures Cape
By David Augustinho. From time to time, I have presented you with some of the Labor Market Information (LMI) that helps the Workforce ...

Immigration and Integration?
By Hid Welch. This series is written by a private citizen with an abiding interest in US history and particularly its founding documents ...

Barnstable FD election Sat., meets Mon.
By David Still II. Voters in the Barnstable Fire District will meet Monday night at the Barnstable-West Barnstable Elementary School ...

All but one request approved in WBFD
By David Still II. Voters gave all green lights at Wednesday’s West Barnstable Fire District...

Read the rest of these Patriot stories here, and comment below. 

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John McCain vows to fight anti-Cape Wind amendment

"I think it is clearly a violation of the way we do business around here, and I would oppose it as strongly as I can"

As reported by Ben Geman at E&E News -

"Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading advocate of legislative transparency, today criticized language attached to U.S. Coast Guard programs legislation aimed at killing a proposed offshore wind farm in Massachusetts.

"The conference report for the Coast Guard authorization bill includes language that would give the Massachusetts governor power to block the Cape Wind project, a 130 turbine wind farm slated for Nantucket Sound that would be the nation's first such facility. The language was added during a House-Senate conference committee earlier this month.

" 'I think it is clearly a violation of the way we do business around here, and I would oppose it as strongly as I can,' " McCain told reporters in the Capitol today. He said he would join efforts to strike the language. 'I think we may challenge, get a point of order to start with,' he said.

"McCain's pledge follows similar comments this week by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, about challenging the language on the Senate floor.

"Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) negotiated on the language. Stevens' aides have said he was approached on the issue by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), who opposes the project, but the precise origins of the provision remain murky."

Source. 

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D-Y sides closer in funding, Dennis buys Brewster water rights

Mid Cape news of the week
April 27, 2006

 
Read the rest of these Register stories here, and comment below.

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Senator Kennedy faces fight in Congress on Cape Wind

The Globe reports in a story today that US Senator Ted Kennedy is getting heat from fellow members of Congress for his personal attempts to get two Alaskan politicians (Senator Ted Stevens and Congressman Don Young) to block the wind farm he might glimpse six miles in front of his Hyannisport living room above. The Globe headline says it all:

Kennedy faces fight on Cape Wind
Key lawmakers oppose his bid to block project

WASHINGTON -- As record oil prices turn attention to the need for renewable fuels, momentum is building in Congress to buck Senator Edward M. Kennedy's bid to block the proposed Cape Cod wind energy project, potentially reviving efforts to construct the sprawling windmill farm in Nantucket Sound.

 The story goes on to state that Senator Pete Domenici, Chairman of the Energy Committee, will try to stop the Kennedy-Stevens bill with the "wind-kill" amendment on procedural grounds saying that tacking the amendment onto the Coast Guard reauthorization bill where there can be no further debate in congress "was inappropriate."

The story then describes the turmoil the Stevens-Kennedy move has made due to the leap in gas prices in the past month:

Meanwhile, a group of rank-and-file House members, worried about the political ramifications of rejecting alternative energy sources while motorists pay $3 a gallon at the gas station, have persuaded House leaders to sidetrack the entire bill for at least several weeks, even though it was slated for action this week. The delay could give supporters of the wind farm time to make their case to members of Congress.

Now you see it, now to don't 

Contrary to what he's said for the past five years on the site's visibility from what he has called a "historic site" like the Kennedy Compound, yesterday Mr. Kennedy rejected suggestions that he doesn't like the wind farm because it would be near his Hyannisport home saying the project probably would not be visible from the compound anyway. 

The story ends by claiming  Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the ranking Democrat on the Senate energy committee, claims the Kennedy-Stevens amendment will put a damper on wind farm development nationwide saying, ''If there are problems with the project, they ought to come out and be discussed. But they shouldn't be dealt with this way."

Meanwhile New Hampshire Congressman Charlie Bass, who persuaded Congress to delay acting on the bill until at least mid-May," said according to The Globe,  "the Cape Wind project has been treated differently in Congress because powerful lawmakers and special interest lobbyists vacation on Cape Cod and treasure the ocean views. It's odd that the people who are against it are the people who have [scenic] views."

Read the entire Globe story here, and comment below.

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Chatham rejects secession, Harwich Town Meet

Chatham and Harwich news
April 26, 2006

Health Board To Revise Nitrogen Loading Changes
CHATHAM --- The board of health will re-examine several proposed revisions to its nitrogen loading regulation based on comments made at a public hearing Monday ...

Anatomy Of A Breaking New Story
Working under a weekly deadline has its plusses and minuses. This week’s big story, the announcement of the pending sale of Chatham Bars Inn...

Chatham’s Grand Resort Has Had Its Ups & Downs
For more than 90 years, Chatham Bars Inn has been an integral part of the community, both socially and economically.  The elegant, post-Victorian resort, the last of its kind in Chatham --- and one of few remaining on the Cape --- was an important addition to the town when it was built in 1914, and it remains an important influence today ...

Chatham Bars Inn sold
Mark F. Meuthing, executive vice president of Great American, said the company had been advertising the property “on a very limited basis” and received an ...

SCHOOL NEWS
CHATHAM — Students from Chatham Elementary School recently took part in "Jump Rope for Heart." The fund-raising event afforded students the opportunity to play a larger ...

New Coast Guard Surfman Joins Elite And Storied Group
CHATHAM — At Coast Guard Station Chatham, when a person attains the rank of Chief Petty Officer, he or she is afforded a special honor: wearing the anchor ...

Selectmen Narrowly Reject Commission Secession Article
CHATHAM — After a marathon meeting Tuesday, the board of selectmen narrowly declined to support a petition article directing the town to withdraw from the ...

80-year-old Chatham Summer Resident Power Walks Boston Marathon
CHATHAM — A decade ago, 70-year-old Alice Salos power-walked the Boston Marathon for the first time. Last week, the now 80-year-old grandmother ...

Operating Budget Could Bog Down Monday’s Town Meeting
HARWICH --- Predictions are it will take three nights to act on the 79-article annual and 13-article special town meeting warrants facing voters when they gather Monday evening at the community center. Given that money, or lack thereof, has driven much of the debate surrounding town government operations in the wake of a $2 million override last August, Board of Selectmen Chairman Ed McManus said on Monday he anticipates a lot of discussion on the annual operating budget for FY 2007...

Selectmen Grant Barn And Barrel Wine and Beer License
HARWICH --- The board of selectmen approved a wine and malt beverage license on Monday evening for the Barn and Barrel, LLC., the former Cape Cod Cooperage ...

Sponsors Needed For Youth Chaplain’s ‘Marathon Walkathon’
HARWICH — When it comes to helping at-risk teens, the town has come to rely on the services of Youth Chaplain Lin Snow. But while ...

Selectmen Vote to Support 3.98 Percent School Budget Increase
HARWICH --- Selectmen on Monday night voted 4--1 to support the school committee’s budget request of $13,032,559, a 3.98 percent increase, adding $97,841 to ...

Selectman Fires Back At Taxpayers Association
HARWICH --- A letter from the Harwich Taxpayers Association expressing dissatisfaction with the board of selectmen’s efforts to address recommendations from ...

European Import May Be Next Big Thing In Fitness
As two men, poles in hand, walk past the pickup truck, the driver leans out the window and calls out, “Where’s the snow?”. ...

Habitat Proposal For Driftwood Lane Goes To Town Meeting
HARWICH --- The housing committee received the support of selectmen Monday night in recommending a 13-unit housing development be constructed on nine acres of ...

Read the rest of these Chronicle stories here, and comment below. 

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Gore leaning toward Cape Wind, but not there yet

 By Jack Coleman

Anyone waiting for Cape Wind to come into the discussion didn't have to wait long.

A new documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," was shown in Boston for the first time last night before an audience of 200 climate scientists, environmental advocates, clergy and Gore supporters from previous campaigns.

After the 90-minute film, a compelling account of Gore's decades-long research on climate change and efforts to sound the alarm for what he sees as a looming crisis, Gore answered questions from the audience.

Not surprisingly for those following the Cape Wind debate, the first question was about the offshore wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound. Gore's words, verbatim - "You know, I don't really know the details of it. Based on what I do know, I'm for it, but I respect some of the folks that are opposed to it, Bobby Kennedy Jr. is a friend of mine. And I just don't know the details.

"But based on what I do know, I think that it's a good idea and that the urgency of having alternative sources of energy is so high, that absent some fatal defect that I haven't been made aware of, I think that we ought to try to put these things in lots of places, along with other sources of renewable energy.

"But I didn't come here to try to pick a fight on that project, I'm just telling you what I know about it," Gore said. The photo shows the former vice president shaking hands with Cape Wind communication's director Mark Rodgers after the screening.

The documentary, directed by Davis Guggenheim, makes a persuasive case that global warming is not a fantasy concocted by alarmists. Gore provides a wealth of research to bolster his assertions in the "slide show" he has shown to more than 1,000 audiences around the world.

After watching this film, even those most skeptical of whether humanity is playing a role in climate change are likely to pause in their doubts - it is a sobering  account of a "planetary emergency" on the only heavenly body in the universe known to shelter life.

The film opens in select theaters on May 24 before its general release in early June. More information on "An Inconvenient Truth" is available at climatecrisis.net.

Jack Coleman is a writer, editor, media adviser to the pro-wind farm Clean Power Now non-profit and blogger who advocates in favor of Cape Wind at windfarmersalmanac.com. 

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"Not in his Sound"

Globe excoriates Senator Kennedy

In a scathing lead editorial on the Boston Globe today entitles "Not in his Sound", the editors accuse the senator of throwing away his reputation as an environmentalist earned over a lifetime;

 UNTIL NOW, a senator and representative from Alaska have been taking the blame for a sneak amendment to a Coast Guard authorization bill that would give Governor Romney a veto over the Cape Wind project, which he has vociferously opposed. But it turns out Alaska Senator Ted Stevens had specific approval for the amendment from this state's own senior senator, Edward Kennedy. He risks sacrificing his reputation as an environmentalist and, as the owner of property in Hyannis Port, exposing himself to accusations of NIMBY-ism with his approval for this backroom act. Any concern Kennedy has that the project needs more review could be met with legislation calling for that. The Coast Guard amendment short-circuits the process.

Cape Wind is not the only answer to global warming. But it is the world's biggest proposed use of offshore winds, which are much stronger and more predictable than onshore winds. Wind power is the only way the state can meet its statutory goals for renewable energy production.

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Harwich: No override, 2 Selectmen, Long Pond problems...

Harwich news of the week

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Sandwich Doctor indicted on new charges

Michael R. Brown allegedly committed Medicaid fraud
$60,000 found in his car at time of arrest last August

A Sandwich physician has been indicted on charges he allegedly illegally prescribed drugs to seven of his patients, defrauded the state's Medicaid program, and illegally possessed hydrocodone, a highly addictive controlled substance, Attorney General Tom Reilly announced today. 

Michael R. Brown, 52, of Mashpee, a physician who formerly operated a private practice in Sandwich, was indicted by a Barnstable County grand jury on 16 counts of violating the Controlled Substances Act and 10 counts of violating the Medicaid False Claims Act. He was additionally indicted on two counts each of possession of a class C substance, hydrocodone, and violating the Medicaid False Claims Act and one count of larceny over $250. His arraignment has not yet been scheduled by the court.

Practiced in Sandwich for over 20 years

Dr. Brown, a board certified physician specializing in internal and emergency medicine, practiced medicine at his Sandwich office from 1984 until his suspension by the Board of Registration in Medicine August 2005.
 
The indictments allege that Brown prescribed OxyContin, Roxicodone and other Oxycodone-based medications in bad faith and for no legitimate medical purpose. OxyContin is a powerful and highly addictive narcotic used to treat moderate-to-severe chronic pain. It is a controlled substance in a category for drugs determined to have a high potential for abuse. OxyContin is highly sought after by drug abusers because of its substantial street market value of $1 per milligram and because it causes a euphoric high. OxyContin is a controlled-release formulation of oxycodone, intended for continuous pain relief.

Arrested last August by Barnstable Police

On August 22, 2005, Dr. Brown was arrested by Barnstable Police after a warrant issued for his arrest. At the time of his arrest, Brown was allegedly in possession of hydrocodone and charged. The charges followed an investigation using video surveillance of Dr. Brown allegedly involved in a drug transaction.

At the time of the motor vehicle stop and arrest on August 22, police found two hydrocodone pills on the floor of Dr. Brown's car. Police also found $29,900 in cash in a plastic bag on the rear seat of the vehicle, and $31,290 in a plastic bag in the trunk.
 
The investigation into the allegations against Dr. Brown were led by AG Reilly's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU), with assistance from the Barnstable Police Department, Cape Cod Task Force and the Cape and Islands District Attorney's Office.

Assistant Attorney General Steven L. Hoffman is prosecuting the case, which was investigated by MFCU Senior Investigator John Curley and Director of Investigations Steven McCarthy coordinated the investigation, with assistance from the Bureau of Special Investigations. 

Source
Facts about Medicaid

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Profiles in flip flops

Reporter digs up story quoting Kennedy pledging NOT to give governor veto
New WBZ-TV poll shows only 16% against Cape Wind statewide

In a thorough examination of  Senator Ted Kennedy's connection to the Stevens Amendment, which would allow the Massachusetts Governor to decide the fate of the five-year old, $20 million dollar Cape Wind project, blogger and former Cape Cod Times reporter Jack Coleman has had the advantage of having been on the story since day one.

His story in today's Wind Farmer's Almanac reveals,

A tip of the hat to the Cape Wind opponent who comments at capecodtoday.com with the pseudonym "Little Fish" for citing a story I wrote in July 2003 that ran under the headline, "Kennedy changes course on state veto."

The story begins like this - "Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has decided against filing legislation to give governors veto power over offshore wind projects, a setback for opponents of the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm" (emphasis added)

"In a statement released by his office yesterday, aide Stephanie Cutter said Kennedy 'wants to make sure our laws and regulations protect' the coastal waters of Massachusetts, which he considers  a national treasure.' "

" 'In terms of the Cape Wind proposal, the senator continues to have concerns about the lack of a regulatory framework for such offshore projects to ensure that we are maximizing the benefits and minimizing the costs,' Cutter said."

" 'Given the limited number of legislative days left in the session, it's not clear there would be time to offer any legislation to improve upon that framework,' Cutter said.

But why would Kennedy reverse course on his earlier opposition to a governor's veto? Consider what has happened since July 2003:

- In November 2004, a favorable draft environmental impact statement for Cape Wind is released.

- in May 2005, the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board approves Cape Wind's approval to bring its cables ashore and connect to the regional grid.

- in August 2005, a sprawling new energy bill calls for offshore projects like Cape Wind to pay leasing fees for use of federal waters. No less than 27 percent of those fees much go to the state closest to the project.

- in October 2005, the non-profit corporation that runs the regional grid, ISO-New England, unanimously approves Cape Wind's plan to integrate electricity from the wind farm into the regional grid.

- in March 2006, Mass Audubon announced after three years of research, with more to come, that Cape Wind will not pose a threat to birds.

Notice a pattern here? The signs have clearly been positive for Cape Wind, now well into the fifth year of one of the most rigorous environmental reviews for any energy project in memory.

That being the case, Kennedy no longer has the luxury of his earlier opposition to a governor's veto - not when it may be the only way to kill the project.

Governor vows to veto Cape Wind
Romney, Kennedy renew opposition to wind farm

The Herald's suburban dailies all carried the same story today which stated that the governor is not deterred by yesterdays' New York Times editorial,

Gov. Mitt Romney promised an "honest and full review" of a proposal to place a wind farm off Cape Cod should pending congressional legislation give him that authority, even though he concedes he opposes the project.

Boston Globe also links the two Teds, Kennedy & Stevens

Today's Globe carried a story with this headline and lead paragraph,

Alaska senator's bid to block wind farm linked to Kennedy
For weeks, it has been unclear why an Alaska senator had introduced language into a Coast Guard funding bill that could kill a proposed wind farm off Cape Cod. But now, it appears that Senator Edward M. Kennedy is behind the amendment that would give Governor Mitt Romney veto power over the project.

CBS4 (WBZ-TV) statewide poll favors Cape Wind 5 to 1 

The poll on Boston channel WBZ shows 82 percent in favor of the project and only 16 percent opposed statewide. Two percent had no opinion.  That's better than 5 to 1.

You can watch the Jon Keller's aborted interview with Ted Kennedy here. 

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Gas price hikes may help local businesses

South Shore restaurants think Cape Cod may be too far
63 miles ($9) from Tony's Clam Shop to Alberto's Ristorante

A story in today's Patriot Ledger touts the advantage to local business in the South Shore and Plymouth area because drivers may stay closer to home this summer now that gas is over $3 a gallon.

The story in The Ledger paints this rosy picture for local businesses;

Some see silver lining in gas costs:
Area merchants are banking on many South Shore residents staying close to home this summer

The monetary pain motorists are feeling at the gasoline pumps could bring financial gain for some South Shore merchants.

With prices approaching $3 a gallon and the summer vacation season approaching, some merchants believe many people will forgo the long drives and stay closer to home...

Bill Catania, president of the John Carver Inn in Plymouth, agrees. ‘‘You might lose some tourists, but there are those who live closer and who might not want to go as far. They could offset each other a little bit.’’

It is 30 miles from Plymouth to Hyannis. The driver here would cost the average driver $4.50 if his or her car averaged 21 miles to the gallon. That's a $1.20 increase over the cost a year ago today.

The Ledger's circulation centers on its base in Quincy, and restaurants there also believe that local residents will not be willing to drive the 30 miles from that city to Cape Cod.

The story quotes a clam shack owner on Wollaston Beach in Quincy,

Roy Kandalaft, co-owner of Tony’s Clam Shop on Wollaston Beach in Quincy, said higher gasoline prices could help his seasonal business, which is open from April to November. He said some customers have already told him that they would be returning to Tony’s more frequently this summer instead of taking a leisurely drive elsewhere for seafood.

‘‘People are going to be more careful,’’ Kandalaft said. ‘‘Seafood is a very high quality meal and pricey.’’

According to AAA and MapQuest it is a 63 mile drive from Tony's to Alberto's Ristorante on Main Street in Hyannis.

The drive here would cost the average driver $9 if his or her car averaged 21 miles to the gallon. That's a $2.50 increase over the cost a year ago today. According to the Massachusetts Water Resources Agency (MWRA) Wollaston Beach in Quincy is one of the most contaminated beaches in Boston Harbor ( see chart on right)  and has eight storm drains which discharge along its shoreline.

Cape Cod benefits from higher gas prices and recessions 

Most Cape Cod businesses think the South Shore residents will thinks that's a low price for this peninsular paradise. 

Historically vacation destinations like Cape Cod, which is within a one-day drive of over 60% of the US population, do better when gas prices surge. Even in 1973 when OPEC stopped the oil, the cape felt not a flutter, and in all recent recessions when vacationers tried to save money, they opted for places llike the cape rather than taking a plane to a further destination at higher cost.

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7-10% drop in Cape Cod multi-home sales last year

Multi-family home sales plunged 15% in state last year
Duplexes no longer the affordable starter home option they once were

According to a press release from the Massachusetts Association of Realtor, the sales of multi-family homes plummeted last year in the state for the first time in half a decade.

The release went on to state:

Sales of multi-family homes fell across Massachusetts for the first time in five years in 2005, declining 15.1 percent over the past year from a record 9,401 sales in 2004 to 7,980 last year, according to data compiled by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors® (MAR).  The slowdown is due to escalating property values, rising energy prices, and higher vacancy rates brought on by a steady increase in condo conversions and multifamily housing construction in recent years that has softened demand among investors and made the market less attractive to first-time home buyers.

“The multi-family housing market has experienced record demand over the past three years and that’s led to strong price appreciation, but also priced others out of the market,” stated MAR President David Wluka of Wluka Real Estate in Sharon.  “Entry-level buyers have come to find that duplexes and triple-deckers are no longer the affordable starter home option they once were, while investors have started to look to other less costly markets, outside the region, to buy,” he said.

Cape Cod sales down 7-10% in 2005

The report went on to say that the Cape suffered as badly as most the rest of Massachusetts:

Regionally, every area of the state saw a decrease in 2-4 family home sales in 2005, with modest declines of 2-4 percent reported in Southeastern and Western Massachusetts, 7-10 percent declines observed in Barnstable County (Cape Cod) and greater Boston, and declines in excess of the 15 percent drop in statewide sales volume occurring elsewhere.

“In some sectors, the market has become overvalued, and with rents down and vacancy rates up due to a surge in condo conversions in recent years, it’s not surprising to see that demand has softened over the past year,” observed Wluka.

Nonetheless, despite the slower sales pace last year, the number of 2-4 family homes sold in 2005 was the third highest in state history, exceeded only by the 9,401 multifamily homes sold in 2004 and the 8,086 homes sold in 2003. 

Despite drop in sales, the average price on Cape rose 37% in '05

In a testimony to the Mark Twain remark that real estate is a good buy "because they ain't making any more of it", the prices of the multi -homes sold here still rose despite the drop in overall sales:

Further evidence that demand for multifamily properties remains historically strong is visible in the median selling price data found in the MAR report.  During the past year, the statewide median selling price for 2-4 family homes rose sharply by nearly 17 ½ percent, increasing from a median price of $315,000 in 2004 to $369,900 in 2005.  Regionally, median selling prices increased 14-15 percent in greater Boston and the Northeast region, 18-19 percent on the South Shore and Southeastern Mass., 21 percent in Worcester County, 37 percent in Barnstable County, and 43 percent in Western Mass.   

The rate of price appreciation in the multifamily market outpaced the annual price gains in the detached single-family and condominium markets last year, where prices rose 5.9 percent and 6.6 percent respectively on a statewide basis.

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New York Times on the Kennedy-Stevens Amendment

The New York Times weighed in on the Kennedy-wind-kill amendment to the Coast Guard Reauthorization Bill today:

Congress will soon face a test of its professed new interest in energy independence and legislative transparency. It comes in the form of a flawed amendment, hatched in secret, that would prevent the construction of a wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts.

The wind farm is opposed by some but not all Massachusetts politicians and by some extremely wealthy people with homes on Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod for whom the windmills would present an aesthetic annoyance on the distant horizon. It is supported by nearly every major environmental group and by citizens who see it as a source of clean energy at a time of soaring prices for oil and natural gas, as well as an alternative to coal-, oil- and gas-fired power plants that contribute in varying degrees to global warming.

 The Editorial urges Congress to correct this matter, and ends up stating,

Apart from its negative implications for the country's energy future, the amendment would create a terrible precedent by giving a single governor absolute veto power over energy projects in federal waters. And the fact that a few members of Congress can emerge from nowhere at the last minute to kill a project on which millions of dollars and countless hours have already been spent is almost certain to discourage entrepreneurs and investors from pursuing similar projects in the future. 

The original text is available here. 

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Oil Tankers slow to comply

Canal barges, tankers, fail to comply with double hull law
41% still single-hulled, below national average

According to a story in today's Standard-Times the ships with transport oil through the Cape Cod Canal are still in below standard.

Three years after a single-hulled barge was torn open and spilled as much as 98,000 gallons of oil in Buzzards Bay, more than 40 percent of oil barges that pass through the pristine waterway have a single hull.

Double-hulled tankers and barges help prevent oil spills with an added layer of steel that surrounds the inner hull, shielding the oil tanks from penetration by rocky ocean bottoms or other ships. If properly designed, they can significantly reduce the risk of large oil spills and better protect the marine environment, according to a report by the National Research Council produced at the request of Congress. 

Read the read of the story here. 

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Ballymeade Residents cry foul, Mashpee Eminent Domain,

Upper Cape news
April  22, 2006

Falmouth
Three Weeks Of Work Expected At Hospital Intersection - After spending close to an hour Wednesday in a morning traffic jam at the hospital lights intersection, one local man just shook his head in frustration. Other residents have started asking when the construction is going to end.

Ballymeade Residents Concerned that Links could become Housing - The owners of the two golf courses at Ballymeade are floating the idea of converting an older golf course into housing, and residents of the development are crying foul.
   
The Celebration Has Just Begun For Greek Orthodox - Many Falmouth residents celebrated Easter on Sunday, or Passover on Wednesday, but for others, those who are Eastern Orthodox, the celebration is being done in earnest this week.

Beaches Versus Property Rights A Dilemma For Coastal Towns - Statistics, photographs, and personal anecdotes—coastal geologist James O’Connell used all three of these at a lecture on Wednesday night to help demonstrate the dilemma that Massachusetts faces regarding coastal erosion.    

Mashpee    
Selectmen Reach Out To Tribe For Talks To Reach An Accord - Town Manager Joyce M. Mason and the Mashpee Board of Selectmen have issued a statement to Mashpee residents informing them that progress is being made in the wake of the decision handed down by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on March 31 to preliminarily recognize the Wampanoag as a federal tribe.    

Budget, Eminent Domain Taking On Warrant - The Mashpee Water District will hold its annual meeting on Tuesday beginning at 7:30 PM... Article Six seeks to take by eminent domain four parcels of state-owned land in the Quashnet Woodlands area of town for use as the district sees fit.
   
Berrilli, Fudala, Hoover Differ On Water District’s Role With Sewers - When it comes to the Mashpee Board of Water Commissioners elections, the ballots are usually pretty thin. Unopposed races are common and a race with two candidates is not unheard of.

Sandwich
Public Library to receive funds for a building plan - Since Tedeschi Realty Corporation’s announcement to move forward with its plans to develop a commercially zoned area of land between Cotuit and Quaker Meetinghouse roads, it has positively impacted various departments in town.    

Blogger Has Sights Set on Seat - Robert F. Simmons started NotThePTA.org in January of last year. The director of finance administration for a real estate development company in Braintree sought to give residents a springboard where they could be heard when talking about the schools. His hope was to bring residents who normally do not take part in discussing school issues into the process.    

Pannofri wants to continue with the work he started - Undeterred by his loss last year for a run for a second term as selectman, Frank Pannorfi has thrown his hat into the ring and is vying again for the one open seat on that board.

Bourne
Recommended Reading Before Town Meeting - Bourne voters will be asked to approve 12 specific changes to the town’s Home Rule Charter at the upcoming May 8 Annual Town Meeting.    

Fire Department Questions Safety In Plans To Rebuild Hideaway Village Home  - The Bourne Zoning Board of Appeals Wednesday evening considered two proposed projects involving construction at Hideaway Village Condominiums. Both hearings were continued until May 3 due to safety concerns that had been raised by the fire department.

Light Compact Awards Contract To ‘Solarize’ Upper Cape Schools - The Cape Light Compact (CLC) announced this week that it has awarded a contract to design photovoltaic cell systems for schools in its member communities.

Read these stories and more from Enterprise Newspapers here, and comment below. 

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Check Scam, Car hits tree, Wequassett fire, Rt 6 crash, YPD Bomb scare

MONDAY APRIL 24th, 2006
POLICE ARREST ONE, LOOKS FOR SECOND IN CHECK SCAM
 YARMOUTH – Yarmouth Police have made an arrest in a counterfeit Visa Travelers Check scam and are looking for a second person. After a joint investigation with Barnstable Police two suspects were identified. Early this morning police spotted a vehicle believed involved and arrested 27-year old David C. Tarr (top right) of Yarmouth for allegedly uttering a false travelers check, forgery of a travelers check, and possession of a counterfeit travelers check.

His vehicle was impounded and he was arraigned in Barnstable District Court today. Police are still seeking a woman they believe is his accomplice 27-year old Chantal Nicole Ruffen (right). Yarmouth Police hold an active warrant for her arrest and ask anyone knowing her whereabouts to call them at (508) 775-0445. The fake checks had been passed at several businesses.

SUNDAY APRIL 23rd, 2006
TWO INJURED AS PICKUP HITS HOUSE IN HYANNIS
Photo courtesy of Frank Paparo/NEVN
HYANNIS – Two people were taken to Cape Cod Hospital with non life-threatening injuries after a pickup truck went out of control and rolled on its side coming to rest against a house at 452 Strawberry Hill Road shortly before 11 PM.

Damage to the house was minor. The electrical service was knocked off and several items were knocked off shelves inside. The occupants although startled were not injured. Barnstable Police are investigating if wet roads may have played a role in the crash. 

SATURDAY APRIL 22nd, 2006
FIRE REPORTED AT WEQUASSETT INN
HARWICH – Firefighters from several towns were called to the scene of a fire in a building at the Wequassett Inn in Harwich Saturday afternoon. They were called to a two-story building housing an exercise center and meeting rooms at 2173 Route 28 shortly before 4:30 PM to find heavy smoke in the basement. Firefighters had to pull down a ceiling in the basement to reach the flames and put them out. No one was injured. Investigators are checking to see if an electrical problem may have sparked the fire.

SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE CAUSES SCARE AT YARMOUTH PD
YARMOUTH – Some tense moments at the Yarmouth Police Department on Brad Erickson Way when a suspicious package is found. Yarmouth Police and Fire as well as the State Police bomb squad were on scene trying to determine what it was that was apparently brought to the station by someone. We still don’t know what it was but we understand it was removed to be detonated.

SERIOUS CRASH REPORTED ON ROUTE 6
WEST BARNSTABLE – A serious crash was reported on Route 6 eastbound near Exit 5 about 8:30 this morning. Details are sketchy but a Hyannis heavy rescue was requested with the Jaws of Life to free one occupant who was taken to Cape Cod Hospital.

FRIDAY APRIL 21st, 2006
GAS LEAK PROMPTS EVACUATIONS, DETOURS TRAFFIC
YARMOUTH – A construction crew hit a gas main by the Beachwood Condos on Route 28 in Yarmouth sometime before 8 AM. Officials evacuated tenants of the complex and detoured traffic until Keyspan could arrive. Firefighters stretched out a hose to spray water to keep the fumes down and prevent an explosion.

BARNSTABLE POLICE MAKE COCAINE BUST
COTUIT – An ongoing drug investigation netted Barnstable detectives $10,000 in cocaine and one man under arrest. Police say they were following 33-year old David Medeiros of Falmouth near Main and School Streets in Cotuit about 12:30 AM. When detectives approached him, Medeiros allegedly sped off until a cruiser cut him off. Police did not find cocaine in the vehicle but an officer reportedly saw Medeiros roll down his window during the chase. They retraced the route back and found 103 grams of cocaine. Medeiros could face a mandatory sentence of 10 years if convicted.

See the rest of the Cape Wide News stories here, and comment below. 

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Dunes murder on Court TV, Bias wins back non-resident's job

Outer Cape Cod news
April 21, 2003

Court TV explores ‘Woman in the Dunes’ murder
PROVINCETOWN — A Court TV show that attempts to solve crimes with the help of psychics will feature an episode on the town’s one unsolved murder, the , the “Lady of the Dunes” or “Woman in the Dunes” case from 1974.

A crew of around a dozen people, including two psychics, is expected to arrive in town next week to film the half-hour show, to be aired as part of a new series called “Haunting Evidence.” The series starts in June...

Bias charge nets non-resident a job
WELLFLEET — Following one of the lengthiest battles in recent history over a town staff appointment here, Eastham resident Rebecca Savin has been re-hired as the new transfer station gatekeeper, effective this Friday...

From One Season to the Next
Like spots on an itsy, bitsy polka-dot bikini, a host of golden daffodils appeared in yards up and down Commercial Street this week. The spring peepers were singing their high-pitched song in the wetlands by the Grand Union, and the red-winged blackbirds have been back for weeks. It is not just the changes in the natural world that announce the beginning of a new season in Provincetown; it is also the hum of human industry...

Read these Banner stories and more here, and comment below.

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Cape Cod's religious warefare circa 1675

War against Wampanoags was one of the deadliest wars in American history
A holy war waged with staggering brutality - memories of Iraq & Viet Nam

In order for the non-native Americans around here to understand the Mashpee Indian angst over the last one-third of a millennium since the Wampanoag survivors of the King Philip war were sold into slavery by our Pilgrim forefathers, The New Yorker review of Martha's Vineyard author Nathaniel Philbrick's new book, “Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War”, should help.

Jill Lapore's long and very readable review in the April 24 issue  doesn't get to our local tribe until her eighth paragraph where she writes;

In 1675, Massasoit’s son Metacom, called King Philip by the English, launched a war against Plymouth and, eventually, against Massachusetts and Rhode Island and Connecticut, too. The bloody carnage known as King Philip’s War nearly put an end to the Puritan experiment...

Not long after (William) Bradford’s death, Massasoit died, too, and with them ended an era of uneasy peace. Inheriting his father’s position in 1662, Philip tried to halt English encroachment. When that failed, he began preparing for war. In January of 1675, a Christian Indian named John Sassamon warned Plymouth’s governor, Josiah Winslow, of Philip’s plans. Sassamon was soon found dead. In June, Plymouth executed three of Philip’s men for Sassamon’s murder. Within days, Wampanoags had begun attacking English towns.

In proportion to population, King Philip’s War was one of the deadliest wars in American history. More than half of all English settlements in New England were either destroyed or abandoned. Hundreds of colonists were killed. Thousands of Indians died; those who survived, including Philip’s nine-year-old son, Massasoit’s grandson, were loaded on ships and sold into slavery. Because the conflict was, for both sides, a holy war, it was waged with staggering brutality.

The description of the carnage and inhuman conduct of both sides during the war can not help but bring up images of the worst reports about Viet Nam and Iraq. Describing the “Great Swamp Fight” where Benjamin Church's Pilgrim forces killed thousands of Native American  women, children, and old men hiding in a makeshift fort constructed for their protection in the middle of a Rhode Island swamp is one example.

King Philip's head stuck atop a stake for decades 

Most died after the English set the fort on fire roasting them alive. A  Boston poet wrote according to the author, “Here might be heard an hideous Indian cry, / Of wounded ones who in the wigwams fry.”

The war ended when Philip (on right) was shot. Pilgrim commander "Church ordered his body drawn, quartered, and decapitated... and his head placed on top of a stake in the middle of town where it remained, rotting, for decades. "

This compelling five page article should be read by every Mashpee resident in preparation for the next few years as their Wampanoag neighbors ask for major portions of the Massachusetts Military Reservation now that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has granted them official tribal status.

The New Yorker review ends on this cautionary note,

In 1716, Benjamin Church, or at least his son Thomas, looked back at King Philip’s War and decided that it was possible to be both victorious and virtuous in the kind of war the colonists had fought against the Indians—a people at a vast technological disadvantage, fighting a holy war, with almost nothing left to lose. But it wasn’t possible. At least, nothing in the evidence from 1675 and 1676 suggests that it was. And pretending that Benjamin Church found “Conscience” in the woods of Plymouth in that winter of war, rather than understanding why, forty years later, he came to wish he had, doesn’t make it any more possible today. The ways of the Puritans are not our ways, their faith is not our faith. And their wars are not our wars.

Learn more about King Philip and his war here.
Lean more about the Mashpee Tribe here.
Learn more about the Wampanoags here.
Read a review of this book in today's Newsweek here.

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Gabrieli supports Cape Wind

Two of three Democratic candidates for governor now support project

The odds just got almost even if the controversial Stevens' amendment to allow the Massachusetts governor to decide the fate of the Cape wind ffrm doesn't become operable until after the November elections.

In the first debate between the Democratic contenders for Massachusetts Governor, Chris Gabrieli (on right) joined Deval Patrick  in endorsing the Cape Wind  project.  That leaves Democratic candidate Reilly and Republican candidate Kerry Healey opposed with the wild card of Independent candidate Christy Mihos, also opposed, seen as a very long shot.

The pre-recorded debate will be televised Sunday morning at 8:30 am on CBS4 channel 4. After the debate reporters asked Chris Gabrieli about his position on the wind farm.  Here's how the Lowell SUN reported Gabrieli's response at the bottom of their story today:

Patrick and Gabrieli said they support a controversial plan to erect wind turbines off the coast of Cape Cod as a way to start weaning off foreign oil. Reilly opposes the project.

The Gabrieli press office confirmed the Lowell SUN story today saying that if the environmental reviews remain positive and if the Interior Department's final report is "good for Massachusetts" Mr. Gabrieli not only will endorse the project, but sees renewable energy  projects here as a  way to restart the state's economy and stop population and job losses.

CBS4's Jon Keller, who moderated the debate, reported today that:

If you sink a half hour into watching Chris Gabrieli, Deval Patrick, and Tom Reilly when the debate airs this Sunday morning, you'll come away with a sense of some pretty clear differences between them. 

You can see the broadcast anytime by clicking the TV screen in the upper right of the web page here as well.

The Gabrieli website is here.
Sentinel Enterprise story here.

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Earth Day, 2006

Providence Journal, April 22, 2006

On this Earth Day, energy issues and the environment come together more than usual. We are, as President Bush has said, "addicted to oil." But we don't seem very serious about getting off it.

Oil prices are surging, and yet the world uses more and more of the stuff. Much of the money that's paid for it goes to corrupt dictatorships that wish us ill. And the use of that oil and other fossil fuels causes climate change.

You'd think Americans would be more concerned about this. But any such worry has been slow to express itself in personal behavior. We drive big cars and live in sprawling exurbs, all the while taking on bigger and bigger debt to do so. We underfund mass transit, and many environmental leaders -- who tend to come from the population's affluent segment -- use more energy per capita than most other people: on huge houses, lots of cars, the occasional private jet . . .

While some parts of the economy exhibit more fuel-efficiency than in the past, Americans are still very wasteful, and we've been slow to implement substantive reforms, such as higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars. (See an editorial here soon on CAFE standards.)

Meanwhile, politicians demand that the price of gasoline and other oil-derived products be lowered -- whereas it should, if anything, be raised, to encourage fuel-efficiency and alternative energy sources. Hypocrisy makes the world go round.

And when people try to offer cleaner, cheaper forms of energy, NIMBYism or out-and-out political sleaze stop such alternatives to the status quo in their tracks. Consider the plot between the congressional delegation of oil-rich Alaska and some Cape Cod summer millionaires, led by fossil-fuel-company heir Bill Koch, to keep windmills from being built near his place on Nantucket Sound.

It must be said that America has made many improvements since environmental legislation that began during the Nixon administration, especially in air and water quality. Still, our swelling population and continued profligate fossil-fuel use undermine these improvements, and perhaps even reverse them.

Who knows what the critical mass will have to become before we truly care about energy and the environment -- $125 for a barrel of crude oil?

Reprinted with permission from the Providence Journal.
 

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Roundabout report, Ptown override, Maguire murder folow-up

Lower Cape news

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22% of Vineyard's power from the wind in 10 years

Land Wind Turbines Grow Popular on Martha's Vineyard
40 cities & towns across state  planning wind turbines

A story in today's Vineyard Gazette says three or four island towns and the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah (Gay Head) are considering building wind turbines;

Three Island Towns, Plus Tribe In Various Stages of Planning To Build Single Wind Towers;

One More at High School

While debate continues over the Cape Wind project from the Vineyard and Nantucket all the way to the halls of the United States Congress, several onshore wind turbine projects are now quietly under way with considerably less fanfare... The Federal Aviation Administration has approved plans for a meteorological data tower to be built near the Tisbury landfill. The 140-foot data tower, which would collect weather data and wind speeds for one year, is expected to be a precursor to an actual turbine.

The story goes on to quote Henry Stephenson, a member of the town planning board and chairman of the Tisbury is quoted saying, "If you live on an Island in a rising sea, you really should be interested in doing something to stop global warming."

The story also mention an island firm, South Mountain Co. (that's one of their turbines on the island at right), which is presently building a turbine at the regional high school which was made possible by a $90,000 anonymous donation, and will produce 12 to 15 kilowatts of electricity.  The principal Margaret Regan is quoted saying, "One of the best things is that it will be visible and accessible. Anyone can access the windmill and learn from it. And I think in a small way it will help educate people that wind is a viable source of energy. With all the contention about Cape Wind going on, I think this will help demystify wind-based technologies."

The story reminds us that Cape Cod's Upper Cape State Rep made this possible; 

Many point to recent changes in the federal Energy Policy Act and state legislation proposed by state Rep. Matthew Patrick, a Democrat from Falmouth, that make it easier for towns to build and operate wind turbines... 

The story reveals the island's plan to get nearly a quarter of its energy from wind power in the next decade;

The Vineyard Energy Project's 10-year plan calls for three strategies to increase wind power on the Vineyard. One involves building ten 1.5 megawatt-per-hour turbines that theoretically could provide 22 percent of the Island's energy.

Read the Gazette story here.

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Barnstable Pro demurs, Budget $142M, Business unwired

Barnstable news this week
April 21, 2006

Golf director choice sends his regrets
By Kathleen Manwaring. It has been said that in life everything happens for a reason. While Ron Stepanek knows his reasons for turning  down the position of golf director for the Town of Barnstable, it hasn’t made living with it any easier...

No new programs in $142M budget
By David Still II. At more than $142 million in total spending, it’s difficult to think of Barnstable’s 2007 proposed budget as tight, but according to the man responsible for it, there’s little room in the numbers. Town Manager John Klimm described the spending package, which tops $142 million for all operations, as a "maintenance" budget. Between fixed costs and planned wage increases, he said there wasn’t an opportunity to create new programs, although some have been adapted...

BARNSTABLE COUNTY BUDGET-Call heard for human services funds
By Edward F. Maroney. From within and without, the county commissioners’ proposed budget for human services spending was criticized Wednesday. The health and human services committee of the Assembly of Delegates is calling for funding at $360,000, plus $30,000 for the new Human Rights Commission. That’s well over the $275,000 the commissioners recommended after rejecting requests from the county’s Health and Human Services Advisory Council that totaled $655,000 (the council has since trimmed that to $375,000)...

W. Barnstable Fire annual next week
By David Still II. A new roof, radio equipment and a $748,000 general operating budget will go before voters in the West Barnstable ...

Hyannis civic president Drouin dies unexpectedly
By Paul Gauvin. Paul Drouin of Hyannis, president of the Hyannis Civic Association and well-known real estate broker, was enjoying ...

Life is wild at Cape Wildlife Center
By Kathleen Manwaring. Now that spring has officially sprung, life at the Cape Wildlife Center in West Barnstable has gotten much busier...

Ordinances offered to combat crowded rentals
By David Still II. Overcrowded rentals in residential neighborhoods have been an increasing frustration for residents and town officials ...

Wire business owners afraid of setting up security systems?
By Stan Elias. One of the deterrents to a small business owner setting up his own computer network or security system is the apparently ...

FROM THE SENATE-Regional greenhouse gas initiative
By Sen. Rob O'Leary. Scientific consensus is clear that the long-term affects of global warming are mounting. Polar ice melt, catastrophic ...

From This Corner-Housing not the problem: It’s the economy ...
By Paul Gauvin. A recent "workforce housing" summit in Chatham lumped in policemen, teachers, firefighters, even doctors (with $100,000 ...

Start time survey coming
Parents and guardians are invited to rank four options, including the existing schedule, for school start times in a survey coming home with students Monday. ...

Activists push Delahunt as he pushes Congress
By Edward F. Maroney. Diane Turco spent a night in jail this week to get an answer from US Rep. Bill Delahunt. The Harwich teacher ...

Rebad these stories in the Patriot here, and comment below. 

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What is it about Alaskans and this project in Cape Cod?

 Wind farm advocates perplexed
Stevens, Young are fighting a Massachusetts project.

That's the headline today in a lead story in the Anchorage Daily News. The newspaper lead is "First it was Alaska Congressman Don Young who was blocking a giant wind farm off of Massachusetts. Now it's an amendment by Alaska's senior senator, Ted Stevens, that is standing in the way of the nation's first off-shore wind project."

Then after recapping the series of events which made Alaska the project's nemeses, the story names Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy as the eminence grise in an unusual  alliance with the two men most associated in Alaska with oil and conservative Republican politics in the northwest;

Speculation about why the two Alaska Republicans even care about a Cape Cod project runs rampant among fans of the wind farm idea.

Stevens has said he added veto power for the governor because Kennedy, D-Mass., asked him to and because he believes states should determine what happens off their shores.

"Senator Stevens was approached by Senator Kennedy and, on the merits of his argument, agreed," said Stevens spokesman Aaron Saunders.

But Stevens and Kennedy aren't usually allies, wind advocates note. Kennedy, one of the nation's most prominent Democrats, passionately opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Stevens has been working to open for more than 25 years. Suggesting a senator might cooperate with Kennedy, as television ads did in Alaska's most recent Senate race, amounts to negative campaigning in Alaska.

• For all the recent stories about these two Alaskan legislators click here.
  

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Green Party endorses Cape Wind

Attempt to Kill Cape Cod Wind Project Could Have Major Implications for Nation's Clean Energy Future

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party leaders today announced their support for an offshore wind turbine project being proposed by Cape Wind Associates six miles offshore of Nantucket Sound.

"This 130-turbine wind farm will provide 74% of the electricity used by Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and would displace two million barrels of oil each year," said Julie Risser, Green candidate for Minnesota State Senate in District 41.

Greens noted that the project has support from most major environmental groups, as well as the Seafarers' International Union, which includes local Cape Cod fishermen.

Among the wind farm's opponents are wealthy Cape Cod homeowners, including Mass. Sen. Ted Kennedy, his nephew Robert Kennedy, Jr., and the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, whose first president was CEO of Phelps-Dodge, a mining corporation that placed first on the EPA list of toxic emitters in Arizona and New Mexico. Other opponents include Senators John Warner and Lamar Alexander, whose families also own waterfront property on the Cape.

Green Party activists are urging Congress to reject provisions in the Coast Guard bill (Section 414 of the Coast Guard conference report) that would allow Gov. Mitt Romney, who opposes the project, to cancel it, see Union of Concerned Scientists here.

The Green Party has consistently called on Congress to increase funding for conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.

As noisy as a whisper at 40 feet, Greenhouse gases rise 

Contrary to rumors, noise from the wind farm will be minimal: approximately 30 decibels, equivalent to a whisper at 40 feet, less than the ambient breeze and much less than the noisy, polluting, and energy-inefficient power boats operated by some wealthy Cape Cod residents. The wind farm will occupy an area equivalent to one New York City block of "water sheet" although it is spread over 23 acres of Horseshoe Shoal.

Greens, citing recent figures that the U.S. emitted more greenhouse gases in 2004 than at any time in history, stressed that the wind farm project will open up the field of wind power for widespread development across the country which in turn will make a significant dent in emissions that contribute to global warming.

"Cape Wind is the largest renewable-energy project east of the Mississippi, making it a vital building block in the struggle to stop global warming," said Charles Komanoff, of Komanoff Energy Associates and a respected energy economist and environmental activist. "It is also a test for the environmental movement: do we keep faith with the promises we made as antinuke and antifossil fuel activists throughout the 1970s and 1980s to embrace energy efficiency, solar and wind power? The choice is crystal clear, and Greens are leading the way."

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@greens.org
Kristen Olson, Eco-Action Committee, Krisrose02@aol.com, 651-210-0789

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Chatham Bars Inn sold for $166 million

Cape's premier resort "has been a very profitable investment "

In a PR release today, American Financial Group, Inc.  announced that its 81%-owned subsidiary, Great American Financial Resources, Inc. (GAFRI) has reached an agreement to sell Chatham Bars Inn, its resort-hotel property located in Chatham, Massachusetts, for $166 million.

At this ratio the entire property is estimated to be valued at over $200 million. 

Buyer unknown 

The sale, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2006. AFG expects to recognize an after-tax gain of approximately $27-$29 million ($0.34-$.36 per share), after transaction costs, the write-off of certain deferred annuity acquisition costs associated with the gain recognition and minority interest. The buyer's name is not being released.

One of the comments (below) on this story suggest that it's not a coincidence that the seller is a large insurance company.

We have all read stories recently about insurance companies refusing to cover cape properties out of fear of the cost due to increased hurricane activites, and the commenter suggests selling the property is not a coincidence.

If this were to be the case, it the seller a mistake, because unlike much of the Cape Cod shorefront facing Nantucket Sound and Buzzards Bay, the Chatham Bars Inn sits on forty-foot bluff abovehigh the harbor which itself is protected by the barrier beach two miles east. 

Operated property for $15M 13 years ago, spent $50M improving it 

Great American Financial Resources (GAFRI) has owned and operated the hotel since buying it 1993 for $15 miillion. 

The release went on to state that Craig Lindner, AFG's Co-Chief Executive Officer and GAFRI's CEO, commented, "Chatham Bars Inn is one of the most unique hotel properties in the United States and has been a very profitable investment for us. This sale demonstrates the strength of our investment management operation. This sale will provide additional capital to be utilized to grow GAFRI's core insurance operations organically and through acquisitions."

According to a story today in the Cape Cod Chronicle

Executive Vice President Mark F. Meuthing declined to identify the buyer. He said the company had been advertising the property “on a very limited basis” and received an acceptable offer recently... Meuthing said about $50 million has been invested in the inn by Great American, an insurance holding company with about $12 billion in assets. 

Through the operations of the Great American Insurance Group, AFG is engaged primarily in property and casualty insurance, focusing on specialized commercial products for businesses, and in the sale of retirement annuities, supplemental insurance and life products.

GAFRI is a Cincinnati-based insurance holding company with $12 billion in assets. The Company's subsidiaries include Great American Life Insurance Company, Annuity Investors Life Insurance Company, United Teacher Associates Insurance Company (headquartered in Austin, Texas) and Loyal American Life Insurance Company. Through these companies, GAFRI markets traditional fixed, indexed and variable annuities and a variety of supplemental insurance products. 

Source:  PR Presswire
Hurricane threat raises home insurance rates far from Katrina.

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Another Canalside problem, Super's contract in question, more

Upper Cape News

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D-Y school breakup, Drunk driving arrests up

Mid Cape news
April 20, 2008

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Breathalyzer in Chatham, Harwich Committee Spending To Get Airing

Chatham and Harwich news
April 19, 2006

ZBA Upholds Building Commissioner’s Guest House Ruling
CHATHAM --- The demolition and reconstruction of single-family homes has been one of the major driving forces in the town’s development for several years now. In a slight twist on that trend, a few recent cases have focused on the demolition and reconstruction of guest houses. Under the town’s bylaw, a guest house is allowed on a lot that has 20,000 square feet of buildable upland in addition to the minimum lot size for the zoning district. Guest house are limited to two bedrooms, and can’t have more than 50 percent of the floor area of the property’s principal dwelling...

Town Has Opportunity To Buy Unique Tract Of Undeveloped Land
CHATHAM --- In the attic of Richard McCoy’s barn is an old, hand-lettered sign advertising the sale of the property in the northwest corner of town that his father bought in 1939.  The sign says the land contains “about” 10 acres and 1,500 feet of pond frontage. It wasn’t until about 40 years later that McCoy, who inherited the property from his father, actually sat down to try to figure out exactly how much land he owned.  He wanted to take advantage of a state forestry management program, which required 10 continuous acres.  His rough estimate showed the property contained 17 to 18 acres...

Breathalyzer Test May Be Required At School Events
CHATHAM --- Students who attend school-sponsored events could be required to take a breathalyzer test under a policy being considered by the school committee...

Selectmen Renew Opposition To Wind Farm
CHATHAM — The board of selectmen hosted a discussion Tuesday about the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm, and then formally renewed its opposition to the ...

Impact Of Affordable Housing On School Choice Concerns School Com
CHATHAM --- School Choice has been a boon to the town’s school system. The small class size has attracted students from as far ...

Sandwich Assistant New Harwich Elementary School Principal;
HARWICH --- The assistant principal at the Forestdale School in Sandwich will be the next chief administrator of Harwich Elementary School. Samuel F. Hein will be on board as of Monday and will work with interim principal Mary Flynn for the remainder of the school year before taking over the reins. Hein was selected for the position from 17 applicants, six of which were interviewed, Superintendent of Schools Rosemary Joseph said. Hein has served as assistant principal at the K-8 school of 1,000 students in Sandwich since 1999...

Community Preservation Committee Spending To Get Airing
HARWICH --- This year voters will have their first opportunity to decide how Community Preservation Act funds will be expended in town meeting...

Residents Seek Resolution To Allen Harbor’s Troubled Waters
HARWICH --- The quality and depth of Allen Harbor waters has a number of boating enthusiasts concerned and they are looking to the town to develop a plan to improve these conditions to avoid losing one of Harwich’s core economic and recreational assets.  A committee of business, residential and yacht club members have joined together in an effort to improve boating conditions in the harbor. They have petitioned town meeting for funds to conduct an engineering study and plans for improving conditions there...

Read the rest of these Chronicle stories and more here, and comment below. 

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Deval Patrick weighs in on Wampanoag casino

Democratic candidate needs more information on slots also
Globe story is surrounded by candidate's web advertising

In a small piece in today's Boston Globe (on right), Democratic candidate for Governor Deval Patrick reveals an open mind on Indian gambling and a cautious approach to thousands of slot machines in the state's race track.

Here's a line from that story,

Gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick said yesterday that his research so far leaves him ''uncomfortable with slots in racetracks and casinos in Massachusetts," but he needs to do more ''homework" before deciding whether to endorse casino gambling in the state. 

Mr. Patrick adds that he's not morally opposed to gambling but worries whether the person at the slot can afford to be there as well as concerns about whether slots in private businesses will hurt the Massachusetts lottery which funds education.

Tribe wants most of  Massachusetts Military Reservation

In a story last week in the Mashpee Enterprise, the Mashpee tribe's leader is quoted demanding "a lot" of  land be returned,

“We want a lot; a lot was taken or lost,” Glenn A. Marshall said Tuesday when asked how much land the Mashpee Wampanoag will seek if, as expected, they receive final federal recognition as the nation’s 564th tribe next year. “Nobody’s home or land is going to be taken,” said Mr. Marshall, the chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council.. “We would like a good portion of the base,” Mr. Marshall said of the Massachusetts Military Reservation.

Patrick's Online marketing 

In another example of candidate Deval Patrick's "ahead of the curve" political sense, he has bought web ads to surround any stories about him in The Globe.

The image above on the right is what today's Globe story looked like online with both a full banner ad at the top and a large pop-up ad on the right. Both can be clicked on to go to Patrick's new online videos. 

Read the rest of the Globe story here. 

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Harwich has 24 hour walk-a-thon, budget plans

Harwich news of the week:

FlexRoute gears up for June 1 launch By Donna Tunney/ dtunney@cnc.com The United States comes in at number 14 in The Economist’s global survey of car ownership, but summertime on Cape Cod would make an observer... [more]

Advance bookings signal a lively tourism season By Donna Tunney/ dtunney@cnc.com On Nantucket Sound, West Harwich, six bedrooms: $7,000. Waterfront East Orleans, four bedrooms: $5,000. Bayfront Brewster condo: three bedrooms:... [more]

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Crash closes Rt. 28, Civilian helps nab 6-time OUI suspect

THURSDAY APRIL 20th, 2006
CRASH CLOSES ROUTE 28 IN FALMOUTH
FALMOUTH – A car vs utility pole crash kept part of the Waquoit Highway section of Route 28 closed early this morning. One person was trapped in the vehicle until NStar crews could cut power to the area but was not injured. Falmouth Police are investigating the cause of the crash. Further details were not immediately available.

TUESDAY APRIL 18th, 2006
FALMOUTH POLICE SEARCH FOR CINEMA ROBBER
FALMOUTH – Falmouth Police are looking for the man who pushed his way past a Nickelodeon Cinema manager and grabbed over $1,000 in cash about 10 PM. The Times reports the man was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and scarf to hide his face. The manager gave chase and the suspect dropped some of the cash. More cash was found in the parking lot where it’s believed the suspect had a getaway car waiting. The manager was not injured. Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Kent Clarkson at Falmouth Police (508) 457-2533.

CITIZEN HELPS CATCH SIXTH OFFENSE OUI SUSPECT
YARMOUTH – A South Yarmouth man is charged with his sixth operating under the influence offense this morning. Yarmouth Police received a cell phone report of a green Ford Taurus station wagon operating erratically on Route 6 and swerving back and forth about 1:20 AM.

Dispatchers kept the caller on the line until officer Kalil Boghdan arrived and verified the erratic operation. 47-year old Stephan Graham was also charged with failing to stay in marked lanes

DRIVER EXTRICATED FROM EASTHAM CRASH
EASTHAM – Rescuers had to extricate the driver of a vehicle that crashed shortly before 10 PM. Eastham Police are investigating. Further details were not immediately available

BIRDS NEST IGNITES AT YARMOUTH HOUSE
YARMOUTH – A bird’s nest in the exterior vent of a fireplace ignited causing some anxious moments at a house on Bayview Street in Yarmouth Tuesday afternoon as smoke started backing up in the house. Firefighters quickly got the situation under control. Further details were not immediately available.

FIRE DAMAGES PROVINCETOWN BUILDING
PROVINCETOWN – Quick work by Provincetown firefighters kept a fire from turning into a major blaze. The fire apparently started in an upstairs bathroom of a building at 322 Commercial Street about 3:30 PM. The building houses shops on the first floor and apartments over them. The Pilgrim Variety convenience store operated out of the building for many years. A civilian was treated at the scene for smoke inhalation. A dog and cat were saved. The fire was contained to the bathroom but there was significant smoke damage in much of the building. The cause of the fire is under investigation but does not appear suspicious.

MONDAY APRIL 17th, 2006
MAN ARRESTED FOR OUI AFTER CHASE IN YARMOUTH
YARMOUTH – A Yarmouth police unit searching for aggressive drivers nabbed a Yarmouthport man for his third operating under the influence of alcohol Monday night. Officer Kevin Antonovitch spotted a pickup truck going 52 MPH in a 35 MPH zone on Willow Street about 7:40 PM.

The driver refused to stop and took police on a 3 mile chase which ended up at the driver’s home on Weir Road. In addition to the OUI charge 57-year old James E. Ziglar of Yarmouthport was charged with operating after suspension, failing to stop for a police officer and numerous other motor vehicle charges.

Read the rest of the Cape Wide News stories here, and comment below. 

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The Voice does Barnstable

Cape Cod Voice devotes 25 pages to Hyannis

This fortnight's edition of Cape Cod Voice examines  our county seat, Barnstable, in a very thorough manner.

The issue focuses mainly on Hyannis, but while doing that touches on most other aspects of the town's life:

• Back to the Future starts with 1940
  
• How to Revive not Displace examines improving a town without forcing out the "locals"
• Moving Day at The House of Blues looks at a night spot
• Main Street Caretaker is a profile of those who make it look nice
• Images of Main Street is a uniquely CC Voice photo essay of Hyannis

Readers are probably already aware that Cape Cod Voice selects a single subject for each of its 26 editions a year, and the colorful and stylist fortnightly is well into its fifth year.

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Cape Blogs explained on local NPR stations

The Blogfather is featured on "The Point" with Mindy Todd
Walter & Julie Brooks are also guests on "Country Journal" Thursday

You can tune into WCAI, WNAN or WZAI right now  to hear about the fifty local "Cape Bloggers". 

On Monday's program the guests were Walter Brooks, Blogger and Editor of Cape Cod Today and Dan Kennedy, Visiting Assistant Professor of Journalism at Northeastern Universityand longtime Media Critic for Boston Phoenix, and these NPR station offer audios of their programs so anyone can listen whenever they wish. Turn up your sound and click here for this one. Kennedy said that this online newspaper is what all newspapers will look like in a decade.

Mindy Todd (on right)  is on weekdays at 9:30am. Her program, The Point, is a lively and informative discussion of critical issues for Cape Cod & the Islands. She welcomes your phone calls at 866-999-4626 and e-mails at: ThePoint@WGBH.ORG. 

The three local FM stations which carry The Point are WZAI- Brewster - 94.3, WNAN-Nantucket - 91.1 and WCAI-Woods Hole-Falmouth - 90.1.  You can listen to the discussion here. 

Country Journal on Channel 17 Thursday on Lower Cape

Greg O'Brien's Country Journal will air on local channel 17 in the Lower Cape with The Blogfather Walter Brooks and his daughter-in-law Julie Brooks who is President of eCape.com.

The program can be seen at 7pm tomorrow night (Thursday) in the towns of Brewster, Olreans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro and Provincetown.

Your show is scheduled to be shown again next week at 10 pm Monday, April 24 and 7 pm  on Thursday, April 27.

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Tribe wants land, Visit the police station, Dam repairs, Recall

Upper Cape Cod news
April 15, 2003 (Click on each Town for local news)

Falmouth

Green Pond Now Focus Of Coastal Pond Committee
It has been a little over a week since Spring Town Meeting finished and members of the Coastal Pond Management Committee are already working on strategies for securing money at Fall Town Meeting in November.

Tour Of Falmouth Police Station Offers Glimpse Of Inner Workings
From the bustling dispatch area to the somber booking room to the stark jail cells in the basement, Falmouth residents toured the Falmouth Police Department this week, part of a new outreach initiative to the community.

Town Meeting Approvals Clear Way For Wind Turbine
The passage of two articles at last week’s Town Meeting regarding a proposed wind turbine at the West Falmouth Wastewater Facility allows town officials to move forward with the project.
   
Many In Falmouth Watching Progress Of New Immigration Law
Rallies in big cities across America, including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Phoenix, and New York City, have been making headlines over the past few weeks, as demonstrators have come out en masse to protest proposed legislation that would reform immigration policy in the United States.
   
Shellfish, Docks Focus Of Wetland Regs Revision
Falmouth Conservation Commission is revising regulations in two sections of the town’s wetlands bylaw in an effort to protect shellfish and clarify requirements for building a dock or pier.
   
AmeriCorps Volunteers Help Give A New Look To Menauhant Beach
Molly Kitchel from Portland, Oregon, and Emily Wolfe from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, quietly but efficiently planted shoots of American beach grass on a beach dune in East Falmouth. A few feet away, Josh Lacan of Cleveland, Ohio, used a shovel to make holes in the sand, so his colleagues could continue their work.
   
Committee Begins Planning For Regional Tech Center

Mashpee
   
School Budget Crunch Hitting Professional Development Hard
   
Tribe Hopes For Land At Base, State’s Section Of S.Cape Beach
“We want a lot; a lot was taken or lost,” Glenn A. Marshall said Tuesday when asked how much land the Mashpee Wampanoag will seek if, as expected, they receive final federal recognition as the nation’s 564th tribe next year.

Water District Manager Prepares His First Budget
Andrew G. Marks is heading into his first Mashpee Water District annual meeting and election as the district’s operations manager and, perhaps appropriately, it won’t be a trial by fire.
   
Willowbend Cancels Pro-Am
Willowbend in Mashpee recently decided to discontinue the annual Willowbend Children’s Charity Pro-Am golf tournament after 14 years. The annual golf tournament, which was a staple on the summer sports scene on Cape Cod, brought world-renowned professional golfers, such as Greg Norman, John Daly, and Brad Faxon, as well as actors and sports celebrities to Mashpee for a day of fun on the golf course.

Sandwich
   
Voters To Consider $400K Temporary Tax Increase To Pay For Dam Repairs
At the Annual Town Meeting on May 1, voters will be asked to consider a Proposition 2½ debt exclusion to pay for repairs at the Shawme Pond Dam.
   
New Recreation Director Full Of Energy, Ideas
Town Recreation Director Daniel M. Landesman, new to the post this year, has gotten off to a running start.

Selectmen Accept Six Million Dollar Deal
In a four to one vote, the Board of Selectmen accepted a $6 million bid from Meetinghouse Village Development Group to purchase 50 acres of town-owned, commercially-zoned land in South Sandwich.
   
Capital Budget, Stabilization Transfer Among Town Meeting Articles
Town Meeting voters will be asked to consider next month several budget-related items, including the transfer of money from the stabilization account and approval of a budget for capital improvements officials say are needed in town.
   
Geological Survey Confirms MMR Not Source Of Perclorate Contamination Found In Forestdale
At a monthly meeting of the Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence Plume Cleanup Team, Denis LeBlanc from the United States Geological Survey presented an update on the status of a residential well in Forestdale, where the chemical perchlorate was found in May 2004.

Bourne

LCP Heads To Town Meeting
After more than three years of effort, Bourne’s completed Local Comprehensive Plan will be placed before voters as a warrant article for the May 8 Annual Town Meeting.
   
Bids Opened For Stormwater Management Work
Little by little, as part of what is at least a 20-year project, Bourne has been working to reduce the amount of pollution that flows into its waters from stormwater runoff and similar sources.
   
FinCom Report Highlights Strengths, Weaknesses Of FY07 Budget
   
Letters Announce Availability Of New Moorings In Town Waters
   
Recall Group Submits Batches Of Signed Petitions
In order to assist the town with the task of certifying recall petitions in a timely fashion, the Bourne Concerned Citizens group that is attempting to recall Selectmen Carol A. Cheli and Galon L. (Skip) Barlow is turning in batches of signed petitions as soon as they get them. The group handed in 52 petitions to the town clerk’s office on Monday. Group Chairman John A. Johnson of Pocasset said they are doing this so that the clerk’s office wouldn’t suddenly be burdened at the end of the process by a huge number of signatures arriving all at once.

Read the rest of these Enterprise Newspapers stories here, and comment below. 

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Nantucket boat rescue, Sandwich, Falmouth fires

MONDAY APRIL 17th, 2006 BREAKING NEWS:
TWO RESCUED AS VESSEL HITS ROCKS; STARTS SINKING
NANTUCKET –Coast Guard crews from Air Station Cape Cod and Station Brant Point rescued two sailors early this morning after the Chapter 11, a 37-foot sailboat homeported in Nantucket, Mass., hit the rocks on the East jetty in the opening of Nantucket Harbor.

The two sailors, Mike Doherty, 30, and Steve Smith, 39, both from Nantucket, called Station Brant Point around 3:45 a.m. via cell phone and reported their vessel struck the jetty, lost power and started taking on water. Both men were wearing life jackets.

A crew aboard a 47-foot motor life boat from Station Brant Point launched soon after receiving the call from the Chapter 11. The Station Brant Point crew arrived on scene and were not able to reach the shallow area the sailors were trapped in.

Coast Guard Sector Southeastern New England immediately deployed an HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Cape Cod after receiving word from Station Brant Point that they were not able to rescue the sailors. After arriving on scene, a rescue swimmer was deployed into the water near the vessel. Both men were taken off the Chapter 11 and transferred to the 47-foot MLB from Station Brant Point.

Both men are reported to be in good condition and was not in need any immediate medical attention.  The on scene weather is described as calm seas, clear visibility and 5-10 knot winds.

No vessel pollution reported, and the owners are working with commercial salvage to remove the vessel from the jetty.

SUNDAY APRIL 16th, 2006 DEVELOPING STORIES:
HOUSE FIRE IN SANDWICH
SANDWICH – Firefighters were called to the scene of a house fire in Sandwich Sunday evening. The fire at 6 Horseshoe Circle appeared to be on the second floor of the home. All of the occupants made it out safely. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Mutual aid covered Sandwich stations during the fire. Further details were not immediately available.

FIRE HEAVILY DAMAGES WOODS HOLE HOME
FALMOUTH – Fire heavily damaged a house in Woods Hole Sunday evening. The fire on Harbor Hill Road broke out shortly before 8 PM. Mutual aid from Mashpee and Otis covered Falmouth stations. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Further details were not immediately available.

CRASH CUTS POWER CLOSED ROAD IN MASHPEE
MASHPEE – No injuries in a car crash in Mashpee Sunday that created problems. The crash in the 600 block of Old Barnstable Road happened about 4:45 PM. A utility pole with a transformer was snapped and came across the road. As a result the road had to be closed. Power was knocked out in the area for a time until NStar could respond. Mashpee Police are investigating the cause of the crash.

SATURDAY APRIL 15th, 2006
DRIVER SERIOUSLY INJURED IN HYANNIS CAR VS BUILDING
HYANNIS – One person suffered head injuries went their vehicle went out of control and struck a building. The crash happened on Mary Dunn Road around 11:30 PM. Details are sketchy but the driver apparently reported the crash himself via cell phone but was not able to give an exact location. Officials were able to pinpoint hit location a short time later. Barnstable Police are investigating the cause of the crash. Further details were not immediately available.

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The Swedes, the Saab and Kurt Vonnegut

 ^{It was fifty years ago this week at the 1956 New York Auto Show that Saab was introduced in America. By then Cape Cod already knew Kurt Vonnegut.}

New York Times drags out the Cape's most famous ex-pat to celebrate Saab
Made by trolls in Trollhatten, Sweden once said the bumper stickers

By Walter Brooks

It was fifty years ago that the Swedish aircraft manufacturer first foisted their automobiles on an unsuspecting American market, and one of Saab's first dealers was none other than Kurt "Welcome to the Monkey House" Vonnegut of Barnstable. 

In a front page story in Sunday's New York Times Automobile Section we read,

One man who eventually became a dealer was the author Kurt Vonnegut. In his recent book, "A Man Without a Country," Mr. Vonnegut recalls running Saab Cape Cod in West Barnstable, Mass. "I believe my failure as a dealer so long ago explains what would otherwise remain a deep mystery: why the Swedes have never given me a Nobel Prize for literature," he wrote. 

His customers were sometimes confused about the car's pedigree. "They make the best watches," one prospect told Mr. Vonnegut. "Why wouldn't they make the best cars, too?"

Of course, Mr. Vonnegut has said many less complimentary things about Saabs. 

In another Australian review of his latest book, he recently was quoted,

During some particularly lean years, Vonnegut sold cars for a living - he ran a Saab dealership in Cape Cod. All the while, though, something was nagging away at him. "Occasionally I would say to myself, 'shit, you actually experienced the fire-bombing of Dresden, the biggest massacre in European history, in which 135,000 people were killed in one night - why don't you write about that?'

"I have always been a person totally without rank in this country. I've never won a prize or anything like that. Never held any position of authority. I am what I was in the Second World War, which is a private, First Class."

In the early 1960s Vonnegut was yet to be "discovered", although he already knew where he was, and that was sitting in a new 1959 Saab parked somewhere along Route 6-A near his home in Barnstable.

Why Vonnegut never got the Nobel Prize for Literature 

The Saab had a sign in the back window offering the car for sale, while the salesman-author sat in the front seat writing his short stories for the Saturday Evening Post on a yellow legal pad. The stories were later collected in a volume named "Welcome to the Monkey House." 

In another review this year, he blamed his failure to receive a Nobel Literary Prize on his lackluster salemanship for Saab on the Cape in 1960 saying, "The Swedes have long memories and short dicks." 

He also said, "Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us humans."

Kurt may be right. 

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Right Whale warning issued for Cape Cod

27 of this most endangered species spotted off Outer Cape

The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries  issued a warning to boaters plying the waters east of Truro and north of Provincetown to stay at least 1,500 feet (500 yards) away from a pod of 27 right whales which are passing that area on their seasonal journey to Stellwagen Banks just north of Cape Cod.

These represent 8% of the entire known right whale population left on earth, and the area of Stellwagen Bank and Cape Cod Bay is one of the five main habitats of this species. 

The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies is working with the state to protect this majestic mammals which can grow to fifty feet and weigh fifty tons. Click on image on right to read about the Right Whale conservation program.

It has been seven years since a right whale was struck and apparently killed by a boat. In 1999 a 50 ton female  dies off the cape in that manner.

Center calls for emergency speed restrictions

In February a resolution was proposed by Peter Borrelli, the Center's executive director, and adopted recently by the Sanctuary Advisory Council (SAC), for emergency speed restrictions for vessels using the Gerry E. Studds/Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

With the coming week an especially active one for local mariners, the state cautions all boaters in the area to post a look out on every vessel.

Right whales feed on huge plankton blooms off Truro and Provincetown. They dive to feed on these nutrients and are invisible to all but the most watchful mariner. 

The chart on the right shows the route of right whales from the Caribbean passing Cape Cod to the Bay of Fundy 

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Trashed highways keep getting worse

  ^{This is what our summer visitors will see along Route 6  when they start arriving}

Route 6 litter has gone from a problem to a plague
Budget inadequate, litter enforcement down by a third

Look at the side of the highway the next time you travel on Route 6.

It's a nightmare of trash and debris.

According to a story in today's Patriot Ledger,

‘‘It just seems that it’s getting worse from year to year,’’ said Ray Fierra, who supervises maintenance employees in the Massachusetts Highway Department district from Weymouth to Cape Cod. ‘‘Litter right now is our No. 1 priority.’’

And the problem continues over the bridge right to Beacon Hill where only $25 million is budgeted annually to clean-up the thousands of miles of state highways and roads. Route 3 between Cape Cod Canal and Boston is especially ugly, according to the story, and that's the state highway over which a majority of Cape Cod's summer visitors travel.

Even a Plymouth tourism official threw up his hands in disgust as the story relates,

Paul Cripps ventured onto Route 3 eight years ago to voluntarily pick up trash. He never went back. ‘‘The stuff on the side of the roads, it would just make your heart sick,’’ said Cripps, the executive director of the Plymouth County Convention and Visitors Bureau. ‘‘A lot of cigarette butts. Lots of coffee cups. I saw porn videos thrown out the window still in their carton. Diapers and empty soda bottles and beer cans. My God, it was amazing.’’

Perhaps the early Spring weather has revealed the problem sooner than usual, but the first impression our visitors will receive this season is a very messy environment where apparently Cape Codders are "fouling their own nest" because there seems to be less litter during the summer. Maybe visitors to the cape love it better than the residents.

Bigger problem, lower enforcement 

And while the problem has gotten visibly worse in the last three years, the number of citations issued for littering on our highways has fallen from 359 tickets in 2002 to 246 in 2005.

You can complain to the Mass. Highway Dept. by emailing to feedback@mhd.state.ma.us, or filling out this form or writing to

District 5
Bernard McCourt, District Highway Director
1000 County St., Taunton, MA   02780
Phone: (508) 824-6633, Fax: (508) 880-6102, email: feedback@mhd.state.ma.us

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Lively Tourist Season, Flex Route & Wooly Crestures coming...

Lower Cape News
April 13, 2006

Advance bookings signal a lively tourism season By Donna Tunney/ dtunney@cnc.com Oceanfront Truro, three bedrooms: $6,700. Waterfront East Orleans, four bedrooms: $5,000. Bayfront Brewster condo: three bedrooms: $5,500. That’s right. Per week.     Vacation rental homes at these decidedly upscale prices are booking especially fast this year, Lower Cape rental agents say. It’s an early indication that the season will be more economically rewarding than summer 2005, which was tainted by red tide and, to varying degrees, by vacationers who restrained their spending... [more]

China bound By Steve Desroches/ sdesroch@cnc.com PROVINCETOWN - Learning how to use chopsticks takes time, that’s something 12-year-old Kellianne Pannoni already knows. The Provincetown seventh-grader... [more]

Anatomy of a crash: Technology ads accident reconstructionists By Matthew Belson/ mbelson@cnc.com An automobile crash is just about every driver and passenger’s worst nightmare. And just the thought of getting into one is bound to bring a... [more]

Woolly creatures assault Cape hemlocks By Rich Eldred/ reldred@cnc.com It’s hard to imagine something so small could lay low something so large. But the woolly adelgid, one-sixteenth of an inch in size, has been... [more]

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New Red tide maps may predict future problems

WOODS HOLE, Mass., Apr. 13 (AScribe Newswire) -- Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have completed two extensive survey and mapping efforts to better understand why the 2005 New England red tide was so severe and to suggest what might lie ahead. WHOI Senior Scientist Don Anderson and colleagues mapped the distribution of Alexandrium fundyense cysts in seafloor sediments immediately before and after the historic harmful algal bloom of 2005. The first of these analyses shows unusually large numbers of cysts of Alexandrium fundyense in bottom sediments of the Gulf of Maine in late 2004, compared to previous survey results from 1997. The hardy, seed-like cysts lie dormant in ocean sediments until growing conditions are favorable for a bloom of this toxic alga. A subsequent survey conducted last fall, after the 2005 outbreak, shows slightly fewer cysts in the sediments than there were in 2004, with the abundance and distribution of those cysts giving a hint of what might be in store for 2006.

"This is partially good news since the 2005 cyst distribution shows that the species did not create a new southern 'seedbed' within Massachusetts Bay and southern waters, as we had feared. The cyst abundance we found there may be too low to initiate blooms in the bay proper, although we don't know if there are cysts in harbors or embayments that might lead to localized toxicity," said Anderson, director of the National Office for Marine Biotoxins and Harmful Algal Blooms, based at WHOI. "On the other hand, there are still five times as many cysts off western Maine as there were in 1997 and only slightly less than in 2004, so there is certainly the potential for another regional event"...

Read the rest of this AScribe report here, and comment below.

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Business summit, unstoppable woman, bad blogger

Barnstable news of the week
April 14, 2006

Summit: Partnerships, incentives will create workforce housing
By Alan Pollock. CHATHAM – Emerging from a six-hour summit on the region’s housing crisis Monday, more than 150 civic leaders didn’t have any quick fixes. ...

West Barnstable woman unstoppable despite MS
By Kathleen Manwaring. Last February Maryellen Loucks of West Barnstable went on a retreat where she was asked to write herself a letter. ...

Girls fight off flat bats to rally for win
By Kathleen Manwaring. The BHS girls varsity softball team came back Wednesday for a 5-4 win over Old Colony League opponent Marshfield. ...

Boys lax not lacking
By Kathleen Manwaring. The BHS boys varsity lacrosse team continues to plug away this season and their efforts are paying off. After ...

Cape leaders turn critical lens on selves
By Edward F. Maroney. If you had a complaint about Cape business, government or media, you were in good company at last week’s ...

On beyond Sea Street
By Cynthia Cole. One of the biggest challenges, and assets, to Main Street is its length. For some it is a bit too long to walk and ...

FROM THIS CORNER-Paramedic heals sting of blogger’s sleazy slur
By Paul Gauvin. She’s tall, slim, smart and forthright. She is a capable multi-tasker with a paramedic associate’s degree, and ...

IN OTHER WORDS
By Ellen Chahey. All around the world, Christians and Jews are marking holy days. The middle of April will bring Passover and also ...

From newsman to newsmaker
By David Still II. Former newsman Will Crocker said that he’s spent enough time reporting what other people have said needs to ...

The end of a Golden era
By Kathy Manwaring. After 25 years of seeing patients in Hyannis, Dr. William A. Golden is putting away his shingle. While he may ... 

Read these Patriot stories and more here, and comment below. 

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Yarmouth OKs school funding, Dennis bylaw change seeks to preserve town's character

Mid Cape news

Too young to drive? By Bill Fonda/ bfonda@cnc.com Getting a driver’s license is a rite of passage for both children and parents - a step toward independence for one, perhaps a step toward heartburn... [more]

D-Y color guard earns respect at world championships By Craig Salters/ csalters@cnc.com While schoolchildren across the nation’s playgrounds will disagree, flying colors does count, especially when it’s the world championships. The... [more]

Town Meeting decides 17 articles first night
In addition to switching regional school funding formulas, Yarmouth voters addressed several other issues during the first night of annual Town Meeting... [more]

Read the rest of these Register stories here, and comment below. 

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Truro: Green Bylaw, Ptown: Voters take two more nights

Outer Cape News
April 13, 2003
Fishermen falter under Nauset power
By Michael Iacuessa. Nauset assistant baseball coach Jack Donahue admitted before Monday's game that he was concerned about the team's pitching this year. ...
Green bylaw would give town greater authority
By Pru Sowers. TRURO — A proposal to expand the regulatory powers of the town Conservation Commission to include jurisdiction over all local property, not just wetlands and buffer zones, will be put in front of voters at the April 25 Town Meeting ...
Cape-wide workforce housing summit draws ideas, debate
CHATHAM — “A canary in a coalmine” was the way Dorothy Savarese, Cape Cod Five Bank’s president, referred to Provincetown at Monday’s 2006 Workforce ...
In the Arts
See this week’s Banner to read interviews with poet Jillian Weise and fiction writer Anne Sanow who will read together at the Fine Arts Work Center on ...
In the News
See this week’s Banner to get a look at the plans for the new Seashore Park facility that will replace the Cape End Manor nursing home. ...
Advocate Archives
Superintendent of Schools Charles A. Harris has announced the new system to be installed in Provincetown High School when the new building is to be used ...
Voters take two more nights
PROVINCETOWN — The disgruntled tone of Town Meeting continued last Wednesday and finally lightened up on the last night, Thursday, with the Finance Committee’s demonstration of an electronic green head fly-swatting gadget, and their musical adieu, sung to the tune of “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar”...

Read these Banner stories and more here, and comment below. 

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Bourne voters opt for change, Sandwich maps future

Upper Cape Cod news

Sandwich schools mapping the future By Silene Gordon/ sgordon@cnc.com "Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there." Will Rogers’ words served as inspiration for a... [more]

Teen drivers have chance to learn advanced skills
After losing their son, Michael, in a single-car drunk driving accident three years ago, Denise and Ken Brack and a group of concerned parents at... [more]

Read the rest of these Upper Cape Codder stories here, and comment below. 

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Hyannis man reports own accident, 2nd. arrest in month for Wellfleet man,

SATURDAY APRIL 15th, 2006
DRIVER SERIOUSLY INJURED IN HYANNIS CAR VS BUILDING
HYANNIS – One person suffered head injuries went their vehicle went out of control and struck a building. The crash happened on Mary Dunn Road around 11:30 PM. Details are sketchy but the driver apparently reported the crash himself via cell phone but was not able to give an exact location. Officials were able to pinpoint hit location a short time later. Barnstable Police are investigating the cause of the crash. Further details were not immediately available.

FRIDAY APRIL 14th, 2006
WELLFLEET MAN LEADS COPS ON CHASE IN STOLEN CAR
ORLEANS – A Wellfleet man finds himself in trouble with the law for the second time in a month. It started Friday when State Trooper Matt Covino spotted a Cadillac reported stolen out of Provincetown on Route 6 in Orleans. A chase ensued down Route 6A until the vehicle crashed in Brewster. Daniel Ellis (on right) of Wellfleet was apprehended after a short foot chase. He faces charged of larceny of a motor vehicle, failing to stop for a police officer, possession of a dangerous weapon (spring loaded baton), resisting arrest, speeding and several other motor vehicle charges. Ellis was arrested on March 14th by Truro Police on outstanding warrants for operating under the influence, operating to endanger, failing to stop for a police officer and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon stemming from incidents in 2004 and 2005 in Provincetown and Truro.

MAN REPORTS COYOTE ATTACK IN HYANNISPORT
HYANNISPORT – A man who was reportedly bitten by a coyote is undergoing precautionary rabies treatment. 42-year old William Galvin told officials he saw what he thought was a dog attacking a woman on Scudder Avenue on Thursday afternoon. Upon getting closer he realized it was a coyote that had latched on to a cat. He says he kicked it in the behind and the coyote turned on him biting him on the arms. He was treated at Cape Cod Hospital.

CAPE WIDE NEWS INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS IN DEADLY HIT & RUN
SANDWICH – In the early morning hours of February 12 of this year Wesley Famigliette of Hyannis and Kristal Manning of Sandwich were returning home from off Cape. They had heard the weather warnings of the Blizzard of 2006 moving in and wanted to beat the storm home. Sometime about 12:30 AM their car went out of control and rolled over on Route 6 eastbound between exits 2 & 3 ejecting them both.

As Famigliette lay wounded in the roadway he was struck by one and possibly two vehicles that left the scene before officials arrived. Wesley Famigliette was pronounced dead. Kristal Manning was rushed to Cape Cod Hospital with serious injuries.

Two days later on Valentines Day only Cape Wide News cameras were rolling as detectives swarmed the Meineke Car Care Center on Route 28 across from the airport in Hyannis. They spent a couple of hours doing forensic tests on this rental Pontiac Vibe station wagon that sources say had human remains on the undercarriage before it was towed to an impound yard.

Its now two months later police and the district attorney’s office have declined any comment despite repeated requests from several media outlets. Is this a case of the DNA lab still being backed up as we saw a year ago with the Christa Worthington case or is there another explanation? A good defense lawyer may argue that Famigliette may have died even without being struck by the car but that does not excuse someone leaving the scene of an accident. It seems impossible to imagine a driver not knowing they had struck something. We’ll let you know any developments as soon as we hear them.

THURSDAY APRIL 13th, 2006
THREE ESCAPE SERIOUS INJURY IN PROVINCETOWN CRASH
PROVINCETOWN – Three people escaped serious injury in this crash in Provincetown Thursday evening. The two-car crash happened about 6:15 PM at the Route 6/Conwell Street intersection. One person was taken to Cape Cod Hospital for evaluation. Provincetown Police are investigating the crash and will try to determine if one of the vehicles may have run a red light. Traffic was detoured until the wreckage was cleared.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 12th, 2006
YARMOUTH VOTERS APPROVE NEW FIRE STATION
YARMOUTH – Yarmouth voters last night unanimously voted $4 million under proposition 2½ for a new West Yarmouth fire station.

The station will provide 24-7 coverage and replace this station located in residential area on Lewis Road.

SOLAR GLARE LIKELY CAUSE OF ROUTE 6 CRASH
^{Photo courtesy of Frank Paparo/NEVN.}
WEST BARNSTABLE – Several people escaped serious injury in a chain-reaction crash on Route 6 eastbound at Exit 6. State Police say ramp traffic was backed up waiting to get off when one vehicle rear-ended another.

Three more vehicles crashed in a chain reaction and a motorcyclist had to “lay down” his bike to avoid crashing into the wreckage. Police believe solar glare contributed to the crash. They had to close the eastbound side of the highway until the mess could be cleaned up. State Police are still investigating the exact cause of the crash.

CREWS BATTLE BRUSH FIRE
BREWSTER – Fire crews from Brewster, Harwich, Chatham and Orleans helped quell a brush fire off Baker’s Pond Road shortly after 6 PM. About a ¼ acre was burning when first crews arrived. Red Flag warnings have been posted in much of the region because of the dry/windy conditions. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

DRIVER EXTRICATED AFTER SANDWICH CRASH
SANDWICH – The driver of a pickup truck had to be extricated from the wreckage after crashing into a tree on Farmersville Road. He was taken to Falmouth Hospital with non life-threatening injuries. Sandwich Police are investigating the cause of the crash.

Read these Cape Wide News stories and more here, and comment below. 

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Chatham Selectmen balk, Harwich Selectmen delay

Chatham & Harwich news
April 12, 2006

Selectmen Balk At Consolidated Town Hall At Annex Site
CHATHAM —The board of selectmen Tuesday voted to forge ahead with a capital facilities plan that includes a new police station and renovated town hall annex ...

Summit: Partnerships, Incentives Will Create Workforce Housing
CHATHAM — Emerging from a six-hour summit on the region’s housing crisis Monday, more than 150 civic leaders didn’t have any quick fixes. ...

Selectmen And Finance Committee Attempt To Reconcile Differences
HARWICH --- Several departments made pleas Monday night for additional monies in their budgets as selectmen and the finance committee met to try to reconcile ...

Jensen: CAC Should Weigh In On Wastewater Plan Costs
CHATHAM — Fred Jensen, chairman of the Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan Citizens’ Advisory Committee (CAC), said his group lacks adequate ...

Finances Foil Plan To Bring In Tall Ship To Mark Champlain ...
CHATHAM --- A bit of the wind is gone from the sails of the upcoming commemoration of Samuel de Champlain’s arrival here 400 years ago, but organizers say ...

Elementary School Twins Honored For 911 Call That Helped Mom
HARWICH --- When eight-year-old Jake Weatherwax saw his mother unconscious on the floor of their home on the night of Feb. 28, he ...

Selectmen Delay Action On Wine License At Cooperage
HARWICH --- The Cape Cod Cooperage business along Queen Anne Road in East Harwich is looking to alter its course, seeking an annual package store, wine and ...

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Nantucket rejects Cape Wind in town article

Islanders feared effect on radar, private nature of project, island access
No surprise that the rich don't want the wind farm, ban chair stores too

Yesterday's voting in the annual town election on that storied and wealthy island included an article which called for the support of the project to build a wind farm in Nantucket Sound which is about 14 miles distant at the nearest point on that island. Click image below to enlarge.

The prediction prior to the vote proved accurate when 67% of the 3,400 votes cast said no.

The final tally was 2,156 against and 1,253 in favor. The island has 7,885 registered votes. 

The decision by the voters in the annual town election yesterday has no force of law, but is  rather a popularity contest on an island where the medium price of a home passed a million dollars a couple years ago. Past stories indicated the island opposed the project by a wide margin.

Chain stores rejected as well , "a theme park for the rich"

The anti-progress attitude of that unique island was  demonstated in another article in the voting when they alsso banned all chairs store, even Starbucks. As Peter Christainsen, a local plumbing contractor said this week, “… If Home Depot came to town and everybody bought their own fixtures, I’d be hurting. I make a lot of money in markups.”

As Nantucket house painter Fred Singleton said, "Nantucket is not a town any longer. It’s a theme park for the rich. "

One of the top reasons islanders gave for their opposition to the Cape Wind farm was the fact that the project is owned by a private company. This on an island noted for its wealthy, businessowner summer residents. 

Millions spent to persuade the rich

Both Clean Power Now and the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound lobbied hard on Nantucket in the last two weeks by handing out leaflets at public buildings and at rotaries. Both sides also called registered voters at home. 

While the proponents used mostly leg-power to persuade voters, according to Monday's Boston Globe "Opponents, meanwhile, raised more than $8 million for their cause in the last two years, using sophisticated fund-raising strategies to target wealthy business leaders with ties to the Cape and islands."

Both sides also bought full page ads in both island newspapers. 

Despite this imbalance, Chelsea Harnish of Clean Power Now said this week, ''We're not going to go down without a fight." 

However some local observers thought CPN should have saved its strength for a fight they had a chance of winning.  The island's medium home price passed $1 million a couple years ago, and as F. Scott Fitzgerald opined, "The rich are different than you and me."

Ernest Hemingway is reputed to have replied, "Yes. They have more money." 

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New wine licence wanted, calling 911 to save mom, drug charge, more

Harwich news of the week

Calling 911 saved their Mom By Douglas Karlson/ dkarlson@cnc.com After a bad reaction to a new medicine, Kim Weatherwax suffered a seizure and lost consciousness in her Harwich home. "My heart stopped beating," said Weatherwax, adding, "my eyes were open, but I wasn’t responsive." Luckily for Weatherwax, she had taught her children to dial 911... [more]

Holding back the sea By Rich Eldred/ reldred@cnc.com That million-dollar view can be a double-edged sword. The ocean is eroding Cape Cod, wave by wave, and waterfront homeowners will spend a lot to... [more]

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Environmentalists to protest Kennedy's "skullduggery" tomorrow

Protest Against Senator Kennedy by Environmentalists to express their outrage at his secret Anti-Wind Farm Actions

New Hampshire Congressman joins chorus decrying the Kennedy-Stevens kill-bill 

When the Congressional Conference Committee  voted last week to give  the Massachusetts governor veto power over the Cape Wind project alone out of all others planned for the US, most local observers assumed the project's supporters would fold their tents and  fade into the night.

They were wrong.

If anything, the so-called "stealth amendment" acted like a stick stuck in a hornet's nest, and the fury of the enviromental community is a spectacle to behold.

Hell hath no fury like an environmentalist scorned

To start with, the local 5,000 member Clean Power Now grassroots group and leading environmentalists will stage protest tomorrow at Faneuil Hall against Senator Kennedy to decry what they call "his cloak and dagger tactics to stop America's first offshore wind farm, planned for Nantucket Sound."

Senator Kennedy acknowledged recently he supported an amendement to a Coast Guard reauthorization bill proposed by Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska which was passed behind closed doors. The amendment, which has yet to be approved by Congress, gives the Massachusetts governor a veto over an offshore wind project, but only in Nantucket Sound.

"This is the worst kind of political skullduggery," said Clean Power Now Executive Director Matt Palmer. "The rules shouldn't be changed part way through the review process. Our members are outraged," he added.

New Hampshire Congressman  warns of energy loss to region

Today Congressman Charles Bass said that if Cape Wind is not built, his New Hampshire constituents could be hurt. Bass is opposing a plan in Congress that would halt progress on a proposed offshore wind farm. The US Congressman insusted that not finding adequate power resources in New England could hurt New Hampshire residents and force everyone in the region to pay higher power costs. 

Congreesman Bass notified the House Leadership and House negotiators on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act (H.R. 889) that he opposes the addition of language to the legislation that would effectively halt progress on the proposed Cape Wind offshore wind farm that would produce up to 420 megawatts of clean, renewable energy.

“Current estimates are that by as early as 2008 our region may have insufficient supplies to meet its electricity needs,” said Bass. “Because the New England electricity grid is interconnected and interdependent, failing to ensure adequate resources for tomorrow’s needs could affect my constituents in New Hampshire and force the entire region to pay higher rates if we are forced into using costlier fuels.”

Additional help was extended from Washington's Senator Maria Cantwell on Friday who was a member of the Conference Committee.

She fired off a letter to  the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman, respectively, both of New Mexico. While congress is now in recess for Easter, the Energy Committee is expected to object heatedly to this intrusion upon their turf when they return.

• WHO: Clean Power Now and other environmentalists
• WHEN: 10:30 AM, Wednesday, April 12, 2006
• WHERE: Faneuil Hall, Boston

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AmeriCorps Volunteers Help Give A New Look To Menauhant Beach

 A heartwarming story in this week's Falmouth Enterprise

In another month or two, thousands of vacations will descend on Cape Cod. They will head for local beach, and frolic in the briny and their children will build sand castles on the clean white sand.

None will have the slightest inkling of the labors of love which made this pristine pleasure possible. But the people in Falmouth know because a selfless group of twenty-something AmeriCorps volunteers have just given up their fun time here to spend their days cleaning and repairing Menauhunt Beach and others.

The Falmouth Entrerprise describes their days this way; 

Yesterday, on a sunny spring day, these AmeriCorps volunteers with five of their peers, spent the morning planting 10,000 shoots and 60 woody plants, including bayberry and beach plum, on the eastern side of Menauhant Beach.

They did the work crouching down, some on their knees, others lying on their sides or stomachs, in a matter of four hours with only one short coffee break to interrupt the rigors of the job...

Read the rest of this Enterprise story here, and comment below. 

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Cape dog wins show, escapes

 "I'm not leaving until she is found," says owner

In a case eerily reminiscent of Vivi the pooch who flew the coop at Kennedy Airport two months after winning the Westminster Kennel Show in Madison Square Garden, Becky the purebred English pointer from Brazil by way of Cape Cod pulled the same trick in Springfield two days ago. 

Helyne E. Medeiros of Marstons Mills is very proud of her dog Becky which had just won "Best of Breed" ribbons at two regional dog shows held at the Eastern States Exposition in Springfield MA last weekend. A typical English pointer is shown on right.

But fame must have been too much for Becky who escaped from her motel room shortly after her twin victories.

"I'm not leaving until she is found," said Medeiros, in a story in today's Springfield Republican.  Anyone who sees Becky is asked to call (508) 889-8406.

Hopefully Becky will be luckier than Vivi, the Westminster Kennel Club prizewinner that got loose from a Delta Airlines flight to California Feb. 15 who was spotted a month ago near 190th Street and 48th Avenue in Brooklyn. In Vivi's case anyone spotting her is asked to   call (917) 647-4848 or (917) 626-1374

There is a reward for both dogs.. 

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Sandwich man named America's "Ranger of the year"

Les Perry, 40 year veteran of our state parks, wins high honor

The Boston Globe reported this afternoon that Les Perry, supervisor at the Department of Conservation and Recreation's Shawme-Crowell State Forest in Sandwich, has been selected as the nation's "Ranger of the Year" among the staffs at more than 3,000 state parks.

 Shawme-Crowell State Forest in Sandwich has over 15 miles of roads and trails provide hiking and equestrian access to over 700 acres of pitch pine and scrub oak landscape. Parking access to the nearby beach at Scusset State Reservation is also provided in camping fees at Shawme-Crowell.

There are six state park properties on Cape Cod 

This local park is a part of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (see map below) which was formed by the merger of the Department of Environmental Management and the Metropolitan District Commission in July 2003. 

Other local parks which are part of the DCR include Nickerson State Park in Brewster, South Beach State Park in Mashpee,  Scusset Beach State Reservation in Sandwich, Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Falmouth and the Cape Cod Railtrail.

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Nuclear sub sank off Cape Cod 33 years ago today

 129 crew died 220 miles east of Cape Cod

On this day in 1963 America suffered the worse disaster of the Cold War when the nuclear submarine Thresher sank with all aboard east of Nauset beach. 

 USS Thresher (click image to enlarge),a 3,700-ton nuclear-powered attack submarine, was built at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine. Commissioned in August 1961, she conducted lengthy trials in the western Atlantic and Caribbean the Thresher returned to her builders for overhaul.

On 10 April 1963, after the completion of this work, Thresher began post-overhaul trials. Accompanied by the submarine rescue ship Skylark (ASR-20), she transited to an area some 220 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and started deep-diving tests. As these proceeded, garbled communications were received by Skylark, indicating trouble aboard the submarine. It gradually became apparent that she had sunk, taking the lives of 129 officers, crewmen and civilian technicians.

Worse peacetime U.S. Navy catastrophe

Thresher was the most advanced submarine in the world at the time. She had been built specifically to hunt and kill Soviet submarines. An entire crew of men lost their lives in the sinking of this U.S. nuclear submarine. It was the worst peacetime catastrophe in the history of the U.S. Navy and one of the worst deep-sea disasters of all time. 

Read the Globe story about a ceremony at the Maine shipyard which built the sub here.
Read the U.S. Navy report on the accident here.
Read the National Geographic report here.

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Wind Farm popularity contest on Nantucket

Tomorrow island voters will vote on the Cape Wind project

The decision by the 7,900 voters eligible in the annual town election tomorrow has no force of law, but rather a popularity contest on an island where the medium price of a home passed a million dollars a couple years ago. Past stories and indicate the island opposes the project by a wide margin.

The report in today's Boston Globe suggests,

...Supporters have invoked dire warnings about global warming and the need for alternative energies; they have also attempted to paint their opponents as oceanfront property owners worried about their own views. Opponents, meanwhile, raised more than $8 million for their cause in the last two years, using sophisticated fund-raising strategies to target wealthy business leaders with ties to the Cape and islands.

The Nantucket members of Clean Power Now have been leading the fight to persuade their neighbors to endorse a project widely believed anathema to the wealthy seasonal property owners there. Last March a similar article in the Mashpee town warrant was defeated  1,075-to-713 in a 20% voter turn out. The one precinct voting in favor was the one nearest the canal power plant.

Some project supporters felt the effort to win this vote only draws attention to a foregone conclusion. Others feel any support the wind farm recieves tomorrow is a plus since no one predicts a victory.

Read the story here.

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Rail service to Bourne? Box stores absense hurting The Cape?

The Future for Cape Cod? 

Two stories in today's Standard-Times tell much about where Cape Cod is heading.

In the first there is an effort afoot to get funding from the state to extend the rail link from Lakeville to Wareham and Buzzards Bay, about fifteen miles. The photo on right was taken in 1986 when the passenger service was available to the cape.

In the second the South Coast between Wareham and Fall River claim that because the cape lacks the usual bevy of box stores that area is luring our local shoppers off cape.

Wareham (Buzzards Bay) look to ramp support for rail

Cindy Parola thinks fondly of the day when a commuter train will once again come chugging back down the tracks into Wareham and Buzzards Bay. But she and other local rail supporters may have a hard sell when it comes to convincing the state to push the comparatively inexpensive extension of the Middleboro/Lakeville commuter line.

The latest study on whether rail should be extended to the area is under way, but state officials insist they won't make any firm commitment, even when that study is completed.
"No decision is even being contemplated," said Edward Carr, director of transportation for the Executive Office of Transportation. "All this is is information gathering."

The state likes to keep its data current on long-range transportation projects, Mr. Carr said, and the last Wareham/Buzzards Bay data was collected more than a decade ago, shortly before the Lakeville station opened. .. Read the rest here, and comment below.
 
'Power center': The new 'in' place to shop

Don't know what to call that group of shops with the "big-box" retailers on each end, the ones we used to call strip malls?  Want to sound retail-savvy?

Then just tell people you're going shopping at the "power center," and those in the know will understand you have your finger on the commercial and marketing pulse of America.
Better yet, talk about your wishes to set up housekeeping in a "living center" or "lifestyle center," and anyone who knows the code will understand that you want an apartment upstairs in a place that looks like Mashpee Commons, if it had condos...

In Wareham, a 750,000-square-foot power center is about to emerge on NStar property as a cross-town rival to the 20-year-old Wal-Mart/Stop & Shop power center on Cranberry Highway. Wareham town planner Charles Gricus said that the trend toward power centers is because "they're cheaper, probably." And he welcomes them because "we're really becoming a regional retail center" with all the major stores drawing many people away from Cape Cod... Read the rest here, and comment below.

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Upper Cape news of the week

Town Meeting Votes Budget With $629,000 Debt Exclusion
About 170 exhausted Falmouth Town Meeting members filed out of the Lawrence School auditorium at about 11:15 PM Wednesday after a grueling three-night Town Meeting.

Little Pond Landing 40B Project Will Require State MEPA Review
State Officials Find Wetland Alterations Threshold Exceeded

Much Hard Work Required To Meet High School Renovation Deadline
At the Falmouth High School Building Committee meeting yesterday, Superintendent of Schools Dennis A. Richards asked the question that has been a lingering concern to committee members at recent meetings

Nine Falmouth Teens Arrested In Drug Bust
Simultaneous raids on houses in East Falmouth, Hatchville, and Woods Hole this morning resulted in the arrests of nine Falmouth High School students on a variety of drug possession and distribution charges.

New Positions Approved For Fire, Police Departments
Town Meeting members approved two new positions for both the Falmouth fire and Falmouth police departments last night at the Spring Annual Town Meeting.

Maintaining Character Of Town Lies At Heart Of Nat Ross’s Vision
For Nathaniel D. Ross, 43, chairman of the Falmouth Historic Districts Commission, interest in historic preservation comes naturally.

Garden Club Will Celebrate Anniversary With June Flower Show At Highfield Hall
The Falmouth Garden Club had its first meeting on March 23, 1931, attended by 13 members who were treated to water as the only refreshment at the home of its first president, Caroline Webb

Progress Made On Combating Winter Moths, But Severe Infestation Expected This Season
At a seminar held Friday at the Holiday Inn on Jones Road in Falmouth, University of Massachusetts entomologists, Dr. Joseph Elkinton and his colleague Robert. D. Childs, presented local arborists, landscapers, and town officials with both good news and bad news on ways this pest can be controlled.

Mashpee

Perry Thinks Health Insurance Bill Will Come Back To Bite
State Representative Jeffrey D. Perry (R - Sandwich) was one of only two legislators to vote against the health care reform bill this week, and he compared his vote to a bottle of fine wine.

Housing Authority Rejects 120-Unit Route 130 Project
The Mashpee Housing Authority unanimously voted Tuesday night not to give the green light to a Local Initiative Program housing project proposed by Laura F. Shufelt of the Falmouth Housing Authority.

Talanian Wastewater Facility Facing Major Permit Hurdle
Still trying to address the developer’s failure to meet permit requirements, the planning board heard Wednesday night from Talanian Realty representative Don E. Megathlin and the consulting engineer from Weston & Sampson Services, the firm Talanian Realty has hired to run and monitor the wastewater treatment facility at their development, Southcape Village.

Sandwich

Moderator Hopefuls Face Off
A race for the town moderator’s position brought three candidates to the table for Monday night’s forum.

School District Wrestles With $1.2 M Budget Gap
Just when it seemed the school budget season couldn’t get any more contentious, it has. This week, parents learned that instrumental music was being removed from the schools’ curriculum and that the district was considering bus fees for students and possibly increasing high school sports fees to $600.

Selectmen Candidates Tackle Questions About Commercial Growth, Commission Pullout
The two candidates running for one selectman’s seat showed up for Monday night’s candidates forum poised and ready to express their views on many important issues facing the town.

School Board Race At Center Stage Of Candidates Forum
The hotly contested race for school committee was the highlight of the sixth annual candidates night, sponsored by The Sandwich Enterprise and the Cape Cod Canal Region Chamber of Commerce.

Bourne

'Littles' Seeking 'Bigs'
WANTED: Big Brothers. No special skills needed. No age requirement. Need to have at least two to four hours, two times a month, available to spend with one of the many boys on the waiting list of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Cape Cod and the Islands. To volunteer, call 508-771-5150.

TM Resolutions Seek War’s End, Regional Health Insurance, Tribe’s Recognition
As the Bourne Finance Committee has worked through the 33 warrant articles currently heading toward Bourne’s May 8 Town Meeting, three proposals had members temporarily stumped.

LCP Heads To Town Meeting
After more than three years of effort, Bourne’s completed Local Comprehensive Plan will be placed before voters as a warrant article for the May 8 Annual Town Meeting.

Conron, Sloniecki Win Selectman Seats Write-In Campaign For Health Board Garners 550 Votes
Bourne voters, clearly ready for a change, ushered in two new selectmen Wednesday. Judith W. Conron of Gray Gables was the top vote-getter, receiving 1,661 votes, or 36.27 percent of those cast. Jamie J. Sloniecki of Sagamore Beach came in second, with 27.4 percent, or 1,255 votes.

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Troopers shaken up, $75K drug bust, 9 students nabbed

The two drivers ages total 162  in Falmouth crash

SATURDAY APRIL 8th, 2006
TWO TROOPERS SHAKEN UP IN STRUGGLE WITH SUSPECT
YARMOUTH – Two state troopers faced their worst nightmare when a routine traffic stop turned anything but. About 11:30 PM they stopped a truck with a headlight out on Route 6 between exits 7&8 and subsequently determined the truck was unregistered. As they began an inventory search in preparation for the truck to be impounded the passenger 24-year old Michael Rivera of Hyannis allegedly punched the officers and tried to pull a gun on them. The officers subdued Rivera with pepper spray. He faces charges of assault and battery on a police officer and resisting arrest as well as drug trafficking and firearm charges. The police seized a quantity of cocaine and the gun which was stolen. The driver of the truck 27-year old Michael Knight of Hyannis faces drug trafficking charges as well as weapon charges. The two troopers were taken to Cape Cod Hospital by Yarmouth ambulance for evaluation.

FRIDAY APRIL 7th, 2006
DENNIS BUST NETS 75K IN DRUGS
DENNIS – A drug bust in Dennis led to $75,000 in drugs being seized. The joint operation involved Barnstable, Plymouth and Wareham Police as well as the Cape Cod Drug Task Force and the DEA. 48-year old Brian P. Druker of Dennis was arrested for trafficking in cocaine, and possession with intent to distribute cocaine, methadone, OxyContin, and Percocet. Officials also seized Druker’s Dodge pickup, 2 snowmobiles, a Jet Ski and $20,000 cash.

NINE FALMOUTH STUDENTS NABBED IN DRUG STING
FALMOUTH – Nine Falmouth High School students were arrested this morning after a lengthy narcotic investigation. The operation by Falmouth included an undercover officer posing as a senior who made 32 buys over 3 months, 20 on school grounds. Arrested were 17-year old Adam C. Hey for two counts of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, selling marijuana, and selling drugs in a school zone, 17-year old Chad Wiernicki two counts of possession of class D with intent to distribute and selling marijuana, 17-year old Scott Theirault for conspiracy to violate controlled the controlled substance act, and 17-year old Ryan T. Tripp for 3 counts of possession of class D with intent to distribute and three counts of distributing marijuana. Four 16 year olds and a 14 year old were also charged but not identified due to their ages.

HEAD ON CRASH SNARLS FAMOUTH TRAFFIC
FALMOUTH – At least one person was taken to Falmouth Hospital after a head on crash at the intersection of Thomas B. Landers Road and Sam Turner Road in Falmouth just before 8 AM. The injuries are not believed to be life-threatening. The crash comes just hours after a Thursday afternoon crash sent two elderly to Falmouth Hospital. 80-year old Paul Vician of Falmouth was cited for failing to yield. The other car was driven by 82-year old Frank Vieira also of Falmouth. Falmouth Police continue to investigate both crashes.

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Jeepers creepers and Scooping the poop

News from 7 Lower Cape towns
Thursday, April 6, 2006

Too young to drive? By Bill Fonda/ bfonda@cnc.com Getting a driver’s license is a rite of passage for both children and parents - a step toward independence for one, perhaps a step toward heartburn... [more]

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An ill wind from Congress

The Boston Globe lead editorial today excoriates Congress for "sandbagging" Cape Wind.

The Editorial charges;  

"THE COUNTRY'S most important renewable energy project is in danger of being sandbagged in Congress. An amendment to a spending bill for the US Coast Guard would grant veto power over the plan for a wind farm off Cape Cod to Governor Romney, an outspoken opponent. As important as funding for the Coast Guard is, Congress should reject this bill and stop playing games with the nation's hopes of weaning itself from fossil fuels and the greenhouse gases they emit..."

Today's Globe goes on to say that if Congress gives a veto power to Romney, it would be a victory for the project's well-heeled opponents who have funded the wind farm's ban in the backrooms of Congress. The piece ends up thus:

"The veto provision is also a blatant example of the kind of special-interest earmarking that subverts the democratic process in Washington. Such a provision would never prevail if it were subjected to open committee hearings. "

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Barnstable: growing and time is running out

MMR's future seen as 'data' base ... the monthly luncheon meeting of the Cape Cod Chapter of the Military Officers Association of America. With the plan being to relocate the aircraft to Barnes in Westfield, there has ...

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Romney's Osterville chums

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Trash to treasure and three Dennis fires

Mid Cape news
April 6, 2003

Trash to treasure By Nicole Muller/ nmuller@cnc.com Like the folks in Puxatawney awaiting February’s emergence of their famous groundhog, Mid-Cape bargain-hunters flocked to Saturday’s reopening of the Mary Hood Hagler Reusable Building, seeking treasure.     "Finders keepers" takes on a new meaning at transfer station swap shops like the one in Dennis adjacent to the transfer station... [more]

Three Dennis fires cause significant damage, no injuries By Nicole Muller/ nmuller@cnc.com Fires that could have been avoided recently ripped through homes in Dennisport, East Dennis and Dennis. A March 23 house fire at 500 Depot St., Dennisport,... [more]

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Melville left due to politics, Move to leave Commission

Chatham and Harwich news
April 6, 2006

Move To Interim Nitrogen Loading Regulations
CHATHAM --- Given the likelihood that it will be decades before most of the town is sewered, the health board’s interim nitrogen loading regulations are ...

Water Department Threatens No Flow Unless Bills Are Paid
HARWICH ---There will be no favoritism when it comes to unpaid bills in the water department. Several town departments are under ...

Push On To Secede From Cape Cod Commission
CHATHAM — Saying he’s heard too many horror stories, resident David Rauscher has submitted a petition article urging the town to withdraw from the Cape Cod ...

Saquatucket Harbor East Side Lot Gets Face Lift
HARWICH ---Long awaited improvements are being made to the Saquatucket Harbor east side parking lot. A funding commitment from the ...
 
Acting Towm Administrator ready
HARWICH --- With town meeting less than a month away, stepping into the fray as acting town administrator will not be an easy task for assistant Rene Read. ...

Nine-lot Subdivision Proposed For Crowell Road Property
CHATHAM --- The planning board will hold a preliminary review next week of a proposed nine-lot, 11-acre subdivision on property along Crowell Road. ...

Hinchey: Sewer Expansion ‘Extraordinarily Affordable’
CHATHAM — Selectmen Tuesday night had sticker shock when Town Manager William Hinchey described the impact on taxpayers of a worst-case $250 million project ...

Harwich Town Administrator left due to politcs
HARWICH --- After 18 years serving as the town’s only town administrator, Wayne Melville left Friday to begin a new chapter in his life as chief ...

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Bourne election coverage, Sandwich news

Upper Cape news
April 6, 2003