EXTRA...

Group formed to reduce bureaucracy suggests more instead

TODAY's quote: “Going with big pipes and big facilities is a more costly idea than working on a smaller scale. It is just one of those words, regionalization, that sounds good, but I haven’t seen any rationale or explanation of what it really means here." - F. Thomas Fudala, chairman of the Mashpee Sewer Commission.

Barnstable County government asks its 'inventors' to judge them

How Barnstable County Government would re-invent the pencil sharpener:
Open window (A) and fly kite (B). String (C) lifts small door (D) allowing moths (E) to escape and eat Bill Doherty's red flannel long-johns (F). As weight of shirt becomes less, Sheila Lyon's shoe (G) steps on switch (H) which heats electric iron (I) and burns hole in Elliot Carr's pants (J). Smoke (K) enters hole in tree (L), smoking out opossum (M) which jumps into basket (N), pulling rope (O) and lifting cage (P), allowing woodpecker (Q) to chew wood from pencil (R), exposing lead. Emergency knife (S) is always handy to sharpen the pencil in case opossum or the woodpecker gets sick and can't work.

Small towns to be asked to pay for big towns' mistakes
Group suggests new bureaucracy to be added to present county government

By Walter Brooks

The Falmouth Enterprise reports that a special commission formed by the Cape Cod Commission to consider the future of county government on Cape Cod recommended yesterday the creation of a large additional county bureaucracy.

“It is a regional issue whether we like it or not.”-  Dan Wolf.The 27-member group formed to make recommendations to Barnstable County’s three commissioners about a possible restructuring of county government recommended the creation of an extra commission instead - a new regional wastewater agency.

Two former State Senators Robert A. O’Leary (D) and Henri S. Rauschenbach (R), are the co-chairmen of the commission. O'Leary's most recent political effort was to unseat his fellow Democrat Bill Keating as the Congressman from this district, and Rauschenbach is best remembered for barely surviving an ethics investigation before leaving office, an office O'Leary inherited.

The players:
Henri Rauschenbach (R)
State senator 1988-2001, resident of Brewster. Ranking Republican on the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
State Rep from 1984 to 1988.
Acquitted in 1995 of ethics charges related to taking $2,500-per-month payments from an Osterville investment broker.
His initiatives while in office:
Cape Cod Commission Act in 1987.
Economic Development Council in 1992. Cape Cod and islands license plate.
Lower Cape Cod CDC.
Career Opportunities Center in Hyannis.
He was succeeded by:
Rob O'Leary (D)
MMA professor 1975-present.
County Commissioner 1987-2001.
State Senator 2001 to 2011, resident of Barnstable.
Initiatives: Helped establish CC Commission.
Cape Cod Land Bank.
Ocean management legislation.
Chair of Higher Education Committee.This reporter fails to see how this kind of tarnished leadership can expect support from "the powers that be", although our current State Senator, Dan Wolf, seems to agree that "more is better" when it comes to county government.

Mr. Wolf has lived in the same house in the most rural section of North Harwich, an area with zero pollution problems, which would be asked to pay for the pollution caused by waterfront homes built without adequate septic systems to prevent pollution of our aquafer.

Wolf is a highly successful businessman who surely knows that a bureaucracy's only function is to enrich itself, and nothing in either of the co-chairs' past would indicate a respect for the taxpayer or the air they breath. Both are opponents to the renewable energy wind farm which will be built now despite, their efforts to stop it.

In the 1980s every county in the state had a similar commission, or county government, which had become obsolete as the state and the nation moved beyond the rural societies of the past.

All counties in Massachusetts saw the legislature eliminate their county governments, but it was thought that  Barnstable, and to a lesser degree, Plymouth, still needed one.

The Cape Cod Commission was formed by a ballot question in November 1988 when 76 percent of Cape voters endorsed its creation, and then-Governor Michael S. Dukakis signed the Cape Cod Commission Act in January 1990.

Many Cape Codder, and almost all local businesses, now believe the County Commission has outlived its purpose, and the state has laws and agencies which perform the same functions at no additional cost to the county.

The argument against a "regional approach"

A year ago the 27-member panel was formed to look into the commission's status in 21st century Massachusetts, and apparently that panel has decided Cape Cod needs more bureaucracy, not less.

"They did not want a big, powerful regional agency telling every town how to go about the project."
                - Thomas Fudala.The recommended new agency to regulate wastewater for the county would also create jobs for unemployed politicians and their friends.

The Enterprise reports that F. Thomas Fudala, chairman of the Mashpee Sewer Commission, said in an interview with the Enterprise last week, "A similar discussion about the benefits of a regional approach took place prior to the creation of the Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative.

"The towns made clear they wanted help with advocating for money and assistance in coordinating with other municipalities, but they did not want a big, powerful regional agency telling every town how to go about the project."

The problem to be addressed by the proposed new bureaucracy is the nitrogen and other pollution caused by some towns which allowed large homes to be built on waterways like the Mashpee River, while smaller and less densely populated towns on the Lower Cape have no such problem, but would be forced to pay to remedy problems caused by their neighbors.

Jefferson said that a nation deserves the leaders it chooses. It seems our commissioner have chosen a couple losers to mislead them.

See the Enterprise story here.

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