According to Geno Geng on Facebook, a pole fire in Barnstable is responsible for our lack if Internet and cable on Nantucket this morning. So build a fire and stare at it until the repairs are made. It's what we did in the olden days.

G.

An interesting quote in the paper from Melissa Philbrick:

“It’s not anecdotal. People drive around and add to congestion looking for parking spaces,” said ReMain Nantucket executive director Melissa Philbrick. “Parking is not adequate to serve the businesses downtown, and it’s hurting our business community and the visitor experience. I believe that.”

Facebook posts lead to witness intimidation charges 

And people wonder why I moderate this site. 

It's always fun to see the Box filled with four year olds. 

http://www.nantucket-ma.gov/Pages/NantucketMA_TownMeeting/2011atm/2011BO...

For all you folks who wish to pour over the warrant for the 2011 ATM, follow the URL above. There are 117 warrant articles this year, and some pretty interesting decisions to be made for the future of our town. 

How many nights of discussions do you think we will have? I'm thinking three. Or two really, really long nights. 

Mark your calendars:

Annual Town Meeting begins on April 4, 2011. 

Annual Town Election is Tuesday, April 12th. 

Am I the only one who has noticed that there are three kinds of board members? What I mean to say is that it appears tht BOS members can be neatly divided into three types of people. 

1. The Doers. 

These are the ones who run because they want to make things better — they want to create policies that will help the island and its people. People like Matt, Finn Murphy, Kopko.

2. The Egotists.

Last week, Selectman Chair, Patty Roggeveen remarked that giving the town manager the power to hire and fire town counsel with a 4/5ths majority vote of the BOS the only thing that can overturn such a decision, a "best practice."

Is it?

Well, it would stand to reason that if such a measure was a best practice, then most cities and towns would be deploying it, right?

Tonight the BOS will hear evidence that this is not a best practice and, in fact, the vast majority of town selectmen across the commonwealth retain the right to hire counsel. In fact, of the31 towns polled recently, only two allow the town manager to hire town counsel and then only with a simple majority approval by those towns' boards. See the attached excel file for details. 

Three men were arrested Thursday on armed robbery charges after an incident on Essex Road involving a hand gun and a stun gun weapon was reported to Nantucket police.

Read the whole story here: Three men arrested for armed robbery on Essex Road

The latest news of the selectman's race is that Cliff Williams, my across the street neighbor, has pulled papers. So that makes four people so far. 

Rick Atherton

Bobby DeCosta

Carol Dunton

And Cliff Williams

Any other people ready and willing to serve? Matt? Allen?

Rumors have also been circulating, the flames fanned by sightings at FinCom and the BOS meetings, that Mike Glowacki is seriously considering a run at the BOS again. 

Okay, so a few weeks ago, the forces of evil on the Board of Selectmen vote Paul DeRensis out for no reason. Now those same selectmen are introducing a selectman-sponsored warrant article to take the selection of town counsel out of the Selectman's hands and give it entirely to the Town Manager, so that a future board cannot bring DeRensis back. 

Who cares that such matters really need to be done by the people's elected representatives.

Who cares that the vast majority of people that I have polled think Roggeveen, Chadwick and Willauer were wrong in firing DeRensis. 

Who cares that the whole thing reeks of politics. 

I'm hoping the voters at ATM see through this ploy. 

My fiend Dave Provost is looking for support for his new album projects, and is using kickstarter.com to help raise funds. Kickstarter is a great way for artists to get funding for their endeavors. If you pledge to help support a project on kickstarter, you will only be billed if the entire amount (in this case a little over $10,000) is pledged collectively. 

Please help support Dave's new project. I just did! He's 15% of the way there!

Click here to enter kickstarter.com and learn more: The New Album by Dave Provost

Tonight is the next step in my personal quest to make it more difficult for the town to build a parking garage downtown. I will go before the planning board and explain my citizen's article. 

The Board will likely vote against. Which will make it more difficult for it to pass at town meeting. So if you don't like the idea of the town building a parking garage downtown, please consider showing up and voicing your concerns. It's No. 9 on the agenda. 

Maybe a little public discourse will sway a planning board member or two. Maybe John McGlaughlin, who is running for re-election on the board will see the value of public opinion on this issue. He hates the look of wind turbines. How can he like the look of parking garages?