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| March 31, 2006 Barnstable Patriot |  |
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A Series by Seth Pool
The recent Cape Cod Com-
mission insurgency is threaten-
ing to clog the works for the
region's wastewater planning.
Still, information is filtering
out of the town's seven villages
aboyt their individual action
plans to address wastewater
concerns. As issues separate
and settle, what's emerging is
a strong local response to a re-
gional problem that could either
bury or drown the peninsula.
The plans are in reaction to
Town Manager John Klimm's
call for each village to develop
a plan of its own. A similar
approach was taken with the
town's desire to see greater dis-
tribution of affordable housing,
with the town proposing options
to increase the percentages in
the seven villages, but always
with the option of substituting a
village-designed plan for town
hall's.
"When you're in, you're in.
But when you're out, everything
gets so backed up you can't
think straight," attorney and
town wastewater coordinator
Emma Naa said. "We're looking
for free-flowing ideas to bring
clarity to a murky situation."
Our communities are flush
with wastewater, but individually
and collectively, we are pre-
pared to plunge headlong into
the odious problem and could
come out smelling like roses.
FLUSH WITH WASTEWATER
1DRAININGPROBLEM
Regulatory Law
declared across
peninsula
By A.B. Seize
Barnstable Village Correspondent
In its Colonial-style headquar-
ters in the heart of Barnstable
Village, the Cape Cod Commis-
sion found the spirit of revolu-
tion has a welcome home in its
oft-challenged heart.
Besieged by hostile external
maneuvers to reduce commis-
sion power to little more than a
regional hall monitor, commis-
sion staff went to bunker, declar-
ing regulatory law over the entire
Cape.
"I'm in control now," commis-
sion director, now commandant ,
Margo Fenn declared.
The first course of action was
to take over the abandoned
House of Correction at the top of
the hill.
"We're tired of paying rent on
Main Street," Fenn complained.
While the action appears rash,
it's the product of many years'
work. The commission has sim-
ply been waiting for the appropri-
ate time to activate its plan.
"Our time is now," Fenn said.
"Why do you think we've spent
years getting others to improve
the roads and access?"
With his deep knowledge of
road congestion across Cape,
Colonel Bob Mumford of the
1st Transportation Corps is in
charge of orderly troop move-
ments.
In the new regularitized zones,
movement is restricted to roads
meeting level of service "D" or
worse.
"We need them to move slowly
to keep tabs on everyone, so all
travel will be restricted to major
arteries between 8 and 9 a.m.
only," Mumford said. "Use of
short cuts and side roads simply
won't be tolerated."
Downtown Hyannis will be
spared, according to Fenn,
because its hard-won freedom
is still under the watchful and
vengeful eye of commission
authority.
"They think they're free. That's
all that matters ," Fenn chuckled.
The commission will face for-
midable foes in the days, weeks
and years ahead. Business and
community leaders have also
been plotting in anticipation of
just such a commission move.
Barnstable Airport Commis-
sioner Larry Wheatley, who
has never recognized the
commission 's authority on the
airport's sovereign soil, will tap
his experience as a Coast Guard
JAG officer for the tactical legal
skirmishes ahead.
"We've been through their staff
reports," Wheatley said. "We
know how they think and where
they're going to hit us."
Wheatley's forces are staging
in commission-required open
space. "This will fry their bacon,"
THE NEW BASTILLE - The
jail was empty and no one
was liberated, but Cape
Cod Commission forces
declared their assault on the
hill a tremendous success.
They are in the process of
mitigating the landscaping
trampled on the way up.
he beamed.
As in the days of the Revolu-
tion, the commission is relying
on ordinary citizens to lay down
their plows (or keyboards) and
pick up their swords (or letters
of opposition) to help wage the
battles ahead.
Still to be identified is where
these "Cape Cod Commissioned"
will march and what they will do
once they arrive.
"Yeah, that's something of a
puzzler," Fenn admitted. "We're
more apt to call for a con-
tinuance to allow more time for
documentation."
Barnstable Village's history is
one of following the establish-
ment and eschewing rebellious
notions. Unlike its namesake to
the west, home of Revolution-
ary War firebrand James "the
Patriot" Otis, Barnstable Village
voted against participation in the
Colonial War for Independence.
Evidence can still be seen in
the many black-capped chim-
neys of the village's ancient
homes.
"We're not going to be on the
wrong side of this one," Barn-
stable Civic Association Presi-
dent Ralph Cahoon declared.
"We're asking all who believe in
this cause to paint their chimney
caps green as a sign of support ."
Cahoon said that a combined
waiver for all commissioned into
this Cape Cod army would be
sought at the planning agency's
regional rival, the Old King's
Highway Historic District.
"While we agree with their
' cause, I'm not sure political ide-
ology is an exempt use for the cer-
tificate of appropriateness," OKH
chairman Patricia Anderson said.
If all goes as planned, permits
for the war should be in hand in
10 months to a year.
Cape Cod Commission goes to bunker
Falling into the outfall
When Boston Harbor was choked with
the city's sewage, the answer was to con-
struct a multi-billion-dollar pipeline nine
miles into Massachusetts Bay, and the
trouble simply floated away.
Barnstable Village is taking a similar
tact.
"Well , Boston is really big, right? So
if they went nine miles for a city of that
size, and we're just a fraction of that , we
figured a couple hundred feet ought to
do," village engineer (as in engine and
caboose) Dirk Enails said. "That'll put
the end of the pipe somewhere near the
second channel marker. "
The recent discovery of a Colonial-era
collection system of clay tiles and hol-
lowed logs, in addition to ready-made
canals from mosquito control ditches , will
ease the installation.
"Really, all we need is a little PVC and
duct tape from The Home Depot to get
that up to snuff and this place will drain
like nothing," Enails predicted.
Hyannis looked at the outfall notion, as
did other southside villages, but the "No-
Discharge Zone" adopted for boaters five
years ago apparently applies.
"Yeah, those do-gooders really screwed
themselves with that one," Enails ob-
served.
Still, getting others to see the wisdom
in the gravity-fed collection and discharge
system has been like gettinig water to
flow uphill. The state's Cape office of
Coastal Zone Management remains
under seige, but regulatory mercanaries
hired by the Boston headquarters are
ready to cork this plan
"That's really the kind of stuff we were
hoping to keep out of the harbor," Collette
Shunpipe said. "Maybe if they were able
to find a piece of undeveloped land, pump
it below ground and then build ballfields
on top we could see our way to approval."
For now, Enails and his fellow villagers
are trenching to the harbor.
Barnstable
Village
HEARTHE CALL
Ottoman's Young
Turks revamp
the Parody
By Ada Vistik
Parady Staff
Ottoman Newspaper Empire, Inc.,
owner of The Barnstable Parody
and other weekly and daily newspa-
pers, announced that the Parodywill
henceforth appear in eight editions
every week.
"At Ottoman , our slogan is, 'Put
your feet up and spend some time
with your friendly newspaper,'" said
spokesman Kemal Ataturk. "We need
to blanket our Empire with the kind
of intensely local coverage that can
be delivered only by staff that's close
to the source of news."
No new hires are planned to aug-
ment the editorial staff , but unpaid
free lancers will be invited to camp
out behind school buildings.
"We want them on the ground and
living by their wits," Ataturk said.
"Villagers will be delighted when our
journalists knock on their doors to
ask for a cup of coffee and the latest
news."
While the Parody itself will con-
tinue to be published, readers in
each of Barnstable's seven villages
will also receive free-distribution
weeklies devoted solely to their part
of town. The first delivery of The
Barnstable Village Parody, The Cen-
terville Parody. The Cotuit Parody,
The Hyannis Parody, The Marstons
Mills Parody, The Osterville Parody,
and The West Barnstable Parody will
begin next Friday.
Each is sampled in this convenient
preview.
"I am thrilled at the prospect of
destabilizing another regional entity,"
said Town Council President Hank
Farnham of West Barnstable. "A
Parody dedicated solely to this vil-
lage will convince my neighbors that
the WB can take care of itself. Do
you have any idea how much we pay
into the town? And for what? With
the community building, we've got all
the infrastructure we need."
There were critics of the plan. "I
suppose they'll want me to take out
eight election ads a week now," said
disgruntled state Sen. Rob O'Leary
(D-Cape Cod Bay).
"Does this mean they're going
to try to get me to write a column
again?" asked Osterville Councilor
Jim Crocker.
Holy Roman Empire Newspapers ,
publishers of the Boston Centurion
and The Regis trar , said the Parody 's
changes would not make a differ-
ence.
"We promise to continue to carry
one news story a week about Barn-
stable," a spokesman said
Local, localer, localerest
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