Wastewater

• Let the Wastewater Collaborative continue to take the lead in developing regional and sub-regional alliances between towns, sharing best practices, and advocating at the state and federal levels
• Make providing necessary resources for the Collaborative a budgetary priority
• Look for opportunities for the County to provide regional wastewater support services

Transportation

• Understand that long-term solutions that come from better land use, not laying more asphalt
• Since 1940, planning has assumed personal motor vehicles as principal means of transportation, and the majority of residential development is now car-dependent
• Focusing new growth in mixed-use village centers will allow less car-dependent lifestyle and make public transportation more financially viable
• Seek innovative transit solutions like Flex bus, understanding that low population densities make financial viability a challenge
• Promote Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) that allow motorists to reduce or reschedule discretionary trips
• Reconfigure exit 1 on-ramp on Route 6 Westbound to make flyover a two-way solution

Economic Development

• Focus county economic development strategy on advocacy for the future, promoting an economy that Cape Cod’s youth believe is “worth coming back for”
• Systematically, and regularly, survey the regional economy for sectors that (a) exhibit unusual growth, and (b) provide better-than-average employment opportunities
• Work with towns, chambers of commerce, and other interested groups to minimize barriers to entry and growth, and to actively encourage high growth/good jobs sectors

Human Services

• Support Human Services department in providing centralized research and grantwriting services, which provide good returns on public investment
• In periods of fiscal restraint—like now—consider assisting human services sector with non-cash resources
• Consider opportunities to pull state program(s), provided they come with secure state funding, down to the regional level
• Work to restore fiscal stability to County budgets

Regionalization

• Establish Committee on Regional Enterprise (CORE), made up of
• Community leaders and advocates for regional services
• Volunteers from the business community who have special insight on providing or marketing innovative services
• Americorps members as staff
• Through CORE, seek opportunities to create excellent and innovative solutions to local needs, focusing first on low cost and grant-friendly opportunities
• Offer services to towns on an opt-in basis

Cape Cod Commission

• Pursue 21st Century Task Force improvements through to conclusion, increasing local control, determinacy, and transparency of the Commission’s regulatory process
• Ensure that a future task force will not be required, by (a) strengthening the Commission members’ roles as ties to their communities, and (b) improving members’ understanding of the work done on their behalf by Commission staff

Cape Wind

• Address Cape Wind pragmatically, understanding that the Commonwealth is a proponent of the project, and that the Commonwealth has a very strong hand in this matter
• Ensure that local concerns relating to safe navigation are adequately addressed in the MMS review
• Take whatever steps possible at this point to gain the maximum benefit for Cape Cod residents if the project is built

Budget

• Address current shortfall with a combination of reserves and targeted cuts that preserve:
• Services most vital to constituent towns
• Unique and exceptional internal capabilities that would be difficult to re-create if discontinued
• Increase County tax no more than Proposition 2 ½ mandates
• Base future budgeting on a ten-year average of Registry of Deeds revenue, keeping excess in reserve, in order to make available revenue more predictable

Communication

• Continue video recording Assembly and Commissioners’ meetings
• Archive meetings and make available via on-demand webcast, linked to relevant agendas, minutes, and work product
• As budgets allow, make more of the “paper” output of the county available via the Internet
• Involve more citizens in County government, perhaps through a “volunteer card” system

Copyright © 2008 Committee to Elect William B. Crowell • contact