CCT 3/11/11 Cheers & Jeers

Cheers & Jeers

CAPE COD TIMES

March 11, 2011

Will wind incentives help?

Because of noise complaints from neighbors, the Falmouth selectmen decided to shut down a municipal wind turbine during periods of high winds.

Shutting off the turbine will cost Falmouth $173,000 in annual revenue.

Would these wind turbine issues, now affecting several Cape towns, become less contentious if the towns were to reimburse nearby property owners in some fashion? A property tax credit? A one-time settlement? Connect the turbine to their houses so that they realize an ongoing financial benefit?

Then again, if these complaints are really based on health concerns, money would not solve the problem. Would it?

Hyannis airport taking off

It’s good to see the progress, almost daily, of the new Barnstable Municipal Airport, now that the air traffic control tower and the steel frame for the passenger terminal are nearly complete. The terminal and tower, expected to be ready for occupancy in October, will replace the existing 50-year-old terminal.

The two-story terminal will be one-and-a-half times larger than the current one.

Best of all, about 75 percent of the $17.6 million terminal will be paid for with a $13.1 million grant from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. The balance will be drawn from airport reserves and a $1.7 million general obligation note by the town of Barnstable.

Since the bond will be repaid out of passenger and car rental user fees, there will be no direct cost to Barnstable taxpayers.

Prevent bank robberies

In the latest Cape bank heist, a man wanted for robbing banks in Medfield, Foxboro, Easton and Saugus is now being sought for holding up a Sovereign Bank branch on Cotuit Road in Sandwich.

The man, a white male with long brown hair, mustache and goatee, walked into the Sandwich bank at 10:50 a.m. Monday, handed a teller a note and fled on foot with an undisclosed amount of cash. No weapon was shown.

Why do banks, in general, make it so easy for thieves to strike? In several European nations, bullet-proof glass from the counter to the ceiling separates tellers from customers.

We realize community banks like to develop relationships with customers, but doesn’t safety come first?

Back to business as usual?

For years, the first week in March has been celebrated as National Consumer Protection Week. “You’d never know it up on Capitol Hill,” said Deirdre Cummings of MASSPIRG, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group.

After all, the House voted to decimate the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created last July to protect consumers from predatory banking practices.

The House cut the bureau’s budget from $143 million to $80 million.

Why is this cut so egregious? Just three short years ago, unfair but profitable practices of the big Wall Street banks contributed to the collapse of the U.S. economy. “They’d sold predatory mortgages to consumers and then packaged them into risky securities for investors,” said Cummings. “When this scheme failed, taxpayers were forced by Congress in the fall of 2008 to ante up for an unprecedented bailout of the Wall Street banks. Over the same banks’ furious lobbying and objections, Congress passed comprehensive Wall Street reform that included the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”

If the Senate does not restore the cuts, what happened on Wall Street in 2008 will likely happen again.

Towns oughtn’t be advised to pay off turbine victims

March 16, 2011

Are you kidding with your March 11 Cheers & Jeers item “Will wind incentives help?”

I voted against a 400-foot industrial wind turbine that was proposed to be built 1,200 feet from my home in Harwich last May. A big factor in deciding that this might not be such a good idea was to learn about what was going on in Vinalhaven, Maine.

In November 2009, the Fox Islands Electric Cooperative turned on its three similar-size industrial wind turbines. The residents were told they wouldn’t be able to hear the noise. They were told shadow flicker would not be an issue. These homeowners (as well as the entire island) were promised a direct benefit in the form of reductions in their individual electric bills.

There is noise; there is flicker; and some neighbors (24 of 38 people living year-round within half a mile) are suffering. The cooperative has purchased at least one of the homes closest to the turbines.

Shortly after Harwich voted down the turbines, Falmouth’s turbine went on line and neighbors started complaining about the same things as the neighbors in Vinalhaven.

Shame on you for insinuating that throwing money at people affected might shut them up!

Terry Hayden

Harwich