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Governance

The Checks No One Cashes
More than $550,000 sent out by the Town of Nantucket has gone unclaimed

What Petrel Landing Actually Is — and Isn’t
A project approved, extended, and challenged for more than a decade reveals a deeper question about public access on Nantucket Harbor

Dawn to Dusk
What Nantucket’s Waterfront Licenses Actually Require — and Why the GHYC Debate Is Only Part of the Story

The Nantucket Veto
How Bureaucracy Overruled the Ballot Box

The "Nantucket Gold" Myth
Inside the $4.4 Million Asset Failure

If Nantucket Can Build $30 Million Homes,
Can It Build Our Island Home?
If a new nursing facility will cost taxpayers more than $100 million, the island may need to think beyond taxes. Across the country, hospitals and care centers are built with philanthropy and naming rights. On Nantucket, that model may be closer than people think.

Who Backed — And Opposed — OIH
Who voted for, who voted against, and who abstained on the proposal to rebuild Our Island Home.

Policing the Island
How Nantucket’s Police Force — and Crime Levels — Stack Up Against Coastal Resort Towns

Who Goes Next?
Nantucket has many things: cobblestones, ferry traffic, and roads designed long before anyone imagined August traffic volumes. What it does not have is a single traffic light.
Instead, the island has developed its own traffic system — eye contact, hesitation, and the occasional hand wave through an intersection.
Now the Select Board is considering adding another piece to that system.
Instead, the island has developed its own traffic system — eye contact, hesitation, and the occasional hand wave through an intersection.
Now the Select Board is considering adding another piece to that system.

The decisions that can't be undone
Nantucket has many things: cobblestones, ferry traffic, and roads designed long before anyone imagined August traffic volumes.
What it does not have is a single traffic light.
Instead, the island has developed its own traffic system — eye contact, hesitation, and the occasional hand wave Thirty years of choices that permanently reshaped Nantucket
What it does not have is a single traffic light.
Instead, the island has developed its own traffic system — eye contact, hesitation, and the occasional hand wave Thirty years of choices that permanently reshaped Nantucket

Turf on Trial
As Nantucket weighs a ban on artificial fields, the science — and the stakes — remain unsettled

Public Way, Private Pressure
A proposal to restrict summer access to the ‘Sconset Bluff Walk has ignited debate over erosion, preservation, and public rights. Beneath the surface lies a deeper question: who ultimately governs Nantucket’s shared spaces.
What the Bluff Walk debate reveals about public access on Nantucket
What the Bluff Walk debate reveals about public access on Nantucket

Consultant Island
On Nantucket, major public decisions increasingly arrive through outside reports — engineering studies, housing plans, financial analyses, and climate assessments produced by consultants brought in to guide policy.
When expertise arrives by ferry — and what it costs.
When expertise arrives by ferry — and what it costs.

The Good, The Bad, The Stats
A deep dive into Nantucket’s public schools: graduation rates, teacher shortages, test scores, and what students are really taking away from the classroom.
NPS: What the numbers reveal.
NPS: What the numbers reveal.

More Than a Field
More Than a Field
Football at Capizzo Stadium isn’t just a game — it’s a mirror of community identity, investment priorities, and cultural continuity.
Sport as place and pressure point.
Football at Capizzo Stadium isn’t just a game — it’s a mirror of community identity, investment priorities, and cultural continuity.
Sport as place and pressure point.

The Nantucket Tax Reality
Property tax rates here look low on paper. But once you factor in assessed values, state income tax, vehicle excise, and the island’s higher cost structure, the burden looks different — especially for year-round households whose incomes haven’t kept pace with asset inflation.
Who actually carries the tax weight on Nantucket?
Who actually carries the tax weight on Nantucket?

Affordable Housing Audit
“Affordable” isn’t always affordable in practice. Dollars spent, units built, and outcomes delivered don’t always match the promises.
Accountability and what the numbers actually show.
Accountability and what the numbers actually show.

Managing the Herd
Managing the Herd
Nantucket’s white-tailed deer population has grown well beyond what biologists consider sustainable for an island this size, raising concerns about ecosystem damage and Lyme disease risk.
Managing a herd that has outgrown the island.
Nantucket’s white-tailed deer population has grown well beyond what biologists consider sustainable for an island this size, raising concerns about ecosystem damage and Lyme disease risk.
Managing a herd that has outgrown the island.

Town Meeting 2026
Budgets, roads, housing, infrastructure, debt — the annual meeting isn’t a ritual. It’s a snapshot of where priorities and capacity collide.
Decisions that affect the lived economics of place.
Decisions that affect the lived economics of place.
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