SSA Pressures Oak Bluffs on Pier Plan; Boat Line's Tone a Sore
Point for Town

By ALEXIS TONTI

Amid controversy over a Steamship Authority proposal to renovate the
Oak Bluffs pier, boat line managers are now using plans to lease the
abandoned town hall for a new terminal as leverage.

In a letter to Oak Bluffs selectman Richard Combra, SSA director of
engineering Carl Walker says any permitting delay will undermine the
entire project. He puts pressure squarely on the town conservation
commission to fast track its review of the SSA proposal.

Mr. Walker also states a number of other conditions upon which, he
says, the entire renovation project is contingent.

"Because of the federal grant (which was based on a ferry
facility) and our own view that the staging and terminal are part of the
same travel experience, we will not commit to the new terminal until
staging and other issues are fully resolved," Mr. Walker wrote.

Last month the SSA began to move forward with plans to improve its
Oak Bluffs facilities on several fronts. The conservation commission
opened its review of the pier improvement project, which includes a
redesign of the traffic flow around the area to relieve congestion. The
plan comes under the board's purview because of its siting in a
coastal resource area.

A week later it was confirmed that the Oak Bluffs selectmen had
begun talks with SSA managers to sign a contract to lease the abandoned
town hall for use as a new terminal office for roughly $46,000 a year.

At the time, it appeared that the signing of the lease agreement did
not hinge upon the outcome of the environmental debate. But now boat
line managers say the two are contingent upon one another.

In addition, Mr. Walker says the improvement project hinges on a
number of other conditions. They include:

* Formal approval by the SSA board of governors;

* Maintenance of a federal grant for $725,000; and

* State legislative approval authorizing the town of Oak Bluffs
to enter into a lease for town hall for more than 10 years.

But in his letter Mr. Walker casts the permitting process of the
conservation commission as the major obstacle to the next phase of the
project. He states that unless the issue is resolved shortly the project
will be subject to increased costs and lengthy delays.

The conservation commission has raised a number of concerns about
the project. Board members' toughest questions have come with
regard to a plan to fill in and pave a portion of the coastal bank along
Seaview avenue extension. The SSA wants to turn the area north of the
current terminal into a new vehicle staging area.

The conservation commission is the only town board with permitting
authority over the project.

Board members have asked for more information about the scope of the
work, and town counsel is also looking into whether the North Bluff bank
is a town park, which also would restrict its development.

"Frankly, recent comments by the commission were somewhat
surprising since the project relating to the new staging area has
remained unchanged for four years; we have frequently met both formally
and informally with the commission during this period," wrote Mr.
Walker.

But Mr. Walker's contention that the project has been open to
input over the last four years is at odds with a statement by
conservation commission chairman Joan Hughes, who says the boat line is
misrepresenting its efforts.

"We do not wish to be cast as the main local stumbling block
to a project which promises great economic benefits for the town,"
wrote Ms. Hughes, who drew attention to the discrepancies in a letter of
her own to Roger Wey, chairman of the Oak Bluffs selectmen.

Ms. Hughes says the SSA met with the conservation commission only
once, in February 2003, in an informal meeting about a previous version
of the plan.

The plan to refurbish the terminal has been through several
revisions since it was first unveiled nearly four years ago. The latest
design is scaled back and less expensive than the original, which was
pegged at a cost of $15 million. Some of the same concepts are still in
place but others have been scrapped, among them a plan to reposition the
end of the ferry slip to make the exposed pier more usable during
inclement weather.

The Oak Bluffs terminal, which fronts Nantucket Sound, operates
seasonally from late spring through early fall.

Mr. Walker says it might be best to divide the terminal project into
two components, with seaside improvements - replacing the existing
dolphins, passenger walkway and transfer bridge - proceeding
separately from the landside construction and terminal refurbishing.

The change would postpone the work, first projected for this winter,
until the spring of 2006.

Mr. Walker concludes: "I must remind the town that the project
is neither a revenue enhancing nor a cost reducing expenditure. The
project's goal has always been to improve the ‘feel'
of the Oak Bluffs arrival and departure. Accordingly, we are not
compelled to push the improvement to the facility through if the
community is still concerned. Yet, considerable delay can jeopardize the
costs and the grant."

At the regular meeting of the board of selectmen Tuesday, several
selectmen took issue with the letter from Mr. Walker, taking exception
to its overall tone and questioning its accuracy.

"There are a couple of mentions in the SSA correspondence that
raise some eyebrows for many of us. The conservation commission seems to
be taking some heat for slowing down the process," said selectman
Kerry Scott.

The May public hearing of the conservation commission had been
continued to this past Tuesday, but was continued again because
commission members had not received additional information about the
project they requested from the boat line.

In addition, the boat line has withdrawn its application from
Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act review.

The board of selectmen decided this week to schedule an informal
meeting on the terminal improvement project with SSA representatives for
next Tuesday.

It is unclear whether conservation commission members can
participate in the meeting, since they are still reviewing the SSA
permit application.

"The selectmen don't want to be adversaries to the
Steamship Authority and we don't want to slow the project
inappropriately, but the SSA has presented a plan that is dramatically
different than anything we have seen before. The conservation commission
must be allowed to do their work," said Ms. Scott.