UPDATE In talking with Rockport citizen Doug Cole this morning, Feb. 22. he said it wasn’t a secret that he is one of the original creators of a petition to get the short-term rental ordinance on Rockport’s June Town Meeting ballot.
“I had the energy to get it started,” he said. “I have very strong feeling that town voters get an opportunity to vote this up or down, and to keep it off the ballot is a voter-supression type of thing,” he said. “I don’t have a strong feeling either way about the ordinance itself, but want it to go before the voters. It just seems to be the right thing to do.”
UPDATE In talking with Rockport citizen Doug Cole this morning, Feb. 22. he said it wasn’t a secret that he is one of the original creators of a petition to get the short-term rental ordinance on Rockport’s June Town Meeting ballot.
“I had the energy to get it started,” he said. “I have very strong feeling that town voters get an opportunity to vote this up or down, and to keep it off the ballot is a voter-supression type of thing,” he said. “I don’t have a strong feeling either way about the ordinance itself, but want it to go before the voters. It just seems to be the right thing to do.”
In a Feb. 8 vote, members of the Rockport Select Board decided that a proposed ordinance that would regulate short term rentals in the municipality will not not appear on the June Town Meeting ballot as originally intended.
Select Board Chair Debra Hall, who worked to draft the proposed ordinance with Vice Chair Denise Kennedy-Munger, said that although she felt that the voices of the community could be best represented if the ordinance were put to a public vote, she felt that it best that the board table the ordinance for the time being.
“We have gotten to a point where the rhetoric and the temperature on this issue is so hot that I think it’s in the best interest of the town to cool the temperature down, so I support tabling [the ordinance]” said Hall at the meeting.
ROCKPORT – At their Jan. 11 meeting, members of the Rockport Select Board were read a letter submitted by resident Stephen Bowen, who outlined concerns with how a proposed ordinance that would regulate the operation of short-term rentals was editorially presented in a municipal newsletter. That newsletter, funded by the town, was recently mailed to Rockport households.
The board listened to the bulk of the letter, but no discussion about it ensued.
“I think we will take that up at another meeting or discuss it further, but not tonight,” said Vice Chair Denise Kennedy-Munger, who, during the reading of the letter by Town Manager Bill Post, also asked how long the letter was, and added, “do we need to hear more?”