Town at HDC Tuesday to keep trailer at former fire-department property

(Sept. 20, 2021)  Diane Coombs says she’ll be a resounding “no” vote on an application coming to the Historic District Commission Tuesday that would keep the town's modular trailer at the Sparks Avenue and Pleasant Street rotary in place for meeting space for  the next two years.

"We’re trying to keep the island looking like it should,” she said. “The town doesn’t know how much it would hurt Nantucket financially to lose its designation as a national historic landmark.”

The trailer has made the rounds over the past few years, first as a classroom at Nantucket Elementary School, then as a temporary trailer at Miacomet Golf Course when the original clubhouse burned down four years ago. But HDC members question whether it should be in plain sight at the rotary, and if they made a mistake approving  what some have called an eyesore two years ago.

In July, the Select Board approved a $24,500 landscaping contract to screen the trailer. It approved another $148,000 last October to take it off cribbing and set it on a foundation. HDC members argue it was a last-ditch effort on behalf of the town to cajole the commission into keeping it in place.

But town operations administrator Erika Mooney denies that was the case.

“To say the HDC was bullied is completely and utterly ridiculous, and to anyone who argues otherwise, they can go back and rewatch the video (from the HDC’s initial approval of the trailer two years ago),” Mooney said.

The town’s intention from the beginning has been to use the trailer for meeting space. The only reason the trailer hasn’t been used is because the COVID-19 pandemic forced all in-person meetings to be canceled, and put town officials in all-hands-on-deck mode for pandemic planning and recovery, over any other initiative, including screening the trailer, Mooney said.

The meeting will be held via Zoom at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Click here to watch via YouTube. Click here to register on Zoom.