Massachusetts
Nantucket blasts Massachusetts state senator for leaving meeting early: ‘A disgrace’
Nantucket residents are blasting state Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Cape and Islands, for not staying at a Select Board meeting that addressed Vineyard Wind, while the senator is connecting his departure to travel logistics.
Cyr traveled to Nantucket for Wednesday’s Select Board meeting, his first appearance at a meeting following last month’s incident, resulting in a debris mess across the island and region.
But the senator told the board and residents in attendance he couldn’t stay for the entire meeting because he had to catch a ferry to get back to Provincetown, where he lives. He added he’d listen to the rest of the meeting remotely.
State Rep. Dylan Fernandes, who also represents the island, didn’t attend the meeting, featuring representatives from federal and state environmental agencies.
“It is a disgrace that Mr. Cyr has left, and we haven’t seen Mr. Fernandez,” resident Amy DiSibio said. “I actually feel very sorry for this Select Board because this is way beyond the scope of what you should be doing.”
Speaking with the Herald on Thursday, Cyr said he showed up at Nantucket Town Hall around 4:45 Wednesday afternoon and spoke with several concerned residents. His arrival came after an hour-and-a-half drive from his home in Provincetown to Hyannis to board the ferry, he said.
The Select Board, Cyr said, offered him and other guests to speak virtually, but he opted to go in person because he found the meeting “important.”
“Obviously, there’s quite a bit of travel involved with going to them due to the boat schedule,” Cyr said. “I had to get a boat so I stayed at the meeting and listened, and then I listened the whole rest of the way.”
“I am actually pretty present on the island,” he added. “At the end of my remarks, I said I was going to stay as long as I could and I was going to be listening to the rest of the meeting on the ferry ride home so I was pretty transparent about that.”
Val Oliver is the founding director of ACK4Whales, a group of concerned residents fighting the Vineyard Wind project. She voiced frustration over how Cyr and the state as a whole have responded to the blade failure.
“My main comments are going to be for our senator,” Oliver said, “but I see his interest, as usual, is not in helping Nantucket, and he has left. He didn’t care enough to come when it happened.”
“Our state government is in an all-on push for this regardless of what the outcome is,” she added. “They have set these lofty goals and really don’t know what’s going to happen, and it’s evident by all of the agency speak that we get.”
A Herald analysis last month found that employees who list Avangrid, Vineyard Wind’s parent company, as their employer had made 217 donations totaling $57,677 to dozens of state and local campaigns since March 2018, two months before the Baker administration selected a Vineyard Wind bid for contract negotiation.
Cyr has collected 17 contributions for $3,036 since 2021, according to the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance. Five of those, totaling $1,300, came from his former chief of staff, Patrick Johnson, who currently serves as Avangrid’s director of public affairs.
In a statement he read to the Select Board, Cyr commended the town for its “leadership and calmness” in the aftermath of the debacle. He demanded better communication from GE Vernova and Vineyard Wind, saying he was “deeply disturbed” that he found out about the failure two days later.
“Of course, we have been strong partners in representing this island going on eight years,” Cyr told the board of the connection he and Fernanes share with Nantucket. “ Of course, we will continue to stay in close contact. We really view our role here as going to bat for the town and the town’s needs, desires and wishes.”
Cyr’s departure didn’t make a good impression on his challenger, Christopher Lauzon, a Republican from Barnstable vying for the Cape and Islands Senate seat.
“We are not here for political campaigning tonight, I’ll be honest with you,” Select Board Chairwoman Brooke Mohr told Lauzon before allowing him to speak during public comment.
“This is a serious problem for the entire district,” Lauzon said in a statement Thursday. “We need a senator who cares and doesn’t have a conflict of interest with Avangrid. As the next senator I will protect the environment and interests of the district, not corporations.”
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