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.
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“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.”
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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.
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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.”
Massachusetts families are stuck in the Middle East amid the war in Iran, and Democratic Sen. Ed Markey says the State Department needs to do more to get them home.
The Trump administration is telling Americans to leave the region, and families would love to, but they haven’t been able to get out.
Stacey Schuhwerk of Hingham has been sheltering in place in a Doha hotel since Saturday.
“We hear the missiles outside,” she said. “We can see them.”
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The Hingham mother and her son are among nearly 1,600 Americans trapped in the Middle East with no way to get home.
“Airspace is shut down. There’s no planes,” said Schuhwerk. “There’s no way to leave.”
Flights between Boston and the Middle East are canceled or delayed as travelers express anxiety over the conflict.
At first, U.S. officials told people to shelter in place and register with the State Department — something Schuhwerk did days ago.
“There’s no help there. The last time we called was 20 minutes ago, and they continue to say that ‘We don’t know anything about any plans for government help to get people out,’” she said.
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Embassies and consulates across the region — including the U.S. Embassy in Israel — have now suspended services, saying they simply can’t get Americans out.
“They did not have a plan to conduct this war, and they clearly did not have a plan as to how to evacuate innocent families,” Markey said.
The senator says his office is hearing from Massachusetts families, and he’s pressuring the Trump administration to come up with an evacuation plan fast.
“We are going to apply that pressure on the State Department until every American who wants to leave that region is out,” he said.
Back in Doha, Schuhwerk keeps watching the war outside her window.
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“The talk here is ‘How much defensive ammunition’s left?’ Good question, you know, because the missiles aren’t stopping,” she said. “So how long are we going to be safe here?”
With no clear end to this conflict, she’s worried she could be stuck there for weeks.
Happy Tuesday! While today started off dry, we’re already looking at snow out there across the area. While this event will primarily stay as rain on the Cape and islands, it will be an icy mix of snow, ice and rain for the rest of us.
The rain/snow line will continue to advance from the south to the north as the evening progresses. Before the changeover, there will be a quick coating to 2 inches for most of our area.
The threshold between the snow and rain will feature sleet and freezing rain, leading to that icing.
For the rest of the night, there will primarily be rain with continued pockets of freezing rain, leading to increasing spotty ice accretion. Be extremely careful on roads, especially since switching between rain and freezing rain can wash off any road salt.
The rain and freezing rain will exit by 6 a.m. Wednesday, but temperatures will still be close to freezing during the morning commute, so watch out for some spotty black ice.
The rest of Wednesday will be really nice! Highs will warm up to the mid 50s with the help of ample sun.
Thursday we start off in the mid 20s and top off in the mid 40s. We’ll be partly sunny with another chance for some wintry weather Thursday night. This primarily looks like some rain and freezing rain, rather than the triple threat with snow too. We’ll keep an eye on that for you.
That will continue into Friday morning. The rest of Friday: cloudy with a chance for a spot shower and highs cooler again in the upper 30s. Saturday will be dry, breezy and cloudy but gorgeous near 50 degrees! There’s a chance for some rain showers Saturday night. Don’t forget to set your clocks forward an hour before you to go bed!
Sunday we start the day mild in the 40s and make it all the way into the upper 50s with more sun. Monday and Tuesday both look bright and in the 60s! Stay tuned.
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