This past Sunday, APCC was able to gather in person for our annual meeting for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. It was wonderful to see and interact with our membership again on a face-to-face basis. While we had a great turnout, attendance at these events can only represent a small percentage of the membership, as we know there is a lot of worthy competition (unless you squandered the day watching the Patriots- ugh) for your time on a lovely September Sunday. Given that, I want to share with you some of the important news we discussed at the annual meeting and what it says about APCC and our collective impact.
The short version is that back in March of 2021, APCC made two significant public policy recommendations to the Barnstable County Commissioners.
The first was to fund the Cape Cod Commission to launch a comprehensive assessment of lakes and ponds. The project was intended to improve our understanding of their quality, the threats they face and to develop an effective management framework to protect, and restore, our lakes and ponds. After much back and forth, the project APCC first called for is now known as the Freshwater Initiative and was fully funded by the County in August of 2022.
The second proposal was for the county to lower the interest rate, from 5 percent to 0 percent, charged to homeowners for septic upgrades funded by loans from the Community Septic Management Program. There is a growing number of homeowners needing to either upgrade septic systems or connect to public sewers and those costs can be burdensome. The revised loan program targets relief to homeowners with low and moderate incomes and provides a sliding scale of interest rates between 0 percent and 4 percent, based on need. After a lot of hard work by county staff and state officials at the Office of the State Treasurer Deb Goldberg, the new program was approved in August of 2022.
These two initiatives are important because they speak right to the heart of some of the most pressing issues facing the Cape. They are also illustrative of what APCC, with your support and backing, can and does accomplish on a regular basis. APCC is effective, in part at least, because we have the history, perspective and credibility to take on the big issues and the vision and audacity to propose solutions sized to the magnitude of the problems we need to confront. There are a lot of good organizations and people doing excellent work on the Cape. We at APCC pride ourselves in being among the more effective and bolder players in the environmental world of Cape Cod.
For those of you who missed the meeting, I hope I conveyed the spirit and message shared with those in attendance. I can’t help you with the yummy snacks and good company you missed. For the full experience, we hope to see you at the 2023 Annual Meeting.
