A Proud Day, Continued

The Barnstable Patriot's latest edition included a summary of the All America City Award:


Barnstable, an All-America City

Town makes successful pitch at competition in California
By David Still IIdstill@barnstablepatriot.com

The Town of Barnstable is now an All-America City.The Denver, Colo.-based National Civic League conferred that title on Barnstable and nine other communities at its national competition in Anaheim.Assistant Manager Paul Niedzwiecki said that the competition is not about being judged the best community in the country, but how communities have identified and met specific challenges. For Barnstable, the three areas addressed were downtown revitalization, youth initiatives and affordable housing.The revamped and “incentivized” downtown zoning, creation of the growth management department and investment in the Zion Union Heritage Museum were all part of the downtown portion of the presentation. The Zion Union Church Choir made the trip to Anaheim and performed as part of the presentation. Unlike the 20-plus minute performance at Klimm’s state of the town address in April, the choir was without instrumentation. The condensed a cappella performance was seen by town officials as being an important piece in winning the award.The 10th grade Youth Commission Chairman, Mark Raymond was also a standout, according to town council President Janet Joakim. Raymond impressed not just in the formal presentation, but also during the unscripted Q&A period with the judges, she said. As part of the affordable housing piece, a couple who was able to purchase a home through one of the programs was part of the presentation.Barnstable’s 10-minute presentation and 12 minutes of questions and answers from the judges was videotaped, but the footage has yet to be compiled. Klimm said that it would be made available when it is pieced together.The National Civic League has been giving All-America City awards since 1959. The league was started in 1894 by Theodore Roosevelt. The competition is application-based. Cities and town have to choose to enter, paying fees based on their population. Barnstable’s application, filed in March, cost $300 to enter. The town was notified in April that it was among 21 finalists to present in California.Barnstable was the only first-year winner in this year’s competition.Klimm said that traveling to the competition and talking with communities from all over the map reminded him just how big and different the United States is. He also said that there are still a lot of common issues regardless of location.Joakim, the target of a recall effort earlier this year and persistent criticism during her time as council president, said that as in Barnstable, there are critics of local governments across the country. In all, about 40 people represented Barnstable on the trip. Enough money was raised through private fund-raising to cover the entire expense of the trip, but expenses for Klimm, Niedzwiecki, Growth Management Director Ruth Weil, Director of Community Services Lynne Poyant and other town administrators were covered with town funds. Klimm said that the decision to use town travel funds was to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest in accepting funding from private sources. Klimm said that the cost to Barnstable Taxpayers is less than $10,000. The town budgeted $15,000 for out of state travel for FY 2007.The additional funds raised will likely be used to offset costs to travel to Washington, D.C., as Klimm was told to expect an invitation to the White House and Congress because of the award.

David Still is the editor of the Barnstable Patriot. He welcomes your feedback.

Another round of Kudo's for our wonderful community. While Mr. Still was writing the news story, Columnist Michael Daley offered his thoughts:


Congratulations to us

By Michael Daley

Congratulations to all of us. We now live in an All-American City. This is good news, and it should be welcomed by one and all. At least this week, let’s all give ourselves a pat on the back for picking such a good community to live in.Is there room for improvement? Sure there is. I respect that there are some residents who don’t like that people outside our community think things are better than average around here. To me, most of these angry taxpayers seem to habitually disagree with a handful of individual leaders. This group just can’t accept that our community enjoys more ups than downs these days. Let’s hope things don’t ever get as bad as this group wishes they were.This national recognition is not just about a few staff members or elected officials. When my wife and I registered at our hotel in Anaheim last Saturday, we found that, at a minimum, we became the 48th and 49th residents of Barnstable in that hotel. There are 47 individuals from our community who traveled to California to tell a portion of the story of life in Barnstable. That’s another indication of why success flows towards us here in Barnstable: Teamwork is very much a key to our award. Much of the award centers on youth, who have been served very well by our local government. The fact that a new recreation facility is primarily being built by you, me and the rest of our taxpaying neighbors is a fact. The original promoters of the facility clearly can’t add one with one and get two. One of the early hustlers of the facility even claims he raised $18 million for the project. These P.T. Barnum types didn’t get us recognized as an All-American community; the elected leaders of this community created a youth commission many years ago. Recently a majority of our elected leaders took the last of several difficult votes. Courageous leadership is the reason we have national recognition.The issue of affordable housing is also very difficult to manage from the local town hall. There are so many uncontrollable variables that impact this socio-economic goal. The same is true from the development side. Our local government’s previous behavior has not helped affordable housing matters at all. Some twenty plus years ago many of us, myself included, voted for zoning by-laws that hurt our community in this arena.Another large part of the town’s efforts were geared towards protecting our fragile environment. Prior elected leaders’ votes that created two-acre house lots and eliminated condominium residence construction also historically hurt our town’s affordable housing efforts. Our current staff and elected leaders have worked both with the old rules we gave them and with a few new ones they voted for. Our national recognition is both because of our leaders and in spite of them. Historically our leaders have always acted in our best interest. Today is no different, and it could possibly be even better than in the past.The fact that fundraising helped get all of those volunteers out to California is testimony to our business leaders’ commitment to this community. There is no question that our business leaders helped Barnstable to achieve this new recognition. There are some business leaders that valiantly donated towards our new recreational facility. One local family business was especially generous during the fundraising effort.Barnstable’s award-winning formula was very representative of who and what we are as a community. We were very well-served by a good team of cross-representation from businesses, the government and the community. Thank you for believing in yourselves and the special place where we live. Thank you for taking the risk of rejection. Perhaps there was a bit of help from a special white-gloved mouse or from Peter Pan’s pixie friend in Anaheim. Whatever it was, thank you to all 47 citizens who traveled to a place where dreams can come true. At least one resident is grateful that you did. Good job!




The Column summarizes the feelings of many in Barnstable who are proud to call this community our home. This is a Proud Day for Barnstable!