It’s curtains behind the iron curtain. The problem of lopsided midriff expansion. (Video)

  

“Will work for food” marked on brown cardboard and held by a young man at the intersection of Route 132 and the entrance to Independence Park.  A sign of sad times.  Ironically Independence Park came into existence partly due to a past vision that our people needed better paying jobs and careers; this area of town was supposedly set aside for industry.  Rather than prosperous business, it is now riddled with various publicly funded social service agencies designed to help people in despair.  In other words, we are currently using that area to treat residents with the symptoms of despair, the depressed and suicidal.  How did we get to this point?

  

The local suicides you don’t hear about have increased in recent months.  This is not a coincidence.  This is not because of unbridled opulence.  This is not because of a surplus of jobs paying a livable wage.  This is not because of progressive town government.

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This is because, for the most part, private industry in the town of Barnstable has slipped into a recession.  People are unemployed or under employed, homes are slipping into foreclosure, our neighbors are experiencing strife...

  

The fact that private industry has not blossomed in Barnstable is due mostly to elected individuals protecting special interests.  Barnstable is notorious for being a very unfriendly place to do business.  This needs to change.

  

It may be hard to believe, but there are sitting town council members who are committed to preventing industry in the greater Hyannis area.  Why is that?

  

The short answer is that some town leaders are just plain short sighted, while others are just plain corrupt. 

  

In the “old days,” just as the fishing industry was being regulated into the ground, Hyannis looked to tourism for its bread and butter.  But relying on the Kennedy mystique as a perennial draw was a deadly error.  Camelot has since long been buried and decomposed; just another tourist attraction for a generation feeling its own imminent mortality. 

  

Each year the treasure trove of wealth in fancy tour busses seems to decrease.  Our once pristine beaches, unkempt and packaged by an infrastructure under constant construction and repair…

  

Our town “leaders” have become band aid salesmen, lacking vision.  The cure nowhere in sight…   

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I recently was walking down Main Street Hyannis amongst the drunkards and Goth-like “yutes” attending one of our local charter schools, where I happened upon a local construction project.  

       

The project at the corner of Pine and Main, on top of what was once a mini-golf, once provided me and several other local kids with much appreciated spending money back in the tourism hay days of the 1970s; the site was now being dug up and changed.  It was sad to see the golf course go, but knowing our dire town-wide need for progress I was forced to accept the reality that drastic change is necessary.

  

But what were they building?  Was it a venture that would provide local employment?  Was there a chance that the deadwood in town hall let something ‘different’ slip through the zoning dragnet?  Was this to be something that would change the landscape, opening doors for free thought, creativity, and enterprise? 

  

I approached one of the project foremen and asked, “What’s this going to be?"

  

“This here is going to be a new souvenir shop; you know, for the tourists...” replied the foreman.

  

“Thanks and good luck.” 

  

I have to admit I was let down.  I was bummed that someone was still clinging to and sinking coinage into the old Cape Cod Dream.  Casting their net… anxiously awaiting the fickle schools of summer visitors.  Clinging to the sandy Cape tourism dream seems short sighted in terms of providing for the general population, often a livelihood of despair for those caught up in the venture… the occasional ‘good haul’ merely serving just a few souls, lasting just fleeting moments, it’s our own “Deadliest Catch.” 

  

Tourism is dead.

  

Incapable of sustaining our people, the days of fishing for chump change trickling over the narrow bridges is all part of a bygone era.  We need a new plan.

  

The Hyannis area has become a violent ghetto.  Numerous empty storefronts (the most I have ever seen) pock the once booming tourist trap, now a boulevard of broken dreams…  While the idiots in town government scamper to treat the symptoms of a failing Camelot revival notion that always finds itself lingering nearby on life support... a little bark mulch here, a few flowers for the homeless to sleep in there, we the people are footing the bill for a poorly planned tragedy in progress!

And then there is the absurd circus “led” by a town council president with direct family ties to the Ocean Street parking rackets.  The more I watch Ms. Joakim bolster her special interests and notions, the more I am convinced she is not the leadership we need.   

Ms. Joakim, here’s an idea for you, leave us alone!

  

Your self-serving draconian mantra that government must control and regulate everything has hobbled local business.  The old "we'll allow" only one type of business model didn't work.  Let's try Capitalism for a change.

  

When I drive down route 28, I see two types of people driving their kids to the Hyannis Middle School.  Those who feed at the public trough, publicly funded employees, teachers, police, firefighters, “town leaders…” and those who feed at the private trough, landscapers, builders, developers, shop owners, people who generate income and create new jobs…

  

And then there are the unemployed, now forced to feed at the public trough themselves.  These are people looking for jobs.  They would love a town job (hell, who wouldn't), but what percentage of public trough job growth will our current system realistically support?  In Barnstable there seems to be a never-ending stream of growth in town funded ventures.  Why is that?  And who pays for it?

  

Town government is the monster that keeps feeding.  Creating little in ways of income back into public coffers, the main objective of someone charged with a town budget is to spend it completely and then turn around to ask for more.  Fail to spend, or fail to go over your budget means that next year’s allotment will be less!  And those feeding at the public trough don’t want that. 

  

That is why, despite there being a recession in the private sector, those in the public sector seem to be getting fatter and fatter.  Good for them.  But who’s funding those expanding midriffs? 

  

The answer to 'lopsided midriff expansion' is obvious.  It’s a very unhealthy thing when town bureaucrats only serve themselves.  When they over regulate and interfere with the private sector everyone eventually experiences hunger.  Public trough feeders actually need a thriving private sector, but just don’t feel it yet, and they won’t until it’s too late.

  

We need to get rid of short sited leadership and attract new business to the Hyannis area.  Forget about the flowers and band aid attempts at trapping tourists.  Hyannis is a city hobbled by a small minded minority that have long overstayed their welcome. 

  

Bottom line, town government needs to take one giant step back from interfering with private enterprise. 

  

The following YOUTUBE video depicts just one example of a town bureaucrat serving only her own special interests while attempting to interfere with someone else’s efforts at private enterprise.  She failed this time, but give me a break...  Perhaps the ZBA is finally catching on that things need to change.  As for the argument that this liquor store would be within walking distance of a school?  Welcome to Hyannis.  Just about every school I know of in the Hyannis area is near a "packy," some well within a stone's throw.  Is Ms. Joakim saying that she is only concerned about Marstons Mills, Cotuit, and Osterville students possibly being "schooled" near a legal vender of libations?  Oh my!  Please Ms. Joakim, stop with your control banter.  How about those street lights at the intersection of 28 and Lumbert's Mill?  It's been 8 years and still nothing!  That should be all the mischief you're allowed to handle:

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