Jason Graziadei• May 3, 2025
Rendering of a consultant who proposed a skilled nursing facility on an island off the coast of South Shore Road.
Most people attending Saturday's annual town meeting wanted to see the new island home's skilled nursing facility being built. But that wasn't the case.
Despite a majority in favour of the project, a $125 million budget was defeated to build a new island home when, after emotional discussions on the floor of the town's encounters, it fell slightly below the required two-thirds threshold.
The final vote is as follows:
Because spending requires an override of debt exclusion, Article 13 requires a two-thirds majority, failing with just 38 votes. Many of the hundreds of island residents present expressed their desire to have a new facility to care for Nantucket's senior citizens, while others expressed deep reservations at the $125 million price tag.
Saturday's vote was the pinnacle of nearly a decade of debate and planning for the future of our island home by the town and residents. More than $8 million has already been spent on consultants, and the design of the new facility was spent solely on making it possible for voters to be presented at a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) by the town's chosen general contractor, Consigli Construction.
As the debate unfolded, it was clear that many of the auditoriums supported the project despite their steep price tags. Nantucket Elder Affairs Centre Chairman John Copenharbor told voters that no one would argue that the new facility is a bargain, but the island should strongly consider voting in favor of the project.
John Copenharbor speaks in support of the Town Meeting Floor project. Photo by Kit Noble
“If you look around the room here, you can see a lot of grey hair and shiny heads,” Copenharbor said. “We're all one blood clot, one trip and we're new residents of the island home. As our community has said many times, the kind of care we have in our island home is the key to keeping our friends in stress and medical emergency. Facilities are what we have.
Diana Graves, a longtime island school teacher, said her mother lives in our island home. It is her mother's third nursing home, and she is deaf and forces her to communicate in sign language. Graves said he went to the only other facility in the state where they had sign language, but that didn't work for her mother. They can bring her back to the island where they can accommodate her needs for caregivers who use sign language.
Diane Graves speaks in support of the project on the town's meeting floor on Saturday. Photo by Kit Noble
“I'm there every day,” Graves said. “Our island home is family. Quality of care, you can't reach anywhere else. Is the building tired and inadequate? Yes. It does not meet the requirements of the Ministry of Health. Equipment is in the hallway. Wheelchair rooms, wheelchairs etc. are not sufficient. Island home, we lost fabric that we cannot replace. Vote for “Yes”. ”
Despite that support, the project's costs were heavily heavy in discussions on Saturday. Two days before the start of the annual town meeting, the Finance Committee balked up the price increase for the facility. The Finance Committee initially voted 6-3 votes in mid-February to endorse the project with an estimated then-estimated $105 million, with the positive move being printed on the annual Town Meeting Warrant. However, the town discovered in April that the final bid for the new 45-bed facility was 20% higher than expected, at $125 million.
On Thursday afternoon, the Finance Committee met to consider a technical revision to the original claim to reflect the increase in the price of the project. Following the brief deliberation, two FINCOM members Joanna Roche and Jeremy Bloomer, who supported the original budget, voted against the motion, resulting in a 5-4 decision against the technology revision of the $125 million price tag.
This required a positive move to the total cost of the project at the town meeting on Saturday. Oddly, votes to amend Article 13 by easily passing price increases – 529 to 219 – but during the vote on the main motion, support fell 75 votes.
Andrew Tapley said she works for a commercial real estate company that funds and sells skilled nursing facilities, and was one of the voices raising concerns about the cost of the facility. He said he fully supports our new island home, but was unable to support the funding request as it is composed.
Andrew Tapley has expressed concern about the cost of the town meeting floor project.
“I can't support these numbers. These numbers are very astronomical and out of the market,” Tapley said. “We said we did a research, but we spoke with our client. We talked with our client. We built three cutting-edge, skilled nursing facilities in Illinois at $400,000 per bed. One is talking about $3 million in California at $500,000 per bed. The land developer is in charge of that and assumes it's a 50-year ground lease.
Dawn Hill Hallgate, an executive who has supported our island home projects for over a decade, said she was extremely disappointed by the outcome and described the cost of the project as “misstatement.”
“It's not the best forum to hold a hearing and try to answer people's questions at town meetings,” Hill Holdgate said. “I thought people were accepting it, so I don't know what happened in the final part of the discussion… If it was a very clear failure and lost by a majority, it was a majority, with only 38 votes.
Still, Hill-Holdgate said she hadn't given up. On Sunday, she was urging people to vote for the project in upcoming town elections. If the majority voted on the vote, the select committee could theoretically call a special town meeting and vote another vote for the project in the near future.
“It's tricky,” she said. “Bidding is only good for a few weeks. But if people start to realise what's really going on, we hope it passes with the vote. If it passes a big margin, we can call a special (town meeting) and see if people want to revisit, but of course we haven't talked about it as a board yet.”
But a more likely scenario would be for the town to seriously consider closing its aging facility at some point in the future. Town managers Libby Gibson and Hill Holdgate have previously warned about potential consequences if a funding proposal is defeated.
The geography and land costs in Nantucket make it difficult for private organizations, if not impossible, to run nursing homes on the island. This means that without a town-run facility, people who need advanced and professional nursing must move to the mainland for assistance.
