Cove Committee Gets Reprieve

CHATHAM – The Aunt Lydia’s Cove Committee, which has experienced some internal rifts, will live to fight another day.

On the advice of the Cove committee itself, the harbormaster and the waterways advisory committee, the select board Tuesday voted against a measure to scrap the 60-plus-year-old panel.

“I personally am committed to seeing the Aunt Lydia’s Cove Committee...start to regain its standing within the town and weigh in on these Fish Pier projects and things [related to] commercial fishing within the town,” committee member Nick Muto said. Muto has been acting as the advisory committee’s chairman, though his election was never done officially.

“I feel we were just misrepresented lately with our last chairman, and definitely haven’t been as effective as we could’ve been, but I’m committed to turning that around, and bringing it back to what it was, and actually expanding the scope of what we do,” Muto said.

The Cove committee met last Thursday and voted unanimously in favor of remaining intact with its current seven seats. Muto said he hopes the group will meet next on Jan. 25, and by that time will have two additional volunteers to complete its membership.

Having heard complaints that the Cove committee had failed to weigh in on key projects like the Fish Pier reconstruction, the select board opened a public hearing on Nov. 28 to consider disbanding the group. But at last week’s meeting, Cove committee members refuted that claim, saying they had opined on the projects. The select board had asked the waterways advisory committee to consider the possibility of absorbing the Cove committee, but waterways committee Chair Dick Hosmer said his group opposes that idea.

“While it is understood that the Aunt Lydia’s Cove [committee] has not functioned efficiently for some time, the consensus of the waterways advisory committee was that the [Cove committee] provides a valuable insight into the operation of the Fish Pier and commercial fishing in general,” Hosmer wrote in a letter to the select board.

Select board Chair Cory Metters, the liaison to the Cove committee, acknowledged that the group has had internal issues.

“Those need to get worked out,” he said. Metters said he favors reviewing the charge and the membership of the Cove committee, possibly adding two new members who have relevant backgrounds but who do not necessarily work at the Fish Pier. Metters said he also favors re-interviewing the three incumbent committee members whose terms expire next year, to be sure they agree with the select board’s revised vision for the group. While he said he believes the Cove committee can continue, “I think we need to give it some very, very clear guidance,” Metters said.

Board member Shareen Davis agreed, saying the Cove committee needs to be reevaluated by the select board — like other committees in town — to ensure that they are focused on priority issues.

The Cove committee was also criticized for not meeting frequently in the past.

“Just as a general principle, every committee should meet at least once during the fiscal year,” board member Dean Nicastro said. Before last week, the Cove committee had not met since June, and only seven times before that going back to mid-2019.

Nicastro suggested that the select board exercise care when stipulating what the Cove committee’s new membership should be. While the committee needs representation from fishermen who use the Fish Pier, that also means that committee members can have a financial stake in the recommendations they make, posing a potential conflict of interest, he said. Explicitly appointing members because of their specific backgrounds might protect members from conflict allegations, “so that they don’t get into a risky situation,” Nicastro said.

The select board voted unanimously to retain the Cove committee, “and we will do some follow-up discussions both with current members and the board itself,” Metters said.