9 ) The Vatican installs a new Pope. Well, not new new, more like a refurbished old model.

8 ) County officials finally start some serious work restructuring county government through a charter review. Damn, I was really hoping for a Thunderdome-type deathmatch.

7 ) The Plymouth County sheriff catches hell for his politically tinged Obama assassination joke. Well, you know the old saying: comedy is easy; dealing with the fallout of a poorly chosen joke is hard.

6 ) Jimmy Fallon is chosen to replace Jay Leno on the Tonight Show after Leno’s contract ends in 2014…and then starts back up in 2018 after Leno’s next lame attempt at a new TV show falls flat.

5 ) Miley Cyrus tweets a video of herself dancing in a unicorn costume. This is one of those self-telling jokes, I don’t need to say anything else on this one.

4 ) Kate Upton becomes the latest celebrity to be asked out by a regular person via an Internet video. I should really finish up that video invitation to Jessica Alba.

3 ) Tiger Woods starts dating skier Lindsey Vonn…for starters.

2 ) Emma Watson refutes rumors she’s up for the lead role in 50 Shades of Grey, says she’d rather portray characters from good books.

1 ) Selena Gomez admits to David Lettermen she made her ex Justin Bieber cry. She must have screened Justin Bieber: Never Say Never for him.

9 ) Pope Benedict announces his retirement in February. Great, another special election filled with attack ads.

8 ) Cape Cod finally gets its power back. You know, this wouldn’t be a problem if we all had wind turbines.

7 ) County commissioners and the Assembly of Delegates continue their back-and-forth over which of them needs to be reformed to improve county government. Girls, girls, stop fighting — you’re both pretty!

6 ) A crippled cruise ship makes it back to land, freeing its passengers from days at sea amidst dwindling food supplies and an increasingly overflowing septic system. (Mental note: make pitch to TruTV for new reality show. Working title: Ship Happens.)

5 ) The double amputee Olympian known as the Blade Runner is arrested for murdering his girlfriend. Dude, I know the handicapped can do anything the unimpaired can do, but come on…

4 ) Marco Rubio delivers a dry rebuttal to Obama’s State of the Union speech.

3 ) Chris Brown refrains from joining a standing ovation at the Grammys for rival Frank Ocean. Chris was upset that he was beaten. He then promptly failed to grasp the irony.

2 ) A Montana TV station is hacked and broadcasts a zombie attack alert — also known as an ad for “Fox and Friends.”

1 ) Movie critics agree it is in fact NOT A Good Day to Die Hard, which at this point is referring more to the franchise than the John McClane character.

9 ) Winter Storm Athena hits the northeast. If we’re going for a god motif with storm names now, I personally cannot wait for Winter Storms Cthulhu, Tiamat, and Quetzalcoatl.

8 ) Elizabeth Warren becomes the state’s first-ever female US Senator, and it saddens me I actually had to write that sentence.

7 ) Mary Pat Flynn and Sheila Lyons are returned to the Barnstable County Board of County Commissioners, winning five towns and nine towns respectively. Couple that with wins by Julia Taylor and Suzanne McAuliffe for the Assembly of Delegates and, well, for their detractors this equals one Very Ouchie Win.

6 ) Disney buys LucasFilm and plans a new Star Wars trilogy. This one will use a lot of animatronic characters,thus guaranteeing they will emote more convincingly than Hayden Christensen.

5 ) Skyfall, the new James Bond film, opens to rave reviews. I don’t know, I don’t think anything can beat Bond skydiving with the queen, but we’ll see.

4 ) Rumors that Diane Sawyer was drunk during ABC’s election coverage swirl. Hey, if I’d been covering the presidential election all year, I’d want to get hammered too.

3 ) Donald Trump freaks out over Twitter after Obama’s win, calling the electoral process “a travesty.” Freaks out? I meant to say pulling hair off.

2 ) Mark Wahlberg agrees to star in Transformers 4, figuring that after The Happening, if he’s going to do a crap movie he might as well make a ton of money for it.

1 ) Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart remain elusive about their relationship status as they promote the last Twilight film. I wish the movie would be as elusive.

To wit: in the wake of the three-way race for the Barnstable County Board of County Commissioners, a self-styled “citizen activist” (I won’t play to his ego by naming him here, but most people in county government know who this particular individual is) posted this curious analysis of the results, which had incumbents Mary Pat Flynn and Sheila Lyons winning over Eric Steinhilber (splitting the vote, respectively, by 37, 33, and 30 percent):

The following is merely an observation of fact by one Cape Cod voter regarding the November 6th Barnstable County Commissioner election. In four of Cape Cod’s major municipalities, the challenger, Eric Steinhilber received substantially more votes for Barnstable County Commissioner than the incumbent County Commissioner, Sheila Lyons. Those towns were Barnstable (the Cape’s largest town), Bourne, Mashpee and Sandwich. In essence, these election results translate into a significant VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE in the failed and weak leadership-style so clearly exhibited by Ms. Lyons during the last four years of her regional government tenure.

To recap: in a 15-town race, placing third in four “major municipalities” equals a harsh damnation of a candidate’s ability to do her job.

Well, let’s take a look at the Cape-wide results in full context. The following chart is from Globe.com, with color-coding added by Snark-Infested Waters, with green indicating a first-place finish, yellow second place, and red third place.

So yes, it is true Ms. Lyons finished third in four towns. It is also true she finished first in nine towns.

It is also true that Mr. Steinhilber, our citizen activist’s preferred candidate, finished third in 10 towns — and lost some of those towns by several hundred votes compared to both the first and second place finishers. So if losing four towns is a grim statement on Ms. Lyons’ capabilities as an elected officials, then losing 10 must surely by a scathing condemnation of Mr. Steinhilber’s potential in that same role.

But the point is not to extol one candidate or lambaste another (I frankly don’t care who wins these races, so long as they return my phone calls). The point is to illustrate how anyone can take information and, with some selective omission and creative interpretation, present it as evidence to support a shaky base argument.

We’re seeing a lot of that going on at the national level too, with the Fox News talking heads trying their damnedest to explain how Barack Obama did not “really” win the election, and bitter Romney supporters predicting with an air of doom and gloom and no small amount of perverted glee how the next four years will turn America into a hellscape of broken dreams.

The races are over, folks, and the winners have been chosen. Crying and whining over coming out on the losing side of history, whether it’s the presidency or a race in your own back yard, is not going to solve the problems these elected officials must now tackle, and you’re not making things easier by playing cheerleader for failure, just so you can four years from now crow “I told you so.” That self-absorbed, self-righteous, defeatist attitude will do much more to sabotage our success than anything the people in power will do.

Just ask the Republicans who lost the presidency.

In 2010, Eric R. Steinhilber tried his hand at state politics, running for the open State Senator of the Cape and Islands seat. This year he’s focusing his efforts more locally as he runs for one of two spots on the Barnstable County Board of County Commissioners.

“Bottom line is, I just want to serve the community and be involved, do what I can to help and bring about better solutions,” Mr. Steinhilber said. “I just care a lot about the Cape. I’ve got two little kids now, and I want to make sure the Cape’s just as special for them as it was for me growing up.”

He added that he opted against running again for state senate because the incumbent, State Senator Daniel A. Wolf (D – Harwich), “is a millionaire. I got to work for a living, and sometimes you’re going to have a tough time raising more money than what a millionaire can put into a race.”

Mr. Steinhilber said he would be a proactive commissioner who would “see each side of the issue and come to a solution that I feel is grounded in the principle of doing the most good in the most effective manner with the smallest amount of governor.”

“I think that type of leadership is really needed at the county level right now. I think it’s lacking,” he said.

That lack of leadership is most evident in the county’s handling of the wastewater issue, Mr. Steinhilber said, and he has made that the focus of his campaign.

Although the sitting commissioners, including his two opponents Mary L. (Pat) Flynn and Sheila R. Lyons, have voiced their opposition to a proposed “wastewater authority” with taxation powers, Mr. Steinhilber insisted he was “the only candidate in the race that can be counted 100 percent to be opposed to a taxing authority being created and imposed on the people of Cape Cod.”

“I think the proposal is alive and well. I think it’s still being pushed by a number of individuals,” he said, “and I think it is more likely to come to pass if the incumbent county commissioners remain.”

He said evidence of the sitting commissioners’ openness to the concept can be found in their February vote to charge Andrew Gottlieb and Paul J. Niedzwiecki, respectively the executive directors of the Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative and the Cape Cod Commission, with exploring the concept, which had been pitched to the commissioners by the Special Commission on County Governance.

“I would have voted not to move the ball even further toward a taxing authority,” Mr. Steinhilber said, adding that by voting on the topic before the special commission had formally filed its final report with the commissioners was proof that “the county commissioners, I felt, couldn’t wait to get their hands on it to vote on it…they were excited to vote for it.”

He said the commissioners, despite their prior opposition, would be likely to accept a new recommendation he expects to emerge from a new task force assembled by the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce — as task force that, like the special commission, is fronted by Robert A. O’Leary.

A task force memo obtained by Mr. Steinhilber noted that the group wants to emphasize “positive messaging during the county commissioners’ election,” and the candidate believed the task force “feels they have a much better chance of getting a taxing authority in place with the two incumbents remaining.”

“I’ve been told by others in county government that this group was formed in direct response to my campaign,” Mr. Steinhilber said, but he declined to name his sources.

Better Communication Needed

Mr. Steinhilber also objected to another proposal by the special commission, to combine the county commissioners and the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates into a single seven-member board with legislative functions. Executive functions now possessed by the county commissioners would be transferred to an appointed county executive.

“You can’t get better government with less representation,” he said, and he expressed admiration for the assembly’s performance, but acknowledged that the delegates — as well as the county commissioners — are not as visible in the community as they should be.

“It’s a communication problem,” Mr. Steinhilber said, and if elected he planned to hold public office hours to create a stronger connection with individual towns.

The candidate did support, conditionally, a proposal by the assembly to create a finance director to keep better control of county finances. Mr. Steinhilber said such an entity was necessary for enhanced transparency, but he thought such a position could be established using existing county personnel and resources.

“I don’t think we should create a brand new position out of whole cloth,” he said. “You can’t keep adding to county government. You need to come up with solutions inside of county government.”

Opposes New County Dispatch

Mr. Steinhilber also wanted to tackle what he regarded as a financial time bomb, the county government’s growing unfunded pension liability. “No one seems to be talking about it,” he said, quoting figures stating that the county’s liability between 2002 and 2010 jumped from $190 million to $475 million.

A report prepared by the Segal Group showed that the unfunded liability was expected to grow by another $25 million between 2010 and 2012, but actually increased by $47 million.

“That’s all on the backs of Cape taxpayers,” Mr. Steinhilber said, and he vowed to take action on that.

He identified another brewing taxpayer expense in the effort to establish a regional 911 emergency dispatch center that served all of the Cape’s police and fire departments. Mr. Steinhilber strongly endorsed the basic concept, but said there was a better way to make the concept reality than creating an all-new regional dispatch center.

“My main concern is that the county doesn’t get into a position where they build a center from the ground up” rather than take advantage of the existing emergency dispatch center run by the Barnstable County Sheriff’s Department — where, notably, Mr. Steinhilber has worked as a reserve deputy.

“We already have a top-notch center that’s run by the county sheriff,” he said, and he noted the sheriff’s department is in the middle of a hardware upgrade and is exploring options for expanding the facility in order to serve more towns.

Local law enforcement department heads have expressed concern over this approach due to the fact the sheriff’s department, and by extension its dispatch center, are state agencies, and they fear losing any local control over the center.

Other Massachusetts counties have established governance boards to keep control of regional dispatch centers at the local level, Mr. Steinhilber said, and Cape Cod could emulate such models.

Mr. Steinhilber said he wanted to address the regulations that deter new businesses from setting up shop on Cape Cod. In speaking with business owners, he said he heard a great deal of frustration due to the sometimes convoluted and multi-layered process of establishing a new business, which included dealing with multiple town boards and, in some cases, the Cape Cod Commission.

“To a lot of them it feels like a constant maze to navigate…it’s tough to get quick decisions,” he said, and he wanted to constantly review regulations to make local and regional review processes more streamlined and business-friendly.

He doubted that the launch of the OpenCape regional fiber optic broadband network would prove a potential boon to businesses. “I don’t necessarily know if OpenCape going to be a big part of that. I don’t think people are not opening a business because they don’t have access to the Internet,” he said. “Call Comcast to get the Internet.”

Mr. Steinhilber said he was undecided whether to support the county’s possible purchase of the Dennis-based Aquacultural Research Corporation (ARC), which has been pitched by its current owners as a possible county service. While supportive of the local shellfishing industry, Mr. Steinhilber said he was wary of the $4 million suggested purchase price.

He proposed forming a county subcommittee to review the finances of the business and the proposal to determine if it would be a worthy return on the county’s investment.

For more information on the candidate, visit Mr. Steinhilber’s official campaign website at www.ericforcc.com.

State Senator Daniel A. Wolf (D – Harwich) has issued an endorsement for the Barnstable County Board of County Commissioners race, and he is backing his one-time rival Sheila R. Lyons of Wellfleet.

“Sheila Lyons is a leader for Barnstable County who is not afraid to take on difficult issues and bring people together to solve challenges,” Sen. Wolf said in a press release. “From broadband internet access to wastewater, Sheila has worked hard for the last four years. Sheila has served us well and I’m proud to support her.”

Sen. Wolf and Ms. Lyons squared off in 2010 for the Democratic nomination in the state senate race.

Ms. Lyons also received an endorsement from Congressman William R. Keating (D), who said, “Sheila has tackled the issues affecting the Cape head on.  I support Sheila in her re-election campaign and look forward to continuing to work with her in the future.”

***

Andrew V. Putnam of Falmouth, candidate for the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates, has put together a campaign ad you can check out online at YouTube:

The candidate is holding a pair of meet-and-greets next week. On Thursday, October 18, Mr. Putnam will be at Betsy’s Diner on Main Street in Falmouth from 7 to 9 AM, and at Liam Maguire’s, also on Main Street, from 5 to 7 PM.

Finally, Mr. Putnam is calling for an open debate this month with his opponent, the incumbent delegate Julia C. Taylor. Mr. Putnam announced on Monday that Ms. Taylor had accepted, and they are working on a date, time, and location for what may be the first-ever dedicated debate between two assembly candidates.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to someone treating the assembly race like a real political campaign. It’s so weird!

***

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, October 17 and get ready to meet the candidates who are running to represent Sandwich in the Legislature.

The League of Women Voters of the Cape Cod Area is co-sponsoring a candidates’ forum at Sandwich High School that night, and the guest list includes Senate President Therese M. Murray (D – Plymouth) and State Representative Randy Hunt (R – Sandwich), and their respective opponents, Thomas F. Keyes of Sandwich and R. Patrick Ellis of Sandwich.

Rep. Hunt and Mr. Ellis will face off at 6:30 PM, and Sen. Murray and Mr. Keyes will square off at 8 PM. The event is open to the public.

After that, the League of Women Voters of Falmouth will hold its candidates’ night on Wednesday, October 24 at the Morse Pond School in Falmouth. That begins at 7 PM. The final roster of invited candidates has not been announced.

***

Speaking of Mr. Keyes, his next fundraiser is next Sunday, October 21 at the Aqua Grille on Gallo Road, Sandwich. Former US Attorney Michael Sullivan is the evening’s special guest.

The Oktoberfest-themed event runs from 5 to 7 PM and is $35 per person or $50 per couple. Tickets will be available at the door or in advance by calling 774-208-3480.

***

Quickie endorsement time. Christopher Sheldon, Republican candidate for US Representative of the Ninth District, recently received the endorsement of the Wholesaler-Distributor Political Action Committee of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors.

Political news and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net.

10 ) Barack Obama and Mitt Romney throw down for the first time. Could someone kindly remind the president to get a nap in BEFORE the debate so he doesn’t nod off DURING the debate.

9 ) US Senator Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren get snippy with each other during their most recent debate. Guess that promise of theirs not to run negative only applies to their ad campaigns. Oh, wait…

8 ) Convicted and suspected criminals start returning to the streets in the wake of the state crime lab scandal. Man, this never happens on CSI.

7 ) Neil Degrasse Tyson refutes the effectiveness of Romney’s proposal to slash PBS funding, comparing it to deleting a few text files from  500 GB hard drive. Say, Neil, you may need to dumb that down a little more so Mitt can understand it…so he can later reverse his position on it.

6 ) Baltimore Ravens center Matt Birk, in an op-ed piece decrying same-sex marriage, remarks: “People who are simply acknowledging the basic reality of marriage between one man and one woman are being labeled as “bigots” and “homophobic.” Aren’t we past that as a society?” Apparently not…nor are we past trying to pass off homophobia as a religious right as a society.

5 ) Bristol Palin declares that her mom Sarah is “way hotter” than Julianne Moore, who portrayed the former Alaska governor in an HBO movie. That’s debatable, but Moore is definitely smarter than Palin. I mean, she knows the nonsense she’s spewing is total B.S. and doesn’t believe a word of it.

4 ) Nicki Minaj threatens to shoot Mariah Carey following a disagreement on American Idol. Where was Nicki when Simon was still on the show?

3 ) The Barnstable County commissioners unveil their master plan to raze Cape Cod by fire, construct a region-wide sewer made of yellow-cake uranium pipes, and force residents to pay for it all through mandatory donations of blood, redundant organs, and first-born children. Or so the wackadoo rumor mill might have one believe — and hey, it’s not like anonymous e-mails have ever presented false information as fact! Amirite?

2 ) Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is tapped to host the Oscars. Expect him to come armed with an unfunny joke referencing a 1980s-era pop culture icon that he’ll repeat a dozen times after it stops being funny.

1 ) Anne Hathaway marries. Nuts, another one I let slip through my fingers.

When Mary L. (Pat) Flynn of Falmouth first ran for the Barnstable County Board of County Commissioners in 2008, she knew she did not want to be a one-term wonder.

“It’s one thing to go the first round, but I don’t think anyone should ever into it thinking they’re only going to be there for one term,” Ms. Flynn said. “It’s pretty difficult when you’re elected to a position or an office that people have never heard of before — and that was as vague as the county seemed to be to a lot of people — so it doesn’t make any sense not to work at it.”

Ms. Flynn reflected on her first term and its ups and downs, starting with an annual budget creation process that she said has improved considerably since she first took office.

That improvement, she said, was the result of bringing delegates in while the commissioners worked on the budget, which involved meeting with County Administrator E. Mark Zielinski and various department heads. Previous budget processes had the commissioners and assembly working separately, which resulted in conflicting priorities.

“I invited [the assembly] to come to our meetings,” Ms. Flynn said, and several members of the assembly accepted the offer. “I think that really helped…transparency and working together makes a big difference.”

Ms. Flynn admitted that the county did not handle as well one of the thornier region-wide issues of the past few years, a public outcry against the Cape Light Compact and the Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative (CVEC). “It could have been done a lot better,” she said.

Starting in March 2011, a number of residents began attending the commissioners’ meetings on a regular basis to air concerns that the CLC and CVEC were not conducting their business in a transparent manner, particularly when it came to their finances and operational practices.

For several months the commissioners entertained public comment but did not act on the residents’ requests for a formal inquiry. Eventually the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates took up that effort.

“It was hard to know what it was all about,” Ms. Flynn said. “We had to have it explained to us too, and that probably didn’t help. If we had been more informed in the very beginning, if we had gone out and done our homework when [the residents] first came there, it could have been handled better.”

An equally controversial but, in Ms. Flynn’s opinion, more productive debate arose from a set of recommendations submitted to the county by the Special Commission on County Governance. Formed at the behest of the commissioners but operating independently of county government, the commission was charged with examining the current county structure and operations.

Ms. Flynn did not serve on that commission but attended several meetings “because it’s so important to hear that dialog. It’s one thing to see it on a piece of paper…but to actually be there and listen to the dialog back and forth was very helpful.”

The two hottest topics to arise out of that process: a restructuring of county government to eliminate the assembly and expand the board of county commissioners from three members to seven, who would serve in more on a legislative capacity while administrative matters would be handled by a county executive; and the creation of a regional wastewater authority with taxation authority to oversee wastewater management.

“I’m committed to pursuing the changes,” Ms. Flynn said, although she was quick to point out that she did not support the wastewater authority concept, reiterating an opinion shared and expressed by the other commissioners and Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative, at a July meeting.

Ms. Flynn viewed the county’s role is addressing wastewater management as an advisory one, and perhaps to help find state or federal funding for local and regional water management projects.

She further expected that the commissioners would keep their eyes on a possible lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 2010, the Conservation Law Foundation and Buzzards Bay Coalition submitted a letter of intent, the first step toward filing a lawsuit, alleging the EPA had failed to meet its obligations under the federal Clean Water Act to control nitrogen loading in the Cape’s coastal embayments. The county commissioners and the commission were also named in that letter.

Since the filing of the letter of intent, the county has tucked away money in the event the lawsuit goes forward. The EPA has filed a motion in federal court to dismiss the case.

Exploring Changes

As for the changes to county government’s structure, Ms. Flynn said the commissioners need to continue their discussions with the assembly, which has so far expressed strong opposition to the notion of blending the two government bodies into one, often citing the loss of a direct representative to the county for each individual town.

“This is an exploration,” she said. “It’s really trying to work this out, and I think [the delegates] have as much of a responsibility to think about how county government works and how it can work better as we do. They can’t just say, ‘We like everything the way it is,’ and that’s the end of it. They have a good reason to become involved in the dialog.”

Specific recommendations aside, Mr. Flynn said the special commission review brought renewed attention to the county’s potential in providing services to towns, perhaps even “some things that the state does now.”

“I think that’s a little ambitious,” Ms. Flynn admitted, “but I think we’ve just scratched the surface of what regional opportunities there are, and the value that those efforts have for the towns. There’s real value to the towns in what the county can do.”

Ms. Flynn noted that her extensive experience in town government, which includes two runs as a selectman (1993 to 2002 and 2007 to present), gives her an insight into the relationship between the county and towns unique among this year’s slate of candidates.

The coming year will provide the Cape with numerous opportunities for regionalized services through OpenCape, the Barnstable County-wide broadband network that is scheduled to be fully active in January 2013.

The county is already preparing to offer “e-permitting” services through town websites, which would allow resident to obtain municipal permits, licenses, and inspection services online, and Ms. Flynn said assessing and certain public health functions could be added down the road.

The commissioners will, probably after the New Year Ms. Flynn said, start taking a hard look at a possible new regional service in the form of a takeover of the Aquacultural Research Corporation (ARC), the state’s only commercial shellfish hatchery and the business that provides 90 percent of the Cape’s 235 shellfish farms with seed according to William Clark, director of the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension.

In July, Mr. Clark made a pitch to the assembly to buy the Dennis business and contract its operations back to the current owners. The $4 million transaction would be funded through an increase to recreational and commercial shellfish licenses.

Ms. Flynn flatly denied claims that this project was a done deal, and indicated that the commissioners has to first explore several issues that could decide whether this transaction is in the best interests of the county.

“We have to have a clear understanding of what the owners want,” she said, and from there get an appraisal of the property, which is 40 acres in a residential zone right on the beach, which would require an environmental assessment; and then get an idea of the cost of refurbishing the buildings on the site in an environmentally sensitive manner; and then come up with a detailed business plan.

“Definitely, we are looking at it. We’re not just turning away from it and saying no, because we recognize the importance of that resource,” Ms. Flynn said, “but we need more information before we have a discussion.”

Is there a conspiracy afoot to push through a Cape Cod Wastewater Authority?

Eric R. Steinhilber, Republican candidate for the Barnstable County Board of County Commissioners, suggests there is, and that the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce is, through a special task force, pushing for a regional wastewater management entity with taxation powers.

He also claimed that as part of this goal, the chamber is trying to push through to re-election two incumbent commissioners who are sympathetic to such an entity.

In a press release issued to the media last week, Mr. Steinhilber claimed county commissioners Mary L. (Pat) Flynn of Falmouth and Sheila R. Lyons of Wellfleet — both of whom are running for re-election this November — voted earlier this year to “move forward with a recommendation to create an MWRA- (Metropolitan Water Resources Authority) type Authority for Cape Cod.”

Mr. Steinhilber called the authority “the preferred plan by those who stand to gain from a big pipe solution with a big government agency solution,” he said. “If allowed to enact their plan, these proponents will re-elect Mary Pat Flynn and Sheila Lyons, who will continue the pursuit of a taxing Authority for Cape Cod after their re-election.”

County officials countered that Mr. Steinhilber is trying to manufacture an issue to prop up his campaign, and that the concept of an MWRA-type agency on Cape Cod is dead.

“It’s apparent to me he doesn’t understand the job he’s applying for or the issue,” Ms. Lyons said, calling his press release “a fiction based on snippets of reality.”

“I can only speculate but it appears the issue has more resonance with him as a perceived opportunity to provide visibility for his campaign than other ones like traffic congestion, economic development, housing, planning, and public safety regional dispatch,” Commissioner William Doherty said, “all more immediate and likely to require attention in the short term.”

The Timeline

Mr. Steinhilber said the main champion of wastewater authority idea is Robert A. O’Leary, a former county commissioner and current chairman of the Wastewater Task Force, a new working group created by the chamber of commerce.

In 2002 Mr. O’Leary, then State Senator of the Cape and Islands District, filed a bill to create a regional wastewater management entity. The bill would have made participation by individual towns optional, and Mr. O’Leary identified a portion of the meals and rooms taxes already charged on the Cape, and/or a tax on short-term accommodation rentals, as potential revenue streams.

By 2004 an assessment on homeowners had been added as a funding option. That possibility emerged from work conducted by the Blue Ribbon Committee on Regional Wastewater, a county-appointed working group that included Mr. Doherty.

Mr. Steinhilber quoted a passage in a blue ribbon committee memo regarding how the concept should be sold to residents, stating the outreach campaign should be “run like a political campaign” that identified those in the media friendly to the concept and “neutralized” any hostile media outlets.

That same memo stressed the need to present to the public “a strong defensible financial model to provide adequate funding” and emphasize the proposed entity’s independence “that allows for accountable action, but it is here that we must be careful not to suggest or imply that it can or will become an MWRA, quasi-independent from direct accountability for the management and control of their costs to the voters that established them.”

Amidst considerable public pushback, the committee abandoned the authority model and instead filed a proposal that led to the creation of the Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative.

Mr. Steinhilber said wastewater authorities then decided to bide their time and wait “for an opportunity to bring their failed proposal back again, and in the meantime, [allow] the wastewater problem to get worse.”

In an interview with the Enterprise, he accused “many of the primary public faces here” of being “more interested in creating a taxing authority than in solving the problems. If they were not, they would not have sat on the sidelines for years doing little to solve the wastewater problem.”

Mr. Steinhilber cited a report from the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) indicating there was “effectively no improvement” in water quality between 2009 and 2010, and said prior to that the county made “minimal efforts to address many of these issues…my conclusion is that they were more interested in the Authority than in solving the water issue.”

He claimed the new impetus to revive the wastewater authority concept was the threat of a lawsuit by the CLF and the Coalition for Buzzards Bay. In late 2010 the two organizations filed a “letter of intent,” the first step toward filing a lawsuit, claiming the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Cape Cod failed to meet their obligations under the federal Clean Water Act to control nitrogen loading in coastal embayments.

The county commissioners and the Cape Cod Commission were also named in that letter.

In 2011 the county commissioners formed the Special Commission on County Governance, a body charged with examining the structure of county government. Mr. O’Leary was a co-chairman on that commission.

One of the commissions’ recommendations was the creation of a taxpayer-funded regional wastewater authority — although the commission later chose to avoid the word “authority” specifically to avoid any comparisons to the MWRA and instead refer to it as a wastewater “district.”

Conspiracy Or Political Ploy?

The special commission finalized its report in February and submitted it to the county commissioners in March. The commissioners formally accepted the report that same month. A review of the video from the March meeting showed that none of the commissioners explicitly endorsed any of the commission’s recommendations — including the wastewater authority proposal.

Mr. Steinhilber’s said the commissioners voted in February to “move forward with a recommendation to create an MWRA-type Authority for Cape Cod.”

“The impetus of the entire vote is advancing a special commission recommendation” to create an MWRA-style body, even though materials in his own press kit indicate the commissioners in fact did not vote to support the proposal.

What the commissioners did was charge Paul J. Niedzwiecki, executive director of the Cape Cod Commission, and Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative, with exploring the ramifications of creating a regional wastewater management plan.

“Having a regional plan is very important, and I think all of us, the three [county commissioners] recognize that we must move forward on that,” Ms. Flynn said at that meeting, adding, “to make a decision to move forward, without any public discussion or without any public input on voting to recommend a regional plan that includes a taxing authority, at this time, would not be very wise and I don’t think would show good leadership on our part.”

Mr. Gottlieb met with the commissioners again in July after meeting with town officials across the Cape, and his opinion was that that option was not desirable.

The commissioners concurred that a regional approach of some kind was desirable, but an authority was not. “It would be ridiculous to have an MWRA here,” Ms. Lyons said. “I do think there was a misunderstanding. People latched onto [the word ‘authority’] and never let it go and never allowed themselves to have a clear understanding of it.”

Ms. Flynn reiterated that position on September 5 during a meeting with Sandwich town officials, telling them the county wanted to be responsive to town needs and supportive of current town-level projects. She said the county’s contribution to the efforts is “certainly not a taxing authority, and certainly not taking over the planning and implementation of wastewater planning on Cape Cod. That’s not our intent and it’s not our job.”

Mr. Steinhilber himself joined the chorus and declared the wastewater authority dead — and in fact claimed direct credit for defeating it. On August 9 he issued a press release with the header: “Steinhilber: 1, MWRA on Cape Cod: 0 — The MWRA solution is ‘off the table.’ Steinhilber declares victory.”

“After months of consideration, it took until July 18th for the Commissioners to officially kill it,” Mr. Steinhilber said in the release, referring to the commissioners’ meeting that day. “The County Commissioners have heard the calls and have abandoned any plans to support an MWRA-type taxing authority.”

However, in the weeks leading up to the September primary election, Mr. Steinhilber revived the issue on his campaign signs, which stated “Eric Says No MWRA For Cape Cod.” He now claims the proposal is alive and well and being publicly championed by the chamber of commerce.

Enter The Chamber

“The chamber of commerce picked it up, quietly and behind the scenes,” Mr. Steinhilber said. “It became abundantly clear that the intent of these folks was to go underground during the county commissioners race, since it had become too charged politically.”

Mt. Steinhilber said his declaration of victory was premature as the chamber acted after he issued the statement. “I would have phrased it differently, but the message is still the same,” he said, “the sitting commissioners and Andy Gottlieb are on record opposing it, which means that proposal is dead for now. There is clearly a comeback being mounted, if you believe that these important and influential people continue to pursue it.”

“Wondering why the Cape Cod Chamber is doing this?” Mr. Steinhilber said in his press release. “Remember that the other party to the lawsuit on this issue is the Buzzards Bay Coalition and their President is on the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.”

Mark Rasmussen, president and CEO of the Coalition for Buzzards Bay since 1998, is not on the chamber of commerce’s board of directors according to the chamber’s official roster. Mr. Steinhilber later said he should have been listed as a member of the task force, not the chamber’s board.

However, Mr. Steinhilber noted that the Coalition for Buzzards Bay’s co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, the Conservation Law Foundation, opposes “big pipe” (region-wide sewering) solutions because “large sewer systems make new construction viable in environmentally sensitive areas.”

“Water and wastewater issues are among the largest restrictors of construction right now,” he continued, explaining that without those restrictions, land that could not at present be developed could become buildable, benefiting owners of such property, real estate developers, and building material suppliers.

Mr. Steinhilber maintained that the chamber task force “is already pre-disposed to the big pipe solution and most (members) are on record supporting the Taxing Authority, too. They will shock no one when they, like the Special Commission, conclude that an MWRA-type taxing Authority is the best answer,” that based on the fact Mr. O’Leary was appointed to lead the task force.

Mr. O’Leary, who was traveling in China, did not offer any comment on Mr. Steinhilber’s claims except, “I don’t hold public office, so why is the candidate running against me?”

A task force memo dated July 13 — provided to the Enterprise by Mr. Steinhilber — discussing its “communications campaign” for “how to proceed with supportive action toward solving our waste water [sic] issues” does not explicitly advocate for the creation of a wastewater authority, a regional management plan, or big-pipe solutions.

“The overarching goal is to present a message that is supportive of a process for developing localized solutions, tailored to specific communities and watersheds, which will minimize financial impact on our residents and business owners,” the memo read. “The coalition would not be specifically supporting big pipe vs. small pipe vs. alternative solutions, but a PROCESS of solution development.”

Another memo cites the need for “positive messaging during the county commissioners’ election,” which Mr. Steinhilber interpreted as evidence that authority proponents are working against his campaign.

“There can be no other conclusion than they believe Eric Steinhilber will oppose them and Flynn and Lyons will support them,” Mr. Steinhilber said in his press kit.

“If you believe that the proponents of a taxing authority continue to want that outcome,” he said, “and they are continuing to work towards that outcome…you must conclude that they believe the current board to be more favorable to reach that goal than a board with me on it.”

Wendy K. Northcross, CEO of the chamber, refuted that claim and said the task force documents “state the obvious — that is, the desire of many to keep the facts straight — especially in light of a political campaign that is using our wastewater infrastructure needs as a plank in its platform.”

“The [chamber] is keenly interested in finding a solution that is effective both in its science and its cost,” she said, and that the county commissioners’ race “is only important in that the dialogue on wastewater (as a campaign plank) be as truthful as possible and not laden with scare tactics and misinformation about the Cape’s need to address wastewater planning and infrastructure.”

“The Chamber’s interest is in communicating to the businesses and residents of Cape Cod the need for action on wastewater,” Ms. Northcross said, “and the desire for the planning process to be driven by local information, transparently transmitted, and fiscally responsible.”

“If it wasn’t so sad, in a way it would be funny,” Ms. Lyons said. “It shows me he has nothing else to offer. It’s disappointing. I’ve spoken to Eric and he’s a nice guy, but I expected something better of him.”

“The truth is that I am anchoring my campaign on the issue most call the single most important issue facing Cape Cod,” Mr. Steinhilber said. “The suggestion that anyone would think the others are anything but secondary is silly.”

“Focusing on sedate issues sounds the way incumbents talk,” he concluded. “The truth is, too many people have punted on important issues like this. I assure you, this issue has cost me fundraising, party support, establishment support and garnered me more grief than just the mocking tones of media, but it is the right thing to do by the people of Cape Cod. They have a right to know what is going on, especially when it will have such a negative impact on their wallets.”

From the “I Called It” file: I remarked last week that the race between Republican Congressional candidates Adam G. Chaprales and Christopher Sheldon would be close, but I had no idea the race would end with fewer than 50 votes separating the two; the final tally was 11,019 votes for Mr. Chaprales, 10,980 for Mr. Sheldon.

But wait! In a shocking last-minute twist, the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office announced Tuesday that Mr. Sheldon was in fact the winner by 79 votes. Mr. Chaprales conceded the race Tuesday, leaving Mr. Sheldon to focus on Congressman William R. Keating (D), who handily defeated C. Samuel Sutter, Bristol County’s district attorney.

Mr. Sutter simply did not present a well-fleshed-out platform. Most of what he said during the campaign was framed as a criticism of Rep. Keating rather than a sales pitch for himself.

From the “Missed It By That Much” file: Brian C. Mannal scored what everyone (myself included) is calling an upset primary victory over State Representative Demetrius J. Atsalis (D – Barnstable). I thought Mr. Mannal would lose this race — as did the candidate himself as evidenced by remarks he made to the media after the election — but he instead won with 56 percent of the vote in the Second Barnstable District.

I predicted a Mannal loss because, not unlike the Keating/Sutter race, the challenger focused more on tearing Atsalis down than he did on building himself up. Petty carping over quasi-issues like endorsements and attendance records made Mr. Mannal appear more like a man running to take down Rep. Atsalis and less like someone running to act as a champion for his potential constituents.

So why did Mr. Mannal win? My theory is that years of running against ho-hum opponents made Rep. Atsalis complacent and he did not take the race as seriously as her perhaps should have.

Regardless of the reason, Mr. Mannal now belongs to the “Free Ride to Re-Election Club” that also includes State Senator Daniel A. Wolf (D – Harwich) and State Representatives Timothy R. Madden (D – Nantucket), Cleon H. Turner (D – Dennis), and David T. Vieira (R – Falmouth).

Then there is the item from the “Never Expected That!” file: the Democratic primary for governor’s council of the first district ended in a statistical three-way tie between Nicholas D. Bernier of Fall River, Oliver P. Cipollini Jr. of Marstons Mills, and Walter D. Moniz of New Bedford.

In terms of ballots cast, Mr. Cipollini, a three-time candidate for the post, received 142 votes more than Mr. Bernier, who announced Monday he would seek a recount.

We’re now set up for a repeat of the 2010 general election race that pitted brother against brother: Oliver Cipollini against Charles O. Cipollini, the incumbent.

This time, however, Charles may forgo the pretense of a campaign he waged in 2010, when he actively encouraged voters to support his brother. Charles has indicated that he might simply drop out of the race and hand the job over to Oliver.

For two candidates who liked to talk about restoring integrity in politics, they’re showing an appalling lack of integrity in so shamelessly conspiring to get Oliver into office.

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Daniel Botelho, non-party candidate for Congress, has a new campaign website up at www.danielbotelhoforcongress.com. It’s a solid improvement over the previous iteration, so go check it out.

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State Representative Randy Hunt (R – Sandwich) invites the public to his next fundraiser, the “ ‘Slice & Ice’ Golf Outing and 19th Hole Social” on Monday, September 17. That will be held at the Ridge Club in Sandwich starting at noon with warm-ups and a bag lunch, followed by a 1 PM shotgun start.

The cost to attend is $150 per player for the entire day or $75 per person for the after-tourney social, which starts at 5 PM. Go to www.electrandyhunt.com/events.html for further details and to register.

Political news and announcements may be e-mailed to Michael Bailey, senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net.