Cape And Islands Senate Candidates State Their Case At Forum

Julian Cyr and Christopher Lauzon stand on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but both can agree that times have grown increasingly difficult for people trying to make a living on Cape Cod and the islands.

 “I ran on this issue, right, realizing that if Cape Codders and Islanders of my generation didn’t step up and get involved, we don’t face a future of year-round community, particularly on the Lower and Outer Cape and on the islands,” said Cyr, the Provincetown Democrat who has held the Cape and Islands state senate seat since 2016.

 Lauzon, a mechanic born and raised in Marstons Mills, said he’s also concerned with how the growing cost of housing in the region is impacting residents today, and also how it will continue to impact future generations without some creative problem solving.

 “The direction the state is going, my kids won’t be able to make a future here unless we change some of these policies,” he said. 

 But while they both share an understanding of what the major issues are facing Cape and Island residents, the incumbent and challenger for the senate seat in November’s general election have differing viewpoints on how to arrive at a solution.

 This is Lauzon’s second run at unseating Cyr, having previously challenged him for the seat in 2022. On Oct. 18, he joined Cyr and a third candidate, Joe Van Nes of West Tisbury, in a candidates forum hosted by the League of Women Voters at Lower Cape TV in Orleans.

 A graduate of Louisiana State University, Lauzon worked for HyLine Cruises before joining his family business, Alignments Plus Auto Repair in Hyannis. He said issues including housing, immigration and wastewater management led him to run for the seat in 2022.

 “This time around, we’ve built a much broader coalition, and I’m proud of that,” he told attendees of last week’s forum. “We’ve worked hard, and we just need to change things on Beacon Hill.”

 Cyr championed his many achievements in his eight years as senator, including his work in helping create the Cape and Islands Water Protection Fund, which since 2018 has brought in $204 million in outside funding for local wastewater projects. The fund is financed through a 2.75 percent surcharge on hotel stays and short-term rentals in the region. 

 “About 25 percent of the cost of these sewer projects are being covered by the Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund,” he said, noting that the fund has brought in approximately $11 million in wastewater funds to Chatham, $16 million in Orleans and $19 million in Harwich.

 Cyr also touted his efforts in securing abortion services on the Cape and Islands, his efforts to help ensure a consistent funding stream for police training in the region and his work to address the issue of “forever chemicals” associated with PFAS. 

 “I’ve been able to get twice as much done as I thought on Beacon Hill, even when Beacon Hill can be dysfunctional,” he said.

 But Lauzon said state government can work better for Cape and Islands residents. Part of the problem, he said, is the overwhelming Democratic supermajority that exists in both the State House and Senate.

 “We need more effective representation,” he said. “We need a strong two-party system. That’s how our government is set up. That’s how it works most effectively.”

 Cyr said the supermajority is a referendum on the divisive nature of politics at the federal level, and the more extreme direction the Republican party has moved in recent years. He also said that Democrats, including members of the Cape delegation, have represented residents well. On the Cape, Cyr holds a leadership role as the assistant majority whip in the senate, while his colleague, former State Rep. Sarah Peake, D-Provincetown, served as the house’s second assistant majority leader before she resigned earlier this fall. Those positions allow officials to better advocate for Cape and Islands residents, he said.

 “I don’t think Cape Cod and the Islands has had this kind of heft in the legislature in a very, very long time, if ever,” he said.

 Van Nes, a farmer, cited a needed revision of Chapter 61A, the provision of state law governing the “assessment and taxation of agricultural and horticultural land.” 

The law recognizes farmers as those landowners with eight acres of farm land or more and assesses a tax rate of $6 an acre for properties that apply. But property owners who don’t qualify, like Van Ness, whose farm is 3.5 acres, are assessed thousands of dollars in taxes a year. He’s proposing that the tax be revised to apply to landowners who own at least an acre of farmland.

“The banks are coming down on us, and more and more of us are being forced to take out loans and pay interest and go into debt,” he said.

 On housing, Cyr lauded the recent passage of the $5.1 billion Affordable Homes Act, which includes incentives and programs geared toward boosting the creation of affordable and attainable housing across the state, as well as the preservation of existing housing. Lauzon said while the bill has “some good things in it,” he was concerned by the heft of the bill.

 “There’s too much in there for it to really be understood to begin with,” he said. “A lot of people aren’t even reading through all of that when they’re voting on it, our legislators.”

 Lauzon was critical of the seasonal communities provision in the bill designed to greater incentivize the creation of affordable and attainable housing for towns that qualify, including those on the Cape. Specifically, he opposes mandates in the provision that require towns to adopt or revise their local bylaws to allow for the creation of merger lots and tiny homes.

 At last week’s forum, Lauzon called himself “a very strong supporter of local control” and said towns should have the right to create policies that make sense for their residents.

 “I think that’s the opposite of what we should be doing,” he said of mandates included in the new housing bill. “I think we should be empowering our communities to come up with solutions that work for them.”

 Cyr said the Affordable Homes Act was authored with direct input from towns about what issues they wanted to see addressed in the legislation. He added that the bill as written allows towns to act faster in the creation of year-round deed restrictions, local year-round housing trusts and housing for municipal workers.

 “All of which would have required individual votes and individual town meetings to go through the legislative process,” he said.

 Lauzon also opposes a real estate transfer fee, which towns could choose to assess at a certain amount on property sales at or over a certain dollar value. 

 “I’d say we’re already overburdened with taxes and fees and regulations,” he said. “The state does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.”

 But Cyr said the proposed transfer fee comes with the support of 12 of the Cape and Islands’ 19 communities that have filed individual home rule petitions with the state legislature seeking the authority to assess it.

 “Without a transfer fee, we are not going to have the resources to solve this problem,” he said.

 Cyr and Lauzon were more in agreement on other issues, including the need to hold offshore wind developers more accountable to problems with their projects as they arise. This summer, a blade broke off of a turbine built as part of the ongoing Vineyard Wind project, leaving fragments of fiberglass to spill into the ocean, some of which washed up on the shores of Nantucket and were found in the waters off Monomoy Island.

 Cyr called the blade failure “unacceptable” and stressed the need for wind developers to be “good neighbors” with their respective communities. But he said he stood behind the pursuit of clean energy projects.

 “Broadly, I think this is something that Cape Codders and Islanders should be proud of,” he said.

 Lauzon disagreed, saying that “offshore wind is not the answer.” Specifically, he said studies have shown that Vineyard Wind 1 will have no impact on the ongoing climate crisis. 

 All three candidates at last week’s forum voiced support for LGBTQ rights. Cyr, who identifies as queer, said as progressive as Massachusetts has been on the LGBTQ front, the state has been resting on its laurels. Cyr was the lead sponsor on legislation that passed in August updating the state’s parentage laws to be more inclusive.

 Lauzon, meanwhile, said one’s sexual identity should be a non-issue of elected officials.

 “It doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “I want to represent everyone.”

 Van Nes seized on the framing of LGBTQ issues as “my body, my choice” to advocate for the need for more food choices for consumers. He said locally grown and sourced food is a healthier alternative to chemically-laced processed foods he said are increasingly being “pushed” on people.

 The candidates also spoke in opposition to Holtec’s plan to dump treated nuclear wastewater into Cape Cod Bay. Cyr said he’s been fighting the issue “tooth and nail” since before he was elected senator.

 “No way in hell on my watch will we see dumping in Cape Cod Bay,” he said.

 Lauzon called the issue a “no brainer,” and questioned Holtec’s true motivations behind the proposal.

 “What was the plan for this radioactive waste to begin with?” he asked.

 And despite their differences, both Cyr and Lauzon spoke of a need to rise above the political divisiveness that has taken over politics, especially at the federal level. 

 “I think it’s critical that we really take the politics out of it as much as we can and say ‘Look, the community is concerned about affordability,’” Lauzon said. “They’re concerned about housing. They’re concerned about how the migrant situation is now making those problems even worse.’”

 Cyr said he learned early upon being elected senator that working across party lines is possible.

 “That was a really powerful lesson, and I find this time and again that we have a very engaged community and that most people want to solve problems and focus on doing the work without getting mired in this nasty, unconstructive politics that we’ve seen certainly at the federal level,” he said. “That’s been a real gift that I’ve taken with me that I’ve tried to emulate.”