Provincetown Cleared to Solicit Voluntary Coastal Defense Contributions via Tax Bill Check-Off

Provincetown Cleared to Solicit Voluntary Coastal Defense Contributions via Tax Bill Check-Off

The People’s Legislature is weighing HD.6151, a decree that would authorize the town of Provincetown to place a voluntary check-off box on its municipal property tax bills and motor vehicle excise tax bills, directing any designated funds to the town’s Coastal Resilience Fund.

The mechanism is simple and the burden entirely optional: Provincetown ratepayers who wish to contribute to shoreline defense may check the box; those who do not may ignore it. The Coastal Resilience Fund itself exists to address the entirely non-optional reality that Provincetown occupies a narrow spit of glacial sand extending into the Atlantic Ocean. Local approval has already been received, meaning the collective has spoken.

The decree is sponsored by Commissar Hadley Luddy of the 4th Barnstable District, with Senator Julian Cyr lending his name to the effort. That both represent Cape Cod constituencies currently losing ground — in the most literal, geological sense — to rising seas requires no further editorial comment from this bureau.