FRIENDS INDEED

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I would like to thank the Oak Bluffs police and ambulance, Martha’s Vineyard Hospital emergency room staff and the members of Boston Med Flight who took excellent care of my daughter Amanda.

On Nov. 20, while practicing with the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School cheerleading squad, Amanda was involved in an accident that resulted in her breaking her C-I vertebra and fracturing her C-2. After her critical condition was evaluated at the Island hospital, she was airlifted to Mass General. Thanks to the caring personnel at the Steamship Authority for holding the boat for me after learning I was not able to fly with Amanda.

The doctors determined that it wasn’t necessary at this time for surgery. Amanda was sent home in hopes that her vertebrae would heal on their own. Amanda has strict orders to wear her collar at all times, to be very careful in not moving her neck, and to not make any sudden body movements. (These are not easy doctor’s orders to follow.) We also need to return to Mass General once a week for the next several months. We do not know when Amanda will be able to return to school.

Thank you Scott McArthur, who broke his neck a few years ago, for coming by my apartment the next day with the recliner that he used during his recovery. And for talking with Amanda about her injury and his understanding of what she is going through. Scott also met with the chairman of You’ve Got a Friend and has set up a fund at any Martha’s Vineyard Savings Bank to help with Amanda’s expenses.

Thanks to all our family and friends for the phone calls, visits and support. Amanda is not out of danger yet, but this whole incident could have turned out to be much worse.

Please feel free to send notes or cards to Amanda Gonsalves, P.O. Box 4382, Vineyard Haven MA 02568.

John Gonsalves

Vineyard Haven

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YES ON EMS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

The time has come to support our fire department and emergency medical services. They are always there when we need them.

We bought a state of the art ladder truck and now it is time to give it its own home. Our next ambulance won’t fit in the bay at the police station.

The EMS planning committee has done everything we asked: use currently owned town property, be energy efficient, require low maintenance and meet future needs. A job well done.

I encourage all the residents of Tisbury to vote yes on Dec. 8 and get this fire station built.

Mary Ellen Larsen

Vineyard Haven

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TAX SUMMER RENTALS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Due to the current financial boondoggle of the Island Affordable Housing Fund, i.e. its failure to meet its commitments to the regional housing authority for the rental assistance program, an immediate reassessment of how Community Preservation Act funds are allocated is in order.

The IAHF not only proved itself a dishonest and manipulative bully to neighbors of some of their projects who had disagreements, but also wasteful of donated and taxpayer money and incestuous in financial benefit to its board members, including contractors, architects, realtors and participating banks. There are many facts still to be uncovered, but having been threatened by the old guard because of my letters against Bradley Square, I believe this fund will never have any philanthropic credibility until all the board members have been replaced in both IAHF and the Island Housing Trust.

When the CPA tax was being debated, and subsequently voted on, the consensus of the voters was that the fundamental reason for the Vineyard’s participation in this additional property tax levy (which is basically a Proposition 2 1/2 override), was for resident housing purposes. The most efficient and immediate program that supports Island residents, and therefore our year-round economy, has been and is the rental assistance program. On the Vineyard the entire potential allocation of CPA funds should go directly to the regional housing authority for the sole purpose of funding the rental assistance program until rental subsidies for the current participants and existing wait list of an additional 85 families are met. The allocation of these funds should not be debated on a town-by-town basis because on the Island people live where they can find housing, not by which town they choose to live in. We have not yet reached that level of luxury of choice.

I find it disgusting that many people in the housing debate seem to think that people who rent out their houses on a year-round basis through the rental assistance program are doing as well as if they were renting weekly. This is far from true and diminishes the values and principles of the few who choose to be the exceptions to the norm.

It is about time that the cause of the inflated value of resident housing and overdevelopment, with its costs and environmental issues, helped pay to correct the unsustainable situation it has created. Weekly rentals, undoubtedly the largest part of the tourist accommodation business on the Cape and Islands, not only are responsible for the high cost of resident housing but also generate no taxes to pay for the cost of infrastructure demands created by the tourist industry. This is more absurd than ever when you look at our current economic situation.

In the short term all towns on the Island should institute a 50 per cent resident exemption on property tax based on the town of Tisbury’s current system, with the caveat that summer residents should also be included. This would quickly and justifiably put a higher tax burden on the illegal commercial use of our residential neighborhoods, while we proceed to proper permitting for and collection of a rooms tax from transient rental businesses. The idea that the Vineyard, Nantucket and the Cape have any financial problems while we live among commercial rentals priced from $2,000 to $50,000 per week is inexcusable. While the residents suffer the consequences of years of inept governance, realtors, tourists and luxury homeowners are stuffing their pockets with easy money by renting our Island out from under us. It is time to demand change lest we leave a legacy to our children of Land of the Rich, Home of the Fool. Tax rentals, not residents.

Donald N. Muckerheide

Oak Bluffs

MVC MUST STEP UP

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

The following is an open letter to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission:

We (Let Vineyarders Decide) are so pleased that the jurisdiction of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission has been recognized relative to the waters off Noman’s Land.

We are also pleased by the efforts of our local representatives to persuade Secretary Bowles of the infirmities of the draft Oceans Act Plan that placed a wind factory adjacent to the national wildlife area of Noman’s Land.

We are grateful that the Vineyard has been spared the cascading array of problems such a wind factory off Noman’s would produce regarding our economy, ecology and spirituality.

But shockingly, the Vineyard remains in peril. And why is that?

Because the state still plans to include the waters off Cuttyhunk in the town of Gosnold, County of Dukes County, as the sole remaining site for 100 per cent of its commercial wind development.

Were that to happen all ills previously discussed including vistas, harm to migrating birds, adverse effects on fish and fisheries, navigation problems, adverse impact on our economy, and cultural and spiritual degradation would occur.

It is to avoid exactly such foreseeable consequences of poor development decisions that the Martha’s Vineyard Commission was created.

But in this case there has been a disquieting silence by the commissioners to assert jurisdiction and begin the process of leading us into a proper resolution of these matters.

Now is not the time to talk of mitigation of damages; now is the time to seek to avoid harm that would require mitigation.

To those who say it should be left to the 86 people who live in Gosnold to determine whether the MVC has a role to play, the 600-plus members of Let Vineyarders Decide and, we’re sure, the vast majority of Vineyarders, say that while the 86 people of Gosnold should participate meaningfully in all considerations and have the full support and assistance of the MVC, they cannot and should not unilaterally make a decision of such magnitude for the Vineyard.

We read the statute creating the MVC as having conferred jurisdiction on it of the waters of Gosnold.

We beseech you to exert your usual sound leadership to protect the Vineyard from irreparable harm it is uniquely in your power to prevent, while at the same time working closely with our neighbors in Cuttyhunk and elsewhere in Gosnold.

Please, Martha’s Vineyard Commissioners, vigorously lead us out of this peril.

Andy Goldman

Chilmark

The writer is director of the group Let Vineyarders Decide.

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HUNTING SENSE

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

This is a call to all hunters: please be aware of your proximity to children when you are hunting.

I have found myself in several situations during the past two days that have made me very wary of hunters’ enthusiasm versus their common sense. In every situation I was close (within 500 feet) of homes and schools where children resided. Two of the instances involved me looking in one direction and seeing children on the playground and then turning slightly to see bright orange hunters in the other direction. Once the hunters were firing shotguns. Yikes.

This morning as my kids were running to the bus stop, I thought about the shots I heard yesterday from what sounded like the wetland adjacent to our dirt road, and I questioned whether riding the bus was a good idea during deer season.

By all means hunt — families need the food and the deer population needs to be thinned out — but please know where you are and use your common sense, especially around areas frequented by children. Our community thanks you.

Hillary Noyes-Keene

Chilmark

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DUMP PICKING NO MORE

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Researching a college paper on wastewater treatment and trash disposal here on Martha’s Vineyard, my daughter Katrina Nevin took me along last week when she met for interviews with the directors of the centers, here in Edgartown, who generously shared their enthusiasm for their subject. David Thomson at the Edgartown wastewater treatment plant and Don Hatch at the Martha’s Vineyard refuse district have achieved high level results which they modestly explained to us this week when we visited.

Vineyarders know they are well served but do they know that the Edgartown wastewater treatment facility produces the cleanest water in the state? A walk through the sweet-smelling facility tells us that Edgartown’s sink and toilet waste processes into clear water and flows out onto the grass covered leaching fields behind the facility. All this is unlike the Manhattan processing system which dumps raw sewage into the New York waterways when rain floods the pipes because the land is all built up and can’t absorb the rainfall.

Do they know that the Martha’s Vineyard refuse district sells recycled metal at $120 a ton? Do they know we conscientiously recycle colored glass at a cost? And do Vineyarders know that a “digester” system, already in use on Nantucket, would receive the dug up, old buried waste in the six Island dumps, composting it all, followed by incineration into ash. Oh yes, it’s expensive. Islanders would have to purchase and run it, not the state or county. But it would replace the current system of transporting our trash to Rochester, thus saving trucking and boat costs and off-Island processing fees.

A digester would allow all those still living, who can remember the great dump-picking days, to see their trash responsibly removed and processed. Back when we loved dragging to the dump whatever we had to get rid of, or share, we could excitedly examine whatever others had brought and set aside. The Chilmark children of Capt. and Mrs. Ellsworth West, the last turn of the century whaling captain here on the Island, loved this exchange program and shared it with me when I married into the family in 1976. Treasures brought back from the South Seas by whalers, fine Victorian curiosities, and chic, modern goods from New York and Boston all spiced up the dumps in an era that saw the Vineyard transformed from its agricultural roots, through whaling, to its tourist economy. This old fashioned recycling system kept things moving but it also left a lot to be buried and forgotten. It is now time to dig it up and see it removed responsibly, leaving the ground to heal and the water table to recover. We owe it to ourselves still living, to our ancestors who also put it there, and to our descendants who will inherit this Island and its care.

Yes, a digester system is expensive; it will require land not in the airport’s flight path, with its tall stacks, and it will make bad smells. But we know the money is here to build one if we make up our minds to do it. Let’s work on it together, not leave this important step up to the honorable, passionate and educated men who run our waste and water facilities, but don’t have the money. Will the Martha’s Vineyard Commission do it, will the towns get on board? The Island Plan and its Strategy E-2 describes landfill mining and digesting. Eventually the law will tell us how and when to do it as it must eventually be done. Let’s do it while there are those of us still living who remember the fun dump days and are willing to work together enthusiastically to make this happen. Nantucket has done it. Will we let Nantucket show us up on this one?

Sarah Nevin

Edgartown

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FAREWELL TO CATHRYN

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

On Friday, Nov. 20 a light went out at the Anchors. Cathryn Mancuso, the assistant director, has left the Edgartown Council on Aging to move on with her life. She is getting married and will be living in Providence, R.I. Our loss will be Rhode Island’s gain. She was the kind of person who would let you cry on one shoulder while pushing the other to the grindstone to find a solution for you. She was gentle, sweet and efficient. Her kindness knew no bounds and she truly cared about everyone who set foot in the center. One of our requests, when she arrived six years ago, was for more programs. She filled our calendar with activities and for this we thank her. She was like a ray of sunshine, always cheery. She will be sorely missed. The Friends of the Edgartown Council on Aging wish her a boatload of happiness and we hope she will return to visit whenever she can.

Carolyn O’Daly

Edgartown

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RUN FOR KJ

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

The winds last Saturday may have stopped the Steamship from running, but not our 5K participants! The race saw 175 runners, some hailing from as far away as Uganda, bracing themselves against wind gusts and sailing through the 3.1-mile cross-country course at the regional high school. For a fifth year, the Island community showed a tremendous outpouring of support for the annual 5K for KJ cross-country run.

The run benefits a scholarship fund dedicated in the name of former teammate Kevin Johnson, and is sponsored by the Martha’sVineyard Regional High School Boys and Girls Cross-Country Booster Club. However, we could not have done it alone. Our appreciation goes out to the high school for access to the facilities, and to the many volunteers who contributed their time, goods and talent to the event. Thank you all. It was a team effort. Results can be found at coolrunning.com.

Stephanie W. Dreyer

West Tisbury

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IT TAKES A VILLAGE

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Many thanks to the Gazette and to Megan Dooley for her wonderful article on Vineyard Village at Home in last Friday’s paper and to Dr. Tim Guiney for his support.

I would like to add that we are a nonprofit, Vineyard-based organization. Our membership fee is designed to cover the modest cost of administration, though with our current member base, we operate at a deficit.

We offer scholarships to those for whom the membership fee is a stretch. Our goal is to help all those, aged 55 and over, who need assistance staying safely in their traditional Vineyard homes, including home maintenance, companionship, nutrition and transportation to social, medical and other events. You have given much to the Island community, and we want to be sure you can stay here in comfort and safety.

Prospective members, volunteers and donors can learn more about us through our Web site, vineyardvillage.org, or by calling Jane Hawkes at 508-693-3038.

Polly Brown

Vineyard Haven

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ISLAND DEAF COMMUNITY

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Hello from New South Wales, Australia. I am a student studying Australian Sign Language. At the moment we are looking at deaf history and I am fascinated by the small amount of information I have been able to find on the internet about Martha’s Vineyard. We were asked a question in our exam about what year had the largest population of deaf people? It seems that population peaked in the year 1854, and the ratio was one in 25 in Chilmark, but I can’t find anywhere where it tells what the population actually was.

I saw the Gazette story of Oct. 20, 2006, on a play involving Adrian Blue and Catherine Rush. Is that available on DVD? Our class would be interested in any information on deaf history available if you are able to help us or know of anyone we could ask.

Thanking you sincerely.

Beth Oxenbridge (boxen111@bigpond.com)

Coffs Harbour, NSW, Australia