Imaginary Lines

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

A comment about Edgartown’s pending vote to withdraw from the commission — a mistake. We each of us tend to identify ourselves by our town, that’s of course until we’re anywhere else in the country or for that matter the continent; it’s then we proclaim with pride “I’m from Martha’s Vineyard.” We may have separate town governments, schools and issues, we may see imaginary lines dividing us but to the rest of the world we’re “the Vineyard,” in their eyes, paradise. This tiny speck of an Island shares much: the same ocean we fish and play in, the same forest we hunt and hike in and the same tourist-based economy that’s either “on or off” any given season. It’s my opinion that as each of us hunkers down in our respective towns, the success of the Vineyard requires one body which sees us as a collective economy and ecosystem, which is charged with the tall order of balancing the Island’s livability with our need to make a living. Look, these are tough financial times and everyone is trimming the fat but this is not the time to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. I may live in Edgartown but make no mistake, I’m from “the Vineyard.”

M.J. Rogers

Edgartown

MVC Is Our Protection

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Who benefits by Edgartown withdrawing from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission? It certainly is not the people of Edgartown. What we gain each year far outweighs what it costs us. The only ones to gain from our not being a part of the MVC are the developers who feel they can get away with something if the MVC is not there to protect us.

Please attend the special town meeting on Tuesday and stand up for the MVC.

Brooke and Brian Ditchfield

Edgartown

It’s Our Commission Too

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

As a citizen of Edgartown I am appalled at the idea of the selectmen trying to separate us from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission. Edgartown is the MVC and the MVC is ours. This is not an “us” against “them” game. I am very grateful for all the hard work and visioning that the commission members do for the whole Island. Edgartown enjoys the many benefits of working collaboratively with all the towns and must continue to do so. Just as it is “our” beautiful Island, it is our commission that helps make every town on the Island a better place to live.

Lynn Ditchfield

Edgartown

Edgartown Needs the MVC

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

It was a great disappointment to read that the Edgartown selectmen are continuing their harassment of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, this time with a more radical proposition to withdraw from the commission altogether. I would like to encourage the Edgartown voters to attend the Dec. 14 town meeting and vote against the article to withdraw, showing our town officials that we care about the future of our town.

We need the professional planners at the MVC for the studies, grants, and plans they can offer the towns for traffic, water quality, economic development, bike paths and walking trails, and open space protection.

We need the protections from inappropriate development that the MVC gives to the towns through districts of critical planning concern, which are formulated, voted on and enforced by the towns through the special powers that only regional planning agencies like the commission have. The state legislators and the courts have consistently supported the commission’s role in protecting the unique qualities of the Island of Martha’s Vineyard. This is also done through the Islandwide review of developments of regional impact. A recent court decision has also clarified that the MVC has review over 40B developments, which in unprotected towns off-Island have been able to override local zoning.

The MVC has contributed considerable expert legal defense to Edgartown when zoning laws were being challenged, as when Herring Creek Farm was up for development. If Edgartown withdraws from the commission, it may embolden new developers to challenge our bylaws and we would have to foot the legal bills ourselves.

We need to step up and do our share to protect the whole Island. Our Island economy is based on being a unique place with special natural qualities and small towns that attract people to visit. This is a precious asset and it is up to all the towns to do their share to protect this good thing we have. Edgartown benefits from Chilmark and vice versa; we need to work together to keep it that way. If Edgartown were to drop out of the commission it would put an unfair burden on the other towns.

The method of sharing the cost of the MVC is probably as fair as it could be. The town fees are set by the value of the taxable property in the town, simply the ability of each town to raise the money. At about $20 per year for a typical household it is the best bargain going, paid back many, many times in enhanced property values and, more importantly, peace of mind.

It is important to know that we have the MVC working for the things we find important to us, values which have been stated consistently over time as strong concerns of most citizens and seasonal residents. Despite a lull in the national economy there will be plenty of development pressure coming in the future, and I’m sure developers would be delighted to find a corner of Martha’s Vineyard where they could exert their wills without the MVC protection, as they did in the 1970s when Edgartown withdrew for a few years.

Town meetings are no fun and few people want to go. It is too easy to pass the selectmen’s agenda if people stay home. If this initial article passes, it will cost the town considerable expense in time, political energy, and money as the citizens take sides and waste a year in battling this when good work could be done instead. Please come Dec. 14 and vote no.

James A. Athearn

Edgartown

Come Out and Vote

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Here’s hoping that many voters of Edgartown will turn out for the Dec. 14 special town meeting.

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission is a very important and valuable tool the Island has to protect itself from being exploited and inappropriately developed.

The makeup of our boards, selectmen and commissioners will often change directions but what remains is Chapter 831.

Having served as the appointed commissioner from Edgartown (from 2001 to 2003), I urge the selectmen to review this trend of thinking and for the voters to support the MVC.

Linda DeWitt

Edgartown

Seasonal Taxpayer Viewpoint

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I would like to weigh in on the issue surrounding the possibility of Edgartown’s withdrawal from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission. I have owned a home in Edgartown for the last 16 years, but as a seasonal resident, of course, I cannot vote on how my taxes are spent.

As you know, seasonal residents pay at least 70 per cent of the town budget. As a consequence, the town can pay for many expenses without challenging the often-modest incomes of the franchised voters who live and work on the Island year-round. The best example of this is the per-pupil expenses for the Edgartown elementary school students as well as the regional high school students that are among the highest in the state (top five in Massachusetts for Edgartown; first, for the high school among 301 districts!) This provides educational opportunities far in excess of other towns in the state with similar family incomes. I am fine with that, and have never objected to my taxes. As with the school costs, but on a much smaller scale, remaining with the MVC costs the Edgartown natives almost nothing, inasmuch as the bulk of the otherwise minimal expenditures would be borne by the seasonals. I am confident that, if polled, say, with an insert accompanying their tax assessments, the seasonals would support this as enthusiastically as I do.

At the very least, the MVC represents another set of eyes on land decisions, and protects us against quietly engineered and murky transactions that would threaten the good forward-looking work of recent years that protects this rare valuable treasure that is the whole Island of Martha’s Vineyard.

Frank McDermott

Bayside, N.Y., and Edgartown

No Budget Increase

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission finance committee is reviewing a preliminary draft budget for our next fiscal year. There is no increase in overall budget, in overall assessments to Island towns, and in cost of living adjustments to our employees.

John Breckenridge

Oak Bluffs

The writer is the Martha’s Vineyard Commission treasurer.

Imperfect and Necessary

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

It seems that it is not just open season on deer, but on the Martha’s Vineyard Commission as well. Hard on the heels of the Edgartown selectmen’s proposal to have the town withdraw from the commission, now Tisbury and Oak Bluffs want to “amend” the process whereby developments of regional impact are declared and, subsequently, deliberated and decided upon, the reason being that the DRI process is protracted, onerous and results in inhibiting business development.

There is no doubt that there are legitimate issues both of substance and of process here. As an eight-year veteran of a very scrupulous planning board in the town of New Castle, N.Y., I am very aware of how these issues appear to those who are unfamiliar with the process and who do not understand that, imperfect as it is, it has been adopted, over time, to protect the overall interests of the community, in this case according to the charter of the MVC.

No one who is familiar with my appearances before the MVC’s compliance committee for the purpose of having it enforce DRI conditions against a plainly unauthorized use, would mistake me for an unalloyed fan of the commission. But that does not mean that I do not think that the commissioners are actively engaged with the issues and trying to make the best decisions they can for the community. From my perspective the critical problem is that we’re not paying enough for this essential entity in order to make it work more expeditiously and with greater clarity of purpose.

The problem is that, like all the boards, committees, and commissions I’ve observed in my four years of full-time residency, the MVC does not have enough legal guidance. Truly, folks, all the questions that come up in development/zoning/planning have a legal component. My planning board had counsel at every board meeting. Board members were not allowed to get far off the straight and narrow track and grapple ineffectively with issues. Counsel was there to advise us, either on the spot, or at most, the next meeting. Yes, this costs money. But it was cost effective. Applicants learned where they stood substantively; they understood that the board had a legal obligation to render decisions according to a timetable. And, beyond everything else, they came to understand that the board was not simply making it up according to the state of its digestion.

Our commission, our town governments and their own manifold committees are composed of citizen volunteers. They are underadvised. I submit that we, and that’s a collective we, are being penny-wise and infinitely pound-foolish by not ponying up for the legal services that are manifestly essential to the successful functioning of these various governmental entities.

Institutions like the commission can only be as effective as we allow them to be. Rather than reducing its authority, the better approach is to give it the tools it needs to do its job more quickly and more effectively.

Nicholas W. Puner

West Tisbury