Tuesday Vote in Edgartown

Special town meetings in December are often lackluster affairs; most of the time a town considers itself lucky if a deep off-season special town meeting attracts a quorum to conduct the necessary business at hand. Usually at this time of year it is housekeeping business that leads to the need for a special town meeting — bills from a prior fiscal year that require voter approval to be paid, emergency repairs to a leaky roof on some town building.

Not so in Edgartown this week, when a special town meeting of a different sort convenes on Tuesday night at seven o’clock at the Old Whaling Church on Main street. The warrant is short but weighty by special town meeting standards: an amendment to a conservation restriction linked to a historic hangar renovation at the Katama Airpark, and a compact for an innovative town solar energy project are both on the agenda.

And front and center, Edgartown voters will be asked to take the first steps to withdraw from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

Placed casually on the warrant last month by the town selectmen at the offhand suggestion of their appointed representative who has a poorly argued beef with the commission’s budget, the article is anything but casual or offhand.

And despite the flippant attitude of their selectmen — “We just sort of kicked it around and said why not,” said selectman and board chairman Margaret Serpa last month — voters should be aware of the seriousness of this matter; voting to pull out of the commission could have dire and serious consequences not only for Edgartown but for every other town on the Island.

The commission is far from perfect, and like many Island institutions it has had strong and weak periods through the years, but mostly it has served the Island well. And it does not deserve to be broken apart just because a small cabal of Edgartown officials want to take their marbles and go home. A collection of letters published on the Commentary Page in today’s edition attests to a thoughtful, wise sentiment about the Martha’s Vineyard Commission that is far afield from the Edgartown selectmen, whose conduct in placing this article on the warrant has been sophomoric and irresponsible.

Voters should send a strong message to their selectmen and reject the article on Tuesday night.