Martha’s Vineyard Commission’s Lesson

With the dust still settling from the Edgartown special town meeting this week, the next task at hand is for the Martha’s Vineyard Commission to ask itself some hard, probing questions, and central among them is this: Has the commission grown out of touch with the Island community?

If it has, it would not be the first time in the three-decade-plus history of this venerable planning agency. The late 1970s and early 1980s marked a period of rocky relations between the commission and the Island towns; Edgartown and Oak Bluffs both withdrew and then rejoined the commission after a period of a few short years. And while those years were damaging, not just for the two towns but for the Island as a whole, there were lessons learned from that period that are quite possibly useful at a time when the commission is again under assault — from Edgartown leaders who think the MVC budget assessments are unfair, and from leaders in Tisbury and Oak Bluffs who believe the review process for developments of regional impact (DRIs) has grown onerous and has chilled economic growth in the down-Island towns during this time of financial hardship for many.

The DRI complaints come just as the commission embarks on a review of its so-called checklist of referral criteria for DRIs, something it does every two years. So that is a good thing and we hope the commission will actively engage its critics in the discussion about the checklist.

But beyond that lies the troubling and undeniable growing perception in the community that the commission is arrogant and out of touch. Overheard in downtown Edgartown this week: “The commission has gotten so bad they are going to tell you what kind of curtains you can put in your house.”

Not true of course, but it doesn’t matter because the perception is there. And it is imperative that the commission be hyperaware of this mood of discontent.

At this juncture two key things need to happen. First, the people who seek to tear down the commission should take a step back and explore a more constructive way to incorporate their complaints into the discussion.

Second and even more important, the members of the commission and its executive director must tune their ears to the problems at hand. They have a fine example to follow from the 1980s when the late Charles W. Clifford took over as executive director. Mr. Clifford acknowledged the two towns had a beef with the commission and rather than dispute it or defend the commission’s role, he became a very good listener. He got out of the office a lot, attended a lot of selectmen’s meetings, and let everyone know that he was there to listen, to hear everything, including the complaints. He then took this back to his commission and productive changes were made in the way the commission did its business.

The result was a better, stronger commission, and ironically — because no one could have predicted at the time what was coming — it was well prepared for the boom development years of the late 1980s.

Today the commission has gone through another period of change; during Mark London’s tenure as executive director the commission has accomplished a great deal of planning work, most of it in the past few years wrapped around the comprehensive Island Plan. During this period the commission hosted countless community meetings to gather comment and feedback as it worked to create a planing blueprint for the next fifty years.

Now it is time for Mohammed to go to the mountain. Commission leaders should go to the Island towns and be available to answer questions, about the budget, the DRI process and other issues of importance to the towns. The commission would be wise to examine closely its own ranks for its very best ambassadors, keeping in mind that they are stewards of one of the Island’s most important institutions.

And these ambassadors should just listen. People will appreciate that. Because after all, it is their commission.