Rich people getting better seats and parking is an utterly distorted and uninformed statement, Mr. Malkin, and perhaps dangerous to the culture of giving that powers both social services and cultural community on the Island. Non-profit organizations across the island survive on the individual donations of citizens, sometimes larger, but mostly smaller, the latter from people who care deeply about the content and service that such organizations bring to a relatively isolated rural community. As with WCAI tote bags, all such organizations offer certain modest benefits (including sometimes reserved seating) to those who support this important work so that it can, in fact, extend to many others who can't. A seat on a couch? Please. The couches at MVFF have been far more an element of the informal collegiality of the Festival environment like the Chilmark-sourced dinners and the family-oriented Cinema Circus. The town provides a facility, but a facility without content, and the independent funding to support that content (notably not provided by the Town), is simply an empty room. To dun the funding, donated or earned by modest ticket prices, of non-profit missions that fill that room, is unconscionable, and possibly illegal. In any case, the Town action threatens the informed citizenship that in fact creates Chilmark values.