There’s a decided air of neglect about the Martha’s Vineyard Airport that has nothing to do with the Island’s casual vibe. Shrubs are overgrown, weeds poke through cracks in the pavement and the main terminal is in dire need of repainting.

All is not well at the Island’s only commercial airport, a fact that has become increasingly clear over the past year. But while some cracks in the façade are evident, many of the details beneath the surface remain elusive.

Sean Flynn, the longtime airport manager, has been on paid leave since August 10, and though airport commission chairman Myron Garfinkle said at the time Mr. Flynn would be stepping down, it is clear now that he won’t go without a push. He is less than three months into a favorable three-year contract that, as described in today’s Gazette, can be terminated only for specific reasons and only after a defined series of steps are taken. After several weeks with no progress by lawyers trying to mediate an amicable separation, Mr. Garfinkle has called a special meeting of airport commissioners for this morning, evidently to consider their next move.

The immediate justification for Mr. Flynn’s mid-summer disappearance was a Federal Aviation Administration letter of investigation that, according to Mr. Garfinkle, disclosed airport management’s failure to correct deficiencies identified in more than one routine inspection. Among other things, the FAA found that four years after the airport was awarded more than eight hundred thousand dollars to design a new aircraft rescue and firefighting facility, project plans are still incomplete.

Mr. Flynn has told the Gazette that problems cited by Mr. Garfinkle and commission vice chairman Robert Rosenbaum have been overblown. The FAA has refused to release any documents, citing ongoing discussions with the airport.

On the airport’s own website, however, is another relic of a stalled project, an effort to update the airport’s master plan, a comprehensive document last completed in 2002 that is supposed to establish priorities for the future. The project was launched at a well-attended public meeting in December 2012, but has never progressed beyond the initial phase. According to a schedule still posted on the airport’s site, the plan was to have been completed by the summer of 2013. A slide presented at that meeting included this emphatic promise: Public outreach throughout process!

Tensions had been building long before August between Mr. Flynn and several newer members of the airport commission, who say their efforts to be included in airport decision-making were repeatedly rebuffed. Even before that, the airport was mired in ugly and sometimes just silly controversy, from a murky workplace dispute between Mr. Flynn and a female worker to a tug-of-war for control between the airport commission and the Dukes County Commission. The issues may have enriched some lawyers, but had the unfortunate result of distracting from the critical business of running an airport.

Whether Mr. Flynn, who has served as airport manager since 2005, bears the brunt of the credit or blame for what has happened or not happened at the airport will presumably be clearer when public records eventually come to light. Pilots by and large praise the overall operations of the airport, and its safety record is unchallenged.

But while it would be helpful to see the issues raised by FAA laid out in black and white, even now the picture of the airport that is emerging from available information is of projects deferred and a manager increasingly at odds with his bosses. No matter how responsibility is apportioned, this cannot continue.

The Martha’s Vineyard Airport, the pilots and passengers who use it and the men and women who work there, deserve management that is in synch with the airport commission. The larger Island community deserves to participate, as was promised back in 2012, in helping to shape priorities for one of the Vineyard’s most visible public facilities. And when future presidents come to visit, their first impression should be one that reflects the pride Islanders feel for the Vineyard.

It’s time for the airport manager to step down.