Adam Turner sat in the audience at a recent meeting of the Chilmark planning board, along with a few other people who had shown up for an afternoon public hearing. It was one of many visits the new director of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission has made to Island boards since taking over the job in August.
“I will be at a lot of these meetings,” Mr. Turner told the board, after introducing himself. “The commission is not sitting out there by itself,” he added of the Island’s planning and regulatory body. “It’s one layer. They have their responsibilities, you have your responsibilities, and it’s up to us to really make them work together.”
Later in the week, Mr. Turner sat behind his desk in the Olde Stone Building in Oak Bluffs, just up the hill from the harbor, and spoke about his philosophy as a planner and his entry into Island life. On the wall is a large framed photograph of a University of Florida football player leveling a rival from Florida State.
“I’m a Gator,” said Mr. Turner, who received his master’s degree from the University of Florida in 1993. By then he had already developed a long list of plans and regulations in Key West, where runaway growth had led the state to prohibit the local government from issuing new development permits.
“It was incredibly interesting,” he said of that time — not completely unlike the Vineyard, since both places enjoy national recognition. “It’s not like being in a small town where you might go to a board once a month,” he said. “In these kinds of jobs you really have a lot of people to listen to.”
He later worked as a consultant for the law firm Icard Merrill, also in Florida, which developed plans and codes for clients around the country, including Las Vegas and Reno, Nev. “My job, a lot of it, was to go and establish relationships with the various groups in the community, make sure that what they were going to get was what they really wanted,” he said.
After more than 10 years as a consultant he has learned not to take things too personally. That lesson struck especially deep in Saipan, he said, where he served as senior policy director for the Northern Mariana Islands governor’s office, and got to know the indigenous population. “It’s their land,” he said, noting the importance of building trust as a planner. “And I was part of a community. If you are part of a community, it’s not about you.”
A sense of community was a big part of what drew Mr. Turner and his family to the Vineyard.
In another spot in the office are two photographs of his daughters, Hyde and Alexandra, framed in popsicle sticks. Along with his wife, Rocy, Mr. Turner is enjoying family trips to the beach and other perks of Island life. “If it’s not the best place for kids in the country, it’s got to be one of the best,” he said.
Having vacationed here many times, he now looks forward to his first winter, and getting to know the year-round community. But he also joins the many Island professionals who have struggled to find year-round housing. Along with coastal water quality, housing is an issue he plans to tackle head-on at the MVC.
But Mr. Turner’s style is less that of a linebacker than of a careful strategist, harmonizing with his surroundings and not forcing solutions. He sees himself not as a leader but as a staff member, working to facilitate discussions so the 16-member MVC can make well-informed decisions. That’s how the commission was designed, he said, and it requires an Island-wide effort.
“All I want is the best decision-making that we can get on the Island,” he told the Chilmark planning board. “And I need your help.” He stressed his intention that MVC decisions would not occur in a vacuum, but emerge from larger discussions that involve town boards and other stakeholders.
On the surface, little has changed at the MVC, with development reviews and long debates in the Olde Stone Building. But already Mr. Turner has launched a comprehensive review of the commission’s 2009 Island Plan, which outlined about 400 goals and policies, many of which have languished. The commission is now working to develop a summary of the plan, along with a “report card” to indicate what has worked and what hasn’t, and to identify new areas of concern. Island boards will likely play a greater role in those efforts next year.
The commission is also working to revise its criteria for reviewing developments of regional impact (DRIs), as required every two years. So far it has been collecting input from various stakeholders and will soon decide what parts to amend. Mr. Turner hopes to work closely with town planning boards in the process.
After just two months, the director has already encountered a large swath of Island leadership, including planning board members, conservation commissioners and selectmen. His meeting in Chilmark was the last in his inaugural tour of the Island.
Compared to his previous jobs, he said, these first few months have been extremely time consuming. “But I would add that the only way to do this right is to be respectful of the other boards and commissions. And the only way to do that is to attend their meetings and be part of their processes as well.”
On another wall in the office was a wooden sea turtle that Mr. Turner helped design and had carved by a friend in Palau, an island nation in Micronesia. Its shell frames an idyllic scene with palm trees and naked people — a tropical Eden, and a symbol of our dependence on the natural world.
“This little place has the best coastal management and ocean management system in the world,” Mr. Turner said of the country, where commercial fishing has been outlawed to preserve the marine environment and a thriving ecotourism industry. “It just shows that small places can really be shining examples of what can be done.”
It was too soon to see much beyond the next few months, he said, but he looked forward to being part of the solutions to the housing shortage, declining water quality and other issues facing the Island.
“I don’t want to over-promise,” he said. “But if we work hard, we’ll get there.”
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