At one of his last public meetings as a Tisbury selectman, Tristan Israel was engaged in a familiar back and forth with school committee members about funding for a new town school. In his sometimes meandering way, he arrived at a well-worn phrase.
“People — we all perceive the world from the different glasses that we wear,” he said.
It’s a phrase that could well describe Mr. Israel’s governing philosophy.
The veteran selectman will not appear on the ballot next week after 25 years in office. Other elected leaders on the Island say he takes with him a wealth of knowledge, but in Mr. Israel’s eyes, Tisbury has no greater resource than the varying perspectives of its idiosyncratic inhabitants. Whether it’s waterways regulations, a new school or the state plan to overhaul Beach Road, another exploratory committee can always be formed, another viewpoint can always be incorporated, another compromise is always within reach.
“I’ve always been — to a fault I’m sure some people would say — an egalitarian in my approach,” he said in a recent interview, using one of his characteristic mid-sentence caveats.
Regular Tisbury selectmen’s meetings are often lengthy. They also rank among the most well-attended on the Island. As chairman, Mr. Israel has acted as a conductor, drawing out multiple voices on every issue. Meetings stretch into the night. For him, efficiency is not the goal.
“We live in a very intolerant age, so I realize that sometimes my approach is frustrating to people, but I think in a democracy everyone should have a chance to be heard,” he said.
A self-described activist and rebel, Mr. Israel never expected to become involved with small town government. He was raised in the suburbs of New York and said his parents instilled in him their progressive beliefs, though he expressed them differently than his parents might have liked. As a teenager in 1964, he was arrested after spontaneously joining a civil rights demonstration at the World’s Fair.
“I got hauled off to jail. The youth detention center in Queens. My dad was like, he can stay there. My brother had to come get me,” Mr. Israel recalled with a laugh. He was also arrested protesting the war in Vietnam.
He went to college at the University of Bridgeport and arrived on the Island during what he called his dark years after that. He thought little of local government until a major commercial development was proposed at Nobnocket near his Vineyard Haven home.
“When Nobnocket happened, my head was just sort of popping up above water,” he recalled. “I was like, Who are these people in my life making these decisions?”
He fought the development passionately, joining a campaign, having bumper stickers made. He began attending meetings of the conservation commission, and was soon made an alternate. Eventually, he was elected to the planning board. In 1994, he ran to fill the unexpired term of selectman Ida Churchill who had resigned. He won that election, and another eight elections after it.
Decades later, he still sees himself as out of the mainstream.
“I never called myself a hippie. We always hated the term hippie. We were freaks,” he said, laughing. “I represent a certain portion of my generation. And I like to think that I brought my open and activist attitudes to being a selectman. I know, in the beginning especially, I was probably tolerated by many others in government, but I think over time, I’ve earned people’s respect.”
He has made a policy of not putting on airs as a town leader. He owns a landscaping business and sometimes attends meetings in his work clothes. He speaks in his own vernacular, a mix of the jargon of town bureaucracy and words like “copacetic” and “kvetching.” When he is ambivalent on a thorny issue, he occasionally cites his astrological sign (Libra) as justification.
He maintains his anti-development attitudes, though they have been tempered somewhat over the years. He also believes in the benefits of regionalization, and has been a steward of the all-Island selectmen meetings. He is proud of his involvement in efforts to preserve town history, like the campaign to save and restore the old Tashmoo spring building.
But most of all, he has avoided any outcome where a Tisbury resident might be left feeling unheard. He remembered a time early on in his tenure in the 1990s when the town was divided over a proposal to establish a shared sewer system with Oak Bluffs. Mr. Israel opposed sewering and favored alternatives. He knew he was in the majority, but rather than jamming a plan through, he approached the issue in typical fashion.
“We set up a big committee. I want to say it was 20 or more people,” he said. “So you had the composting toilet people over here, you had the mega sewer system people over here. We had the whole gauntlet of people on this committee. They went through a several-year process and several consultants. Several town meeting votes.”
The town ended up with a limited sewer system.
“So it was probably a system that nobody wanted. Because the big sewer system guys didn’t get their big sewer system and the people who wanted alternative stuff didn’t get what they want. But it was democracy. You know?”
In addition to being a selectman, Mr. Israel serves as a county commissioner and is a member of the Massachusetts Municipal Association. He has served on the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.
He said deciding not to run again was difficult. It never felt like exactly the right time.
“Not to sound too out there,” he said, “but people are born and die every day, and when you’re in local government or in government, over the long haul, unlike building a house or writing a book, the story never ends.”
As the annual town election nears, he has gradually been letting go. After his last town meeting as a selectman, where he was honored with warm tributes including a formal resolution from the state house, Mr. Israel left the Island for a vacation in Puerto Rico to disconnect.
A musician, he will release his third album this spring. It’s called Out into the Midnight, a meditation on quantum physics and the wonders of the universe.
He said he knows the next generation of town leaders will do fine.
“I’ve gotten more out of this than I could have ever imagined,” he said. “I’ve received much more from the people that have supported me — and the people that haven’t.” Reflecting on his unlikely journey from rebel kid to freak to longtime town leader, he smiled.
“Who knew?”
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