If you could pick a single place that stands for the heart and soul of a small town, surely that place would be a park. Edgartown has its mini-park, which serves as a town common of sorts, where community groups hold bake sales and tourists and year-round residents sit shoulder to shoulder on benches in the afternoon sun, a front row seat to the bustle of Main street. Oak Bluffs has Ocean Park, the grand sweep of green overlooking Nantucket Sound that is a well-known Island landmark, hosting fireworks, kite festivals and colorful light displays around the holidays.

And Vineyard Haven has Owen Park, with its seaside setting overlooking the outer harbor, tucked between Main street and West Chop.

But Owen Park is no longer the jewel that it once was. The park and its signature bandstand have had an air of neglect for years. Both are ready for a facelift.

More than three years ago a volunteer grass roots community effort was begun to refurbish the park, and two years ago voters agreed to join the cause, dedicating Community Preservation Act funds to the project. It was decided that the boxy old bandstand should be replaced, and a design contest was launched for a new one.

Finally at a meeting this week, the Tisbury planning board selected Boston architect Keith Moskow’s design for a new bandstand. The Moskow Linn design is airy, open to the water with an ampitheatre-like feel. Soft night lighting in the translucent roof would give it a Japanese-lantern look, the architect said, and serve as a beacon on the shoreline. Mr. Moskow, a seasonal resident who as a young man worked for the legendary Chilmark builder Herbert Hancock, understands Island vernacular.

It seemed like a perfect fit — and practical too, with no need for expensive custom materials.

For a few minutes, Martha’s Vineyard’s main port town could bask in the glow of future possibilities — a refurbished park with a graceful new bandstand. Visions of concerts on warm summer nights on the small beachfront, with the schooner Shenandoah in the distance under full sail, danced in the head.

Then the naysayers began lining up, jerking everyone back to reality. Judging by the large volume of negative comments on the Gazette’s website, it would appear that many do not like the design of the bandstand.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course, and people are entitled to their opinions. And it’s axiomatic that Martha’s Vineyard does not like change.

But the virulence of the negativity is disturbing and redolent of what has become a kind of chronic bad mood gripping the nation and trickling down to our own tightly knit communities.

Certainly Vineyard Haven has seen its share of problems in recent history: with the failed Tisbury School project two years ago, the disruptive relocation of students this past fall due to lead contamination in the old school, and growing financial pressures on town government.

The holiday season was once a time when goodwill and charity was in ascendance. Surely every action taken by town officials need not become another opportunity to resurrect old gripes, as if citizens need to make a choice between a school and a bandstand.

As to the particular design, there is a difference between respecting history and cleaving to a postcard image of what once was.

Ironically, Owen Park itself is an emblem of progress and change. It was named for William Barry Owen, who in 1899 bought the rights to Thomas Edison’s Victor Talking Machine, which came to be known as the Victrola. After William Barry Owen’s death in 1914, his widow donated the land for the park.

The original bandstand was built by volunteers in 1921 and replaced in 1961.

It’s time for a new one. The Moskow design is lovely and a good choice.