I attended the meeting Tuesday night of the various SSA folks, held at the request of Christine Sherman Todd, chairman of the Dukes County Commissioners, at the Film Center.

It’s obviously still the old culture at the Steamship Authority. Sometimes I wonder how we have remained stuck in the 90’s mentality. Why have the problems of Islanders gotten so far removed from the ears of the board of governors and the general manager? Did they listen?

Mr. Malkin, our representative, explained several times that he only has 35 per cent of the vote. How discouraging. He has been unable to halt or significantly change course on the terminal project in Woods Hole that has been planned for 15 years. It sounds like prior planning precludes making changes to pending projects. True? It’s hard to say when you have 35 per cent of the vote and little sense of support from your fellow board members. Why are we always out of the loop? I really hope and expect that the board, general manager and SSA personnel will vote with us on issues that directly affect our lives.

There were several great ideas presented that night. I think it’s going to be important to have a follow-up meeting to this one. It could be much worse next summer when they have a building under construction in Woods Hole and dock repairs in Vineyard Haven, and there’s standby for Island residents only.

The reservations system will be no better than it is now, perhaps even made worse with more demand for reservations. We can’t have our cake and eat it, too, but how did this happen? It seems that the Nantucket representative to the board of governors no longer votes with the Vineyard member, and Falmouth is not interested since our traffic is such a major annoyance to them. The other side of that same traffic problem is that all of those vehicles are unloading on Martha’s Vineyard. Perhaps it is time to pause and evaluate where we are going here.

One audience member suggested strongly that, since there is no oversight of the board, there needs to be a professional review of the board and how it functions. I agree. Please include several Island residents in that review.

Lest we forget, we might remind Falmouth, busy trying to slow things down on the Woods Hole Road, which is a futile task since it is a public way, of all the business they get from us here, the residents of Martha’s Vineyard. We have to cope with that traffic on our little old country roads, too. We both suffer from the same dilemma. How do we keep businesses, residents and visitors happy on both sides of the Sound, or is it even possible to satisfy every perceived need?

I’d like to note here that Vineyard Haven is the only year-round port without its own representative.

Yes, it is time for a lot of change.

Marie Laursen

Vineyard Haven