The fate of the regional high school budget and an open seat on the Tisbury select board will be decided today as voters in Aquinnah head to their annual town meeting and Tisbury holds its annual town election.
Aquinnah will wrap up the annual town meeting season and is the last town to weigh in on the operating budget for the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. In protest of the continued legal spending in a lawsuit over the school’s turf field plans, West Tisbury and Chilmark both voted down the budget earlier this spring.
Aquinnah now holds the deciding vote on the matter, though school officials have said they will not spend any of next year’s legal budget on the case and they are actively trying to settle the matter with the Oak Bluffs planning board.
In Tisbury, select board member Abbe Burt is trying to fend off challengers Christina Colarusso and MacAleer Schilcher. Ms. Burt took narrowly defeated Ms. Colarusso in a special election earlier this year to fill the seat, which was vacated by Larry Gomez for health reasons. This round is for a full-term on the board.
There are no other contested races in Tisbury, though voters will consider borrowing money to pay for a feasibility study to look at the potential of renovating or replacing the aging regional high school, built in 1959.
Aside from the school budget, Aquinnah voters will also weigh funding for town building repairs, new energy codes and raising the town’s short-term rental tax to the state limit.
Town meeting starts at 7 p.m. and will be held at the Aquinnah town hall. The polls in Tisbury are open from noon to 8 p.m. at the town’s emergency services facility on Spring street.
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