Chairs and benches at the Oak Bluffs Tabernacle will be restored. Information for senior citizens will enter the digital age. And single-use plastic bags could soon be a thing of the past on the Vineyard — except possibly in Oak Bluffs.
At annual town meetings this week, voters saw a number of initiatives that crossed town boundaries.
The plastic bag bylaw is one. Promoted throughout the year by the Vineyard Conservation Society, a conservation advocacy group, the bylaw was adopted on Tuesday night by voters in Edgartown, Tisbury and West Tisbury. Chilmark and Aquinnah will take up the question at their annual town meetings in the coming weeks.
Only Oak Bluffs did not include the bylaw on its town meeting warrant.
On Tuesday night, applause broke out in West Tisbury after the plastic bag ban was approved decisively by voice vote. Several miles away in Edgartown there was also applause after the bylaw easily won approval. “We have not taken this process lightly,” said Samantha Look, outreach coordinator for VCS. “No one likes to hear ban. We looked at alternatives first.” Plastic bags, she said, “will be on this planet longer than anyone in this room, so I hope this is a choice we are willing to make.”
In Tisbury the bylaw was approved following debate.
“I find this bylaw to be draconian on Tisbury businesses,” said James Rogers. “This will be a real detrimental affect on the business community.”
Nat Benjamin replied: “Mr. Rogers is right. This is not a guarantee to purify the planet, but we all have to do our part, and this is a small part . . . I urge everyone to vote on this. Do the right thing.”
Applause followed.
“The plastic bag ban is not necessarily the easy route for us, but I think living on Martha’s Vineyard is not the easy route also, and the hard path is sometimes the best path,” said Louis Hall.
Scott Tuttle noted that Nantucket adopted a plastic bag ban 26 years ago.
The bylaw goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2017, except in Edgartown where an amendment was adopted delaying the mandatory start date to Jan. 1, 2018. The reason was to give businesses more time to adjust and use up any stock.
Julia Celeste, a downtown business owner who does not use plastic bags, backed the waiver, noting that businesses often buy bags by the thousands and would have to throw away existing stock.
“Take ’em to Boston,” quipped moderator Philip J. Norton Jr.
Ms. Look noted Boston is considering a bag ban as well.
Other regional initiatives include a project to restore old chairs and benches at the Tabernacle which date to the 1800s. Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, Tisbury and West Tisbury will all contribute Community Preservation Act funds for the work. Oak Bluffs will contribute $55,000, while Edgartown will add $40,000, Tisbury $20,000 and West Tisbury $30,000.
At the Oak Bluffs town meeting Tuesday there were scattered questions about the use of taxpayer money for church restoration work, but Jeff Ferriell, president of the Camp Meeting Association, said the Tabernacle’s primary use is not as a church.
“Probably an eighth of the events there are church related,” he said. “This is one of the important town landmarks.”
All four towns voted to adopt new flood plain maps, created last year by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Towns are required to adopt the flood maps in order to obtain federal flood insurance, and also reimbursement from the government in the event of a hurricane or other weather disaster. The new maps add more properties to the flood hazard zone in every participating town. Aquinnah will take up the flood maps at its meeting in May. Chilmark is the only Island town that does not participate in the federal flood insurance program.
Shared funding won approval in every town for FirstStop MV, a proposed new website and staffed phone service for senior citizens. The program is the brainchild of the healthy aging task force and is aimed at reducing duplication of services. Fiscal year operating costs, to be split by the six Island towns, are $86,990.
Voters in all four towns also agreed to put funds toward the development of an affordable housing project at Kuehn’s Way in Vineyard Haven, an Island Housing Trust project. Every town also approved funds that will go to the rental assistance program for the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority. The program provides year-round rental subsidies for income-qualified Islanders.
Sara Brown, Heather Hamacek, Steve Myrick and Jane Seagrave contributed reporting.
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