I encourage people to visit Trade Wind Fields Preserve, the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank property on County Road in Oak Bluffs, this holiday weekend. It’s long been an easily accessible treasure of fields and paths for walkers, bikers and baby strollers. It’s lovely this time of year with deer in the morning, wild blueberries and pink lady slippers tucked into the woods.

Go see what the land bank is doing there. Look at the telephone pole posts rammed into the ground every couple of feet to support a heavy metal fence around the entire property. No place for the community now — no place for baby strollers or dog walkers or older people who like to sit and visit there. Only private airplanes will be permitted.

The land bank has paved paradise. See it and weep.

Rose Cecil

Edgartown