America First Legal Foundation, a nonprofit launched by Donald Trump’s senior policy advisor Stephen Miller, sent records requests to Chilmark, Edgartown, West Tisbury and Dukes County over the past several months.
A spokesman for the Massachusetts Municipal Association told a gathering of Island selectmen and town administrators Friday that reform is needed for the state public records law — but the current bill to overhaul the law is flawed.
A bill to reform and significantly strengthen the Massachusetts Public Records Law is attracting midsummer heat on Beacon Hill, as a bipartisan group of lawmakers backing the bill try to strike a compromise with an opposition group that represents commonwealth cities and towns, including on the Vineyard.
Four months after the Vineyard Gazette asked the town of Tisbury for public records surrounding the Stop & Shop expansion proposal, the town has complied. Executive session minutes and emails document private talks that went on for months among the selectmen, town administrator and Island attorney for the grocery chain.
More than three months after the Vineyard Gazette formally asked for public records from the town of Tisbury relating to the Stop & Shop expansion proposal, the town has provided only a portion of what was requested.
A prominent Boston attorney who represents the Steamship Authority
fired back yesterday at the state attorney general for climbing into bed
with the city of New Bedford in the latest political gambit around the
public boat line that is the lifeline to the two Islands.
Three months after an accident that nearly claimed the life of one
of its employees during a routine training exercise, the Steamship
Authority is refusing to release the results of its own internal
investigation into the mishap.
