Closing a chapter in a seven-year discussion and negotiation process, Tisbury selectmen signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday with Thomas and Ginny Payette regarding a stand of trees at the Tashmoo Overlook.
Under the terms of the MOU, which was signed at a well-attended selectmen’s meeting, the Payettes agreed to allow town crews onto their property to restore the Tashmoo viewshed.
A long-running dispute between the town of Tisbury and a pair of private landowners over maintaining views across the Tashmoo Overlook is closer to being resolved, the town selectmen said this week.
At their meeting Tuesday the Tisbury selectmen worked to finalize wording on a memorandum of understanding between the town and the Payette family.
One of the great public views on the Vineyard at the Tashmoo Overlook is disappearing behind a wall of willows, but instead of calling in tree surgeons to open the vista up, the trees’ owners have called in their lawyers.
The Tisbury selectmen complained on Tuesday night that despite more than a year of attempts to negotiate a solution, the owners of the trees, the Thomas and Ginny Payette family of Tashmoo Farm, remained intransigent and have now refused to talk further, except through their legal representative.
The attorney representing the owners of a stand of willow trees which is gradually obscuring one of the Island’s best scenic views at the Tashmoo Overlook has extended an olive branch to the town of Tisbury over the dispute.
In a letter sent to Tisbury town administrator John Bugbee on August 15, Michael Goldsmith, an attorney with Reynolds, Rappaport and Kaplan in Edgartown, offered a formula for further talks about the problem.
The view from the Tashmoo overlook, one of the great vistas of Martha’s Vineyard, has been restored, after the owners of a number of large trees finally bowed to pressure from the town of Tisbury and allowed the chainsaws in yesterday.
The removal of several of the largest trees, whose growth was gradually obliterating the view across Lake Tashmoo and Vineyard Sound, may end years of dispute between the town and Thomas and Ginny Payette of Tashmoo Farm.
A Vineyard Haven resident who has long campaigned to save the view at the Tashmoo overlook took her case to the Dukes County commission this week after finding little support from the Tisbury selectmen for a plan to buy the view easement.
Patricia Carlet asked the county commission for a letter of support to buy the easement, possibly by eminent domain, but the commission said it could not do that without the town’s involvement.
