Acting through their Boston attorney, the managing partners for the Vineyard Golf Club have been engaged in a series of quiet threats and maneuvers in recent weeks - all aimed at avoiding a Martha's Vineyard Commission review of a new plan to build 16 luxury houses for members at the golf club.
The commission expressly denied all member housing when it approved the golf club five years ago.
The Vineyard Golf Club Foundation has announced the donation of about $66,000 in cash in the past year to nonprofit organizations on the Island.
The foundation also gave more than $24,000 in donated golf games in the past year. These games generated even more money when auctioned for the benefit of Vineyard nonprofits.
Over the past six years, the foundation’s cash and golf-game donations total more than $652,000.
To fund the foundation, each member of the Vineyard Golf Club is asked to give a minimum of $500 annually.
Representatives for the Vineyard Golf Club appeared before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission last Thursday for a public hearing on their proposal to build nine luxury houses for club members plus a new employee dormitory and bathroom on the course.
The members-only golf club needs permission from the commission, which approved plans for the golf course along the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road in 1999 with a condition that explicitly prohibited member housing. The only housing allowed by the commission was for club employees.
A key subcommittee of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission has recommended that the commission deny a proposal from the Vineyard Golf Club to build nine luxury houses for club members plus a new employee dormitory and bathroom on the course along the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road.
The commission land use planning committee on May 12 voted 5-1 with two abstentions to recommend denial of the proposal. Although it is not bound to follow the recommendations of the committee, the full commission usually gives the recommendation considerable weight when voting on a project.
Spokesmen for the Vineyard Golf Club last week formally withdrew their plans to build nine luxury homes for club members.
The withdrawal cleared the way for the Martha’s Vineyard Commission to approve a scaled-down version of the project, calling only for the construction of an employee dormitory and a stand-alone bathroom on the course.
At the start of Thursday’s regular commission meeting, chairman Douglas Sederholm read a letter from project engineer Dick Barbini stating the Edgartown golf club was withdrawing its plan for member housing.
Champion golfer Ernie Els will headline the golf offerings at this year’s Possible Dreams Auction, the charitable fund-raising event that benefits Martha’s Vineyard Community Services.
The Vineyard Golf Club won permission this week to convert six rooms in the clubhouse for overnight use by members and their guests.
The Edgartown zoning board of appeals voted unanimously to amend a January 2000 decision that restricted the rooms for employee use. Board of appeals member Richard Knight, who chaired the meeting, praised the private, nonprofit club for living up to its promises over the years.
A draft report of the long-awaited Massachusetts Estuaries Project study of Sengekontacket Pond sketches a profile of a coastal pond that is at once troubling and hopeful.
Although the vast pond that spans the towns of Oak Bluffs and Edgartown has undergone significant ecological changes with increased development in the past half century, including a drastic decline in eelgrass beds, specific steps could be taken that would restore the pond to nearly its original state, the report finds.
Few people know their way around the Island links like local wunderkind Tony Grillo. As President Obama settles into a vacation in West Tisbury that is almost certain to include a few rounds, Mr. Grillo leaves for Seattle to compete in the U.S. Amateur Championship. Before leaving, though, he spoke with the Gazette at his home course, Farm Neck, about what the duffer-in-chief can expect on Vineyard fairways.
Halfway through his Vineyard vacation, President Obama has turned to Island links and basketball courts for his downtime, while the operation of the reform-minded White House carries on.
A rainy, windswept Monday afternoon found Mr. Obama shooting hoops at the Oak Bluffs School with longtime Chicago friend and former Illinois public health director Eric Whitaker along with UBS chief Robert Wolf and his two sons.
