On Tuesday the voters of Dukes County will find a question on the ballot asking for approval to make an important change to our county government. The question and answer below may be helpful.
Q: Will I be able to vote to abolish county government?
A: No. The charter study commission, after 18 months of study, recommends retaining county government with minor changes.
Q: What will I be voting on?
Over 40 per cent of the income of Martha’s Vineyard Community Services comes from state contracts. We are very thankful that we have just come through the state budget cuts relatively unscathed. However, in order to maintain the quality of services we provide to the Island community we must be constantly vigilant.
Based on my personal experience, I believe that the most important task of our state representative is to protect the integrity, independence, and local control of the Steamship Authority. It is the trump issue in the current race to fill the seat being vacated by Eric Turkington.
Our state representative may be only one of 160 in most legislative matters, but in cases of Steamship Authority business our elected voice really matters.
MARGARET KNIGHT
508-627-8894
(margaret02539@yahoo.com)
I don’t think I’ve ever been on a more exciting ferry crossing than this past Tuesday evening during the big blow. As Skip Bettencourt’s front page Gazette photo last week showed, the opening at Norton Point has grown — now more than a mile wide (and probably wider after the wind on Tuesday) making the channel current even stronger than it has been.
A bit of the spectral from early Gazette editions:
Near the north shore of the Island just inshore from Cedar Tree Neck is what is left of the Crying Swamp. Here today is a small cranberry bog, surrounded by swamp bushes just like a hundred similar spots on the Vineyard.
Years ago even grown folks hurried past the place with a feeling of dread after dark. To all the neighborhood the swamp was known in a queer, supernatural way.
Election Day 2008
Vineyard voters go to the polls on Tuesday to cast their ballots for President and Vice President in an election that is by any measure historic. The country is in turmoil, with the economy in a deep crisis that even the best and brightest financial experts cannot completely unravel, unemployment is soaring and confidence in elected leadership is ebbing lower than a full moon tide.
The main theme and rallying cry of this election has been change, and whatever the party affiliation, few can argue with that.
The smell of newsprint is hard to describe — pungent, inky, old, dusty — all of the words fit but none is exactly right. And that is frustrating because the smell of newsprint is the smell of words.
Isaac Arrives
Leslie and Wagnen Belo of Oak Bluffs announce the birth of a son, Isaac Barbosa Amaral Belo, born on Oct. 27, 2008, at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Isaac weighed 7 pounds, 10.8 ounces at birth.
Announcing Addison
Lynn C. and Erik G. Blake of Oak Bluffs announce the birth of a daughter, Addison Chang Blake, born on Oct. 20, 2008 at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Addison weighed 6 pounds, 11 ounces at birth.
