Time Machine Terms
July 4, 1997
Conservation Group Preserves Strategic Farmland
The Massachusetts chapter of The Nature Conservancy announced this week it will purchase the John Hoft Farm, 90 acres of rolling pastures and unspoiled morainal woodlands which embrace Duarte’s Pond and the moist bogs off Lambert’s Cove Road in West Tisbury.
The farm is owned by Daniel Alisio and will be named the Hoft Farm Preserve, in memory of his late wife, Marguerite Hoft Alisio, whose family owned the farm for over 100 years.
June 27, 1997
A Naturalist’s Love of Wild Creatures Creates a World of Reptiles
It takes a warm-blooded naturalist to run a den of cold-blooded creatures. Gus and Shane Ben David’s World of Reptiles is now in its third year. These are the animals that will never be friendly, but they do get along. They range in size from a 21-foot, 230-pound reticulated python down to a bullfrog from Cape Cod.
June 13, 1997
Island Groups Look at Need For Expansion
These days, the Island’s service organizations face great demands. With the Vineyard population swelling, groups such as Community Services, the boys’ and girls’ club and the school system need to expand. Meanwhile, new organizations — including the aquatics center — are struggling to establish themselves.
May 23, 1997
Island Trust Bill 25 Years Ago Foreshadowed Debate Over Land Use
“I think in hindsight the legislation could have been a tool to manage development better,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said last week, speaking by telephone from his office on Capitol Hill. “The issues in the sixties and seventies were how to deal with those areas that need to be preserved wild, or where development needed to be frozen.”
Senator Kennedy was referring to legislation he introduced a quarter of a century ago, the Nantucket Sound Island Trust Bill.
May 2, 1997
Indian Gambling Casino Collapses on Beacon Hill; Tribe Wants Bingo Hall
The proposed casino was supposed to be a winning bet for all, a rich deal that would be as much of a boon to state taxpayers as it would to the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).
April 25, 1997
Officer Accused of Racist Acts is Put on Indefinite Paid Leave as Full Investigation Continues
Tisbury police officer John Dillon -- who has been under fire from the NAACP for allegedly racist acts against the town's only African-American patrolman -- is on indefinite paid administrative leave this week.
April 11, 1997
Simon Family Aided Baseball Barrier Buster
This is the unusual story of the unlikely relationship between the families of Vineyard photographer Peter Simon, his rock ’n’ roll star sister, Carly, and baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson.
The tale begins in 1955, when the fleet-footed Mr. Robinson — the first African-American Major League baseball player in history — was leading the Brooklyn Dodgers to their first World Series title.
March 28, 1997
Alley’s Store Operators Plan to Sell
The operators of Alley’s General Store in West Tisbury have traditionally been known as the “Dealers in Almost Everything.”
But it seems that the current Alley’s operators cannot deal with their landlord, the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust.
The current operators — Victor Spelman, Emily Milstein and Will and Deborah Ware — have decided to sell their interest in the State Road general store in order to concentrate on a new retail business in Oak Bluffs.
March 28, 1997
NAACP Urges Dismissal of Officer
The Martha's Vineyard NAACP this week called for the immediate dismissal of John Dillon, a Tisbury police patrolman who has been charged with racism by a fellow officer.
In a three-page letter to the Gazette, the NAACP lists a series of alleged offenses by Mr. Dillon, highlighted by an incident in which the officer parodied stereotypical African-American speech when rewriting a computer document authored by Theophilus M. Silvia 3rd, the town's only year-round African-American patrolman.
March 21, 1997
Tisbury Is Embroiled in Heated Dispute As Police Deal with Charges of Racism
Charges of racism erupted this week at the Tisbury police department, with the town's only African-American year-round officer saying he has been the subject of harassment, jokes and even an offensive caricature displayed in the station.
The allegations of Theophilus M. (T.M.) Silvia III, filed over a period of 12 months with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, were made public this week by the Vineyard chapter of the NAACP, where officials were dissatisfied with the town's response to the issue.
