Voter Conduct Is Neighborly

Aquinnah Annual Town Meeting Rejects Notion of Shifting Regional
School Costs Over to Chilmark

By IAN FEIN

In a magnanimous sign of regional good will, Aquinnah voters at
their annual town meeting this week turned down an opportunity to pass
on some $74,000 in Up-Island Regional School District costs to their
neighbors in Chilmark.

The forces which punched a hole in Norton Point and opened Edgartown
harbor to the Atlantic Ocean might present a headache for town
officials, but from an ecological viewpoint, they have all the benefits
of a big natural spring cleaning.

Philip R. Craig, the salty Edgartown author who earned national and local celebrity status for his popular Vineyard mystery series, died on May 8 at the Martha's Vineyard Hospital after a brief illness. He was 74 and had lived year-round in a renovated Ocean Heights camp with his wife Shirley.

About a week ago, Trudy Russell was sitting at her Olivetti Lettera
25 typewriter with her morning cup of coffee when the phone rang. The
woman on the other line introduced herself as M.J. Munafo and told Mrs.
Russell that her play, Closure, had been selected for the Vineyard
Playhouse spring festival, Island Interludes.

Mrs. Russell had no idea what she was talking about.

About a week ago, Trudy Russell was sitting at her Olivetti Lettera
25 typewriter with her morning cup of coffee when the phone rang. The
woman on the other line introduced herself as M.J. Munafo and told Mrs.
Russell that her play, Closure, had been selected for the Vineyard
Playhouse spring festival, Island Interludes.

Mrs. Russell had no idea what she was talking about.

Boat Line Bill Set for Hearing

Sleeper Legislation Would Dilute Island Control of SSA Board; Unions
Back the Measure, Management Does Not

By MIKE SECCOMBE

The Steamship Authority is facing a fresh fight for its independence
over union-backed attempts to change the composition of its board to
dilute local representation and impose an increasing degree of state
control.

Aquinnah Tackles $2.9 Million Budget

By IAN FEIN

Aquinnah voters will take up a $2.9 million budget and a series of
relatively small spending requests at their annual town meeting next
week.

Town officials are hoping the evening will proceed more smoothly
than last year's meeting, which was postponed for a month because
voters were unhappy with the budget as presented.

Ferry Islander to Be Sold; Pricetag Set at $750,000

By MIKE SECCOMBE

To the extent that you can do a cost benefit analysis on sentiment,
the Steamship Authority did one this week on the Vineyard's
favorite ferry, the Islander, and settled on a figure of $750,000.

If the highest bidder could come up with that much money, boat line
governors decided, they would be obliged to sell the venerable old
ferry.

Edgartown officials have begun a major effort to warn boaters of
treacherous tides in the town harbor and Katama Bay resulting from the
breach which has opened at Norton Point Beach.

The direction of the tidal flow has reversed due to the breach, and
currents are running three times faster in the narrows, posing a major
threat of collision, as well as seriously hampering the operation of the
ferry to Chappaquiddick, now the only access to Chappy.

From his earliest years, Michael Donaroma could not help but be
aware of the bipolar, us and them, have and have not division of
Martha's Vineyard society.

"My father left when I was two," the Edgartown
businessman and selectman recalled this week, on the eve of the 30th
anniversary of the nursery business which has carried him across to the
have side of that social divide.