With high school prom night just eight days away and graduation only
around the corner, you can almost taste a celebratory mood in the air.
Fancy dresses, tuxedos and limousines are lined up - maybe even a
few dance lessons at Fanny Blair Hall in Vineyard Haven to get ready.
FARM Institute Pulls the Plug on Huge Summer Concert Plan
By MAX HART
A budding plan to stage a huge summer concert at Katama Farm
evaporated when the FARM Institute abruptly withdrew its application for
the event before a special meeting of the Edgartown conservation
commission on Wednesday night.
Gus Ben David's newest feathered friend is seven weeks old, and subsists on a diet of rats and mice.
That may not sound very appetizing, but this baby is awfully cute. Mr. Ben David, the director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown, is rearing a Eurasian eagle owl.
The creature, a male, is smaller than a football but in the months ahead, its size will eclipse any owl Mr. Ben David has ever cared for: Fully grown, the bird's wing span will extend six feet.
Growing deeply dissatisfied with the state's proposed two-bridge solution to the ailing Lagoon Pond drawbridge, Vineyard representatives are now planning to go straight to the top and seek a meeting with the newly named state transportation secretary to see if an alternative can be found.
The decision to make direct contact with Secretary John Cogliano, who has Island ties, came at Wednesday's meeting of the Lagoon Pond drawbridge committee.
A long-running rent dispute between Dukes County and the Martha's Vineyard Airport dissolved Wednesday in an amicable resolution.
Airport commissioners used a letter prepared by fellow commissioner and county commission chairman John S. Alley as a blueprint to spell out when and where rent would be paid by the county or its agencies, and where the county would use airport property essentially rent-free.
Aquinnah Opens Annual Town Meeting with Free Cash Unsettled Once
Again
By MAX HART
After a tumultuous fiscal year that saw three failed attempts at a
Proposition 2 1/2 override, an operating budget pared to the bone and
the use of reserve funds to pay for basic town services, Aquinnah voters
will look for a new start at their annual town meeting on Tuesday night.
State Appellate Tax Board Hears Testimony in West Tisbury Case
By IAN FEIN
BOSTON - Attorneys for Island resident William W. Graham
charged in a legal hearing this week that West Tisbury assessors
deliberately falsified property records that inflated his land values
and increased his taxes.
"At heart this case is about fraud," Mr. Graham's
attorney, Richard Wulsin, told the chairman of the Massachusetts
Appellate Tax Board.
SSA Wins Injunction To Block New Fees:
Superior Court Judge Upholds Boatline In Standoff With
Town of Falmouth Over Open Air Parking Tariffs
By JAMES KINSELLA
The Steamship Authority this week staved off a move
by the town of Falmouth to impose monthly fees on the boat line's
3,200 parking spaces in the that town.
Embattled Oak Bluffs Building Inspector May Now Seek a Town Retirement Deal
By JAMES KINSELLA
After spending much of the last 12 months in a political hot seat,
Richard Mavro is reportedly preparing to close the door on his 16-year
tenure as the Oak Bluffs building inspector.
Mr. Mavro, who has been on a medical leave of absence from his job since
March 18, is in discussions with town officials about taking either a
regular or medical retirement from the town, according to information
obtained by the Gazette.
A community forum on depression and suicide prevention Tuesday night revealed a startling statistic: The number of suicide attempts on Martha's Vineyard has tripled in the last year compared to the incidence in the previous 12 months.
