Comsog Fall Festival Celebrates Harvest Time on the Island

By ALEXIS TONTI

Sunday was a cold and blustery day, coming at the end of that kind
of weekend, gray all around. Because of all that grayness, the bright
sign stood out even more. Red lettering against a yellow background:
COMSOG Fall Festival, 12-3, Free Soup.

Tomorrow is election day in Chilmark. Three candidates are running
for the seat left vacant by the death of selectman Herbert Hancock this
spring. Polls at the Chilmark Community Center will be open from noon to
8 p.m.

The three candidates come from varied backgrounds. Elizabeth
Pickett-Gray owns the Pickett House on South Road, and has never before
held town office.

It's already being called the "drop-and-go"
approach. Eager to make the transit hub in West Tisbury center look more
like just another bus stop, town and transit leaders this week agreed to
trim the amount of time that buses linger on the village main street.

US Airways Express Stops Island Flights After Oct. 15; Carrier Cites
Increased Costs

By JOSHUA SABATINI

US Airways Express, in its fifth year of servicing the Island,
announced Monday that Oct. 15 will be its last day operating out of the
Vineyard airport.

Vineyard SSA Governor Loses Battle to Impose $7 Million Fee on
Nantucket

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

Vineyard Steamship Authority governor J.B. Riggs Parker lost a
skirmish yesterday in his battle against Nantucket when the Falmouth and
Nantucket boat line governors voted to eliminate a complicated cost
allocation policy that could have led to ruinous fare increases for
Nantucket in coming years.

"It's time to put this behind us, develop a new policy
and go forward," declared Falmouth boat line governor Galen M.
Robbins.

He arrived when the Martha's Vineyard Commission was still in
its early years - not yet a decade old, not yet accepted as a full
member in the peculiar society known as Vineyard government. In fact,
when Charles W. Clifford took over as executive director of the
commission in 1982, if the commission was anything at all in the Island
community, it was a point of controversy.

With the tragedies of Sept. 11 forcing many vacationers to postpone or altogether cancel their autumn trips to the Island, some Vineyard businesses find themselves in an unexpected financial pinch.

While the slowdown is inevitably affecting the Island economy, most business owners are taking the hit with patience and understanding.

"This is not just an inconvenience, this is an attack on mankind," said Sandy Berube of the Jonathan Munroe House in Edgartown.

It was no ordinary car accident that took the life of 18-year-old Eric MacLean in March.

Island students looking forward to school trips overseas or even as close as New York and Washington, D.C., might not have to pack their bags after all.

The impact of bringing more summer visitors to the Vineyard using
high-speed ferry service from New Bedford, the tricky practice of
carrying fuel on the boats, and the role that the public boat line plays
in the lives of Islanders - these were all subjects for discussion
at the Martha's Vineyard Commission last week.