After a good 45 minutes of arguing over semantics, the Martha’s Vineyard Airport Commission last week approved a plan by county manager Carol Borer to provide administrative assistance and staff support to the Martha’s Vineyard Airport Commission and the airport manager.

 

Six years after a master plan was commissioned for the Martha’s Vineyard Airport in an attempt to make an asset from an eyesore, significant changes are beginning to take shape.

 

The first tenant in a new 63-acre airport business park off Barnes Road is already on the site and, when utility lines are put in place sometime in the year ahead, other businesses are expected to move in rapidly.

 

The county commissioners have signed a twenty-year lease for the operation of the Martha’s Vineyard Airport. The decision to do so was announced by S. C. Luce Jr., chairman of the county commissioners, at the close of a public hearing in Edgartown Monday afternoon when the overwhelming sentiment of the participants was that the long term lease be signed.

 

The county will assume control of the airport at the former Martha’s Vineyard N.A.A.S. tomorrow, Saturday, June 29, and the field will hereafter serve air lines, private and charter planes, and instructors, under rules and regulations to be prescribed by the county.

 

Closing of the naval air field on the Great Plain will be effected as soon as possible, and some of the buildings, together with the runways, will be diverted to the use of civilian aircraft. This is the announcement arising out of a conference on Monday at the N.A.A.S., attended by various naval officers, headed by Commodore Zeitz, and the county commissioners.

 

The airfield on the central plain of Martha’s Vineyard is beginning to shape up as something more than raw earth, mud, and the destination of building materials trucked over the roads from the steamboat landing. The time has arrived, also, when the United States Navy feels that the public may know something of this project which has brought life and a strange new pattern to a domain where only the hawks, rabbits and wildflowers have dwelt for many generations.

 

Announcement has been made of the acquisition of 683 acres of land on the state reservation near West Tisbury by the federal government for an air field. The transfer has been made from the state to the federal government for one dollar.

 

Some of the mainland reports have referred to the site as a naval field, but it is believed here that it may be the emergency field surveyed by the army last summer. No one on the Island could supply definite information yesterday.