Put off a day due to the torrential rain, the town of Vineyard Haven staged its birthday celebration with the usual overabundance of food, drink and merry making that make the Tisbury Street Fair a summer tradition of the first magnitude. And the delay worked out just as well: Saturday evening the skies were blue and the sun warm, a welcome setting for the fair, now in its 34th year.
Town Attorney Grills Landowner as Tax Hearing Grows Longer
By IAN FEIN
During a tense two and a half days of cross-examination, West
Tisbury resident William W. Graham revealed in a legal hearing last week
that a private real estate appraiser valued one of his property parcels
at a substantially higher price than town assessors.
An appraisal conducted in 2002 for estate tax purposes valued his
50-acre parcel at Mohu off Lambert's Cove Road at approximately
$23 million.
The United States Coast Guard has ordered the Steamship Authority and Hy-Line Cruises to increase security measures on their ferries following the terrorist bomb attacks in London last Thursday.
Coast Guard officials said they are not sounding an alarm, but are simply taking necessary precautions following the London attacks, which as of mid-day yesterday had accounted for 52 deaths.
When it comes to telephone service, Cuttyhunk may be going cutting edge.
As part of a plan to upgrade service on the island, part of the town of Gosnold, Verizon has proposed putting up a 45-foot pole on town property on Tower Hill Road.
The Vineyard's first tularemia case of the year, a 50-year-old male landscaper, may have contracted the potentially fatal disease after handling a dead rabbit he found while working in Edgartown, state public health officials said this week.
The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) announced this week that
it will not appeal the landmark sovereignty case to the United States
Supreme Court.
The decision means that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
(SJC) decision from late last year will be allowed to stand, and the
case will now return to the superior court for a remedy.
Pond Stays Closed for Further Study
State Environmental Affairs Secretary Rejects Land Bank Management
Plan at Lambert's Cove Road Kettle Pond
BOSTON - Citing concerns about potential impacts to water
quality and protected species, the Massachusetts Secretary of
Environmental Affairs last month denied the Martha's Vineyard Land
Bank management plan for its proposed Ice House Pond Preserve.
Main Street Campaign Begins in Edgartown
By RACHEL KOVAC
A group of Edgartown business owners have launched an ambitious
campaign to revitalize the heart of downtown, from voluntary facade
improvements to strolling a capella singers to the return of Christmas
in Edgartown.
The American eel, once as abundant as shellfish in Island coastal ponds and rivers and all along the Atlantic seaboard, is in such decline that the federal government is considering placing it on the list of endangered species.
On Wednesday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opened a 90-day public comment period on whether to declare the American eel endangered.
West Tisbury Landowner Tells Tax Board Town Valuations Rooted in
Faulty System
By IAN FEIN
West Tisbury resident William W. Graham testified in a legal hearing
last week that town assessors overvalued his land by more than $30
million, a figure that resulted in an alleged overpayment of more than
$300,000 in property taxes for 2003 and 2004.
