Welcome Bangii
Raina Isham and Mekenock Bellecourt of Aquinnah announce the birth of a son, Bangii Kai Albert Bellecourt, born on Jan. 8 at the Martha’s Vineyard Community Hospital. He weighed 9 pounds, 12 ounces at birth.
Volunteer Celebrates Birthday
With Food Bank Fundraiser
Edgartown resident Herb Foster, whose real birthday is Jan. 31, is celebrating his 80th birthday on Saturday, Jan. 26 with his second annual hot dog cookout and fundraiser for the Island Food Pantry. The party is Saturday, Jan. 26, from 4 to 9:30 p.m. at Mr. Foster’s home at 15 Edgewood Drive (Sandy Valley), Edgartown.
Cases in Point
The recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in an esoteric Norwell case — a case that relied heavily on an earlier Edgartown ruling — offers a reminder that the Vineyard has generated a good deal of solid case law over the last thirty years, especially in the area of land use.
Shrinking Island Schools
Growing communities traditionally have meant growing schools, both for the number of students attending them and the teachers and staff charged with educating them. So it has gone on the Vineyard, where the regional high school has never had to cut staff.
Now a budget squeeze has led administrators to eliminate a half position for the coming school year in the music department, a move that has sparked a grass roots Islandwide effort to raise funds to restore the position.
Restoring Veterans Park
War Veterans Memorial Park was built more than half a century ago by hand by a small group of Vineyard Haven veterans who were members of the George W. Goethals American Legion Post. The men spent their weekends hauling fill and toting rakes and shovels to convert ten acres of swamp in an area known as Cat Hollow to a public park.
MORGAN FAMILY THANKS
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
To our family and friends, we extend our sincere gratitude for all that you have done to see us through our loss. For errands, flowers, cards, phone calls, food, kind words and especially for the hugs — a heartfelt thank you!
Your love and concern for our family has warmed our broken hearts and been a tribute to Bob that will not soon be forgotten.
Thanks for all the ways that you have been present for us.
Allouise Morgan
Edgartown
It has been a long time since I have lived on the Vineyard, so forgive me for asking, but when did the term New Yorker become derogatory? What does it mean to call someone a New Yorker? Because New York is several cities, to say that one person who hails from Park Slope in Brooklyn and another from East 63rd street in Manhattan are equally rude is like comparing persimmons to pineapples.
All in the Family
By William A. Caldwell, Pulitzer prize winner, long-time Vineyard Gazette columnist etc. From the Vineyard Gazette editions of January, 1983:
The new tax bills for Tisbury Great Pond properties were a shocker all right. The camp that I co-own with my three siblings, as the Sturgis Family Trust, was valued at $2,123,800 in fiscal year 2007. Now, with no effort on our part, it’s supposedly worth $4,419,700. For years we’ve been managing to pay the taxes — $9,568 in fiscal year 2007 — by renting the camp out most of the summer. The new tax bill, $17,511 and change, means renting for nine or ten weeks with no margin for error: no cancellations, and nothing left over for maintenance either.
