Plan for Auction in Oak Bluffs Stirs Tempest: Is It Park Land?
By CHRIS BURRELL
When selectmen in Oak Bluffs first heard about the surplus land
their financial team had seized for nonpayment of taxes, they saw dollar
signs and quickly planned an auction as a sure-fire way to bolster town
coffers with extra cash.
While Schools Here Rank High in Per-Pupil Dollars, Enrollments Head
Down
By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer
School spending on the Vineyard is steadily rising on a flood tide
of property tax money and now ranks in the top third for the state,
while enrollment is steadily falling and expected to ebb even more in
the next five years.
This is the latest profile of public education on the Vineyard,
sketched through an array of statistics from the state department of
education and the local schools.
Bad Weather Brings Mixed Prognosis for Tick-Borne Illnesses
By CHRIS BURRELL
When you're talking ticks and the many illnesses they can
spread, bad weather can be a double-edged sword.
Donna Enos, the infection control nurse at the Martha's
Vineyard Hospital, will tell you that the combination of rain and cool
temperatures have kept many people indoors, significantly reducing their
risk of a tick bite.
On 28 Island Farms, It's Time for Annual Ritual of Shearing
By C.K. WOLFSON
With their limbs fit snugly against each other, the shearer and the
175-pound Corriedale sheep he holds form a shifting, flesh-and-bone
puzzle. It is a single, interlocking sculpture, a hologram of shapes.
Largest Moped Agency Fails to Meet Deadline for Renewal of License
By CHRIS BURRELL
After more than a year of tough talk about enforcing moped
regulations and showing scofflaw dealers no mercy, Oak Bluffs is now
giving a break to two brothers who own the biggest fleet of mopeds in
town.
Marketing Push Will Be Needed, Say Backers of Fast Ferry Service
By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer
Marketing the Vineyard.
That is the key to developing successful high-speed passenger ferry
service between New Bedford and the Vineyard, a partner in a new
business consortium has told the Dukes County county commissioners.
The weekend's torrents of rain may have been too much for
beachgoers, but Island farmers were grateful for it. Yesterday morning,
Jim Norton of Norton Farm in Vineyard Haven was out under the warm sun
planting young tomato seedlings. His assistants, Julie Roza and Lisa
Schoonover, were quick to put each one of the dozens of plants into the
wet soil.
Affordable Housing Plan Wins Approval
Bridge Project for Outskirts of Tisbury Wins Approval with Strong
Vote from Island Commission
By MANDY LOCKE
After four months of review, the Martha's Vineyard Commission
approved Bridge Housing Corporation's plan Thursday night to
create 30 below-market homes on eight acres of rolling woodlands in the
rural outskirts of Tisbury.
Limits on nighttime access to the beach, except for fishing.
Expanded natural history programs and a possible new education center at a still unnamed location.
A boardwalk from the Dike Bridge to the Cedars.
Year-round bathroom facilities at Mytoi.
An extended pledge for better planning, rigorous land management and good neighbor relations.
These are the benchmarks of a new management plan for two key properties owned by The Trustees of Reservations on Chappaquiddick.
Court Dismisses Lawsuit Brought by New Bedford, but City May Sue
Again
By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer
Quoting archaic academic political scientists and pointedly avoiding
a position on any substantive issues of law, a federal judge this week
dismissed a lawsuit between the city of New Bedford and the Steamship
Authority.
