The town of Aquinnah’s affordable housing committee and the nonprofit Island Housing Trust announced this week that a town-owned parcel on Church street in Aquinnah has been transferred to the trust. The trust will give a ground lease on the parcel to Amera Ignacio who was chosen through the town’s lottery process, under the oversight of the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority. Ms. Ignacio is a longtime resident of Aquinnah and will build her own house as part of the resident homesite program.
Lifeguard training again is being offered at the Mansion House Health Club in Vineyard Haven.
Mansion House is pleased to donate pool time and classroom space to support the training as certified by the Martha’s Vineyard Red Cross.
This course is designed to provide competent swimmers with the knowledge and certification necessary to become a lifeguard. Many of the Island towns’ lifeguards were trained in the Mansion House pool.
Nancy Whiting
A memorial for Nancy Whiting, who died Nov. 16, is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 15 at 11 a.m. at Grace Episcopal Church in Vineyard Haven. A gathering will be held later that day from 1 to 4 p.m. at Allen and Lynne Whiting’s home in West Tisbury.
Brazilian Retreat
Immigration is a main topic for discussion in the presidential debates these days, and with the Vineyard’s own substantial population of Brazilian immigrants, it is a topic that hits very close to home.
Open Door Policy
Last month the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) chose Cheryl Andrews-Maltais to lead its sovereign nation.
In her campaign, Ms. Andrews-Maltais stressed openness, an approach that comes at a good time for the tribe and the Vineyard community beyond.
Fall’s Last Call
The final days of autumn bring a hard clarity to the Vineyard. Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees, whose branches trace black lace against the sky. When the sun shines cold and bright and the wind blows hard out of the northwest the water between the chops turns a deep green jade, topped by foaming whitecaps. Intrepid sea ducks surf the waves like so many boys of summer. Above the soft brown of the Island shoreline, a light blue sky rests like a theatrical backdrop.
One of Six
From the Vineyard Gazette editions of December, 1982:
I was pleased to read your editorial Shifting Sands in the Nov. 16 issue of the Gazette. Sediment management is a critical issue facing most of the world’s coastal communities. In a 1988 report to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission I wrote: “The Martha’s Vineyard shoreline is undergoing a process of coastal evolution caused primarily by rising sea level. The dominant theme is shoreline retreat due to submergence and wave erosion of the shore land.
Attorneys for the Oak Bluffs resident who illegally built a three-story garage along the North Bluff three years ago have sued the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.
Attorneys for Joseph G. Moujabber filed a complaint in Dukes County Superior Court on Nov. 16 challenging the commission’s unanimous decision last month to review the controversial garage project — dubbed Garage Mahal by some critics — as a development of regional impact (DRI).
