During a standing-room-only special town meeting in Oak Bluffs that
featured more emotion than a game-winning home run, voters on Tuesday
defeated a motion to rescind money to expand and improve the baseball
park at Veira Park.
The decision proved one of the closest town meeting votes in Oak
Bluffs history.
Almost 40 years ago, after a careful assessment of the state of the
Viet Nam war, Walter Cronkite delivered an editorial on CBS, saying it
was time for a negotiated withdrawal.
President Lyndon Johnson, in response, was famously quoted as
saying: "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle
America." Five weeks later, the President announced he would not
run for reelection.
It was the kind of early summer afternoon that was made for
baseball.
The smell of freshly cut grass blended with that of grilling hots
dogs and hamburgers during the Vineyard Little League championships at
Veira Park on Saturday, while the dust kicked up by the infielders was
quickly cleared away by a swiftly moving ocean breeze.
Commission Delays Vote on Oyster Bar
Land Use Subcommittee Recommends Against Oak Bluffs Eatery
Expansion, Leaving Full Commission in Doubt
By IAN FEIN
The Martha's Vineyard Commission last Thursday unanimously
approved a downtown Edgartown subdivision and a members-only tennis and
racquetball club off State Road in West Tisbury.
Votes on School Budget Refuse District Purchase Come Before Two
Towns
By MIKE SECCOMBE and JULIA RAPPOPORT
The approval of extra money to fund the Martha's Vineyard
Regional High School budget will be recommended to Edgartown and
Chilmark voters alike, but the prospects for the approval of more than
$1 million to buy land to expand the regional refuse transfer station
are looking less certain for at least one of this week's special
town meetings.
Earlier this month, the state reclaimed the brush breaker fire truck
it loaned to the town of West Tisbury several years ago to fight fires
in the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest.
West Tisbury fire chief Manuel Estrella 3rd said the repossession is
just one example of how the state is shirking its responsibility for
caretaking the 5,168-acre state forest.
It is a gamble, of sorts, that most Island businesses are forced to
take each year.
When seasonal employees shuffle off at the end of each summer to
either return home or to college or to explore farflung corners of the
world, employers have no guarantee the same workers will return at the
start of the busy season next year.
Boatline and Key Union Find Accord on Contract
By MIKE SECCOMBE
After a standoff lasting four years, the Steamship Authority and one
of its major maritime unions are expected to have a new workplace
contract within a month.
Agreement between boat line senior managers and the Marine Officers
Beneficial Association, which represents some 230 unlicensed deck hands,
was reached last Friday night, after two days at the table with a
state-appointed fact finder.
After a standoff lasting four years, the Steamship Authority and one
of its major maritime unions are expected to have a new workplace
contract within a month.
Agreement between boat line senior managers and the Marine Officers
Beneficial Association, which represents some 230 unlicensed deck hands,
was reached last Friday night, after two days at the table with a
state-appointed fact finder.
Island Plan Moves Ahead with Forums to Provoke More Public
Involvement
By IAN FEIN
Roughly 200 new homes are built on the Vineyard each year, many of
them out of scale with surrounding neighborhoods or sprawling into once
rural and open areas.
Eelgrass beds, which provide breeding habitat for fish and
shellfish, have nearly disappeared from Edgartown Great Pond and
Sengekontacket Pond in the last decade, and have decreased alarmingly
- by over 50 per cent - in Tashmoo and Lagoon Ponds.
