A divided Chilmark conservation commission voted last week to approve a project to install a new culvert in Mill Brook headwaters off North Road. Proposed by the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, the project has kicked up a cloud of controversy.
Sheriff's Meadow Foundation
2014
April 8, 2014
The decision ends a bitter dispute over ownership of a three-acre parcel of land in Chilmark. Nisa Counter and Benjamin Ramsey bought the lot on Blue Barque Road in 2010 from a family member. Sheriff’s Meadow said the land was part of a 10-acre parcel gifted by the late C. Russell Walton.
January 30, 2014
Come summer, visitors can admire the old ice pond from new viewing platforms and walk around the pond towards John Butler’s Mudhole on new boardwalks as Sheriff's Meadow gets makeover.
January 9, 2014
In Massachusetts, land used by a charitable organization qualifies for a tax exemption under state law. But a recent case in the town of Hawley, now going before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, could have wide implications.
2013
December 3, 2013
The foundation bought the 1.7-acre property on Nov. 19 for $35,416, a press statement said. The seller was the family of Josephine Smalley Vanderhoop. The purchase will help conserve rare habitat, Sheriff's Meadow said.
July 18, 2013
Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation is the local land trust for the Island of Martha’s Vineyard. Our mission is to conserve the natural, beautiful, rural landscape and character of Martha’s Vineyard for present and future generations. We are governed by a board of directors which represents the year-round and seasonal communities of the Island. We own 2,000 acres of conservation land across the Island, including land in each of the six Island towns. We protect another 850 acres of land with conservation restrictions.
January 10, 2013
Take a look at a Vineyard book shelf and you’re likely to find The History of Martha’s Vineyard by Charles Banks or Moraine to Marsh by Anne Hale. For conservationists, Aldo Leopold’s book A Sand County Almanac published in 1949 is equally iconic. “I think anybody can be inspired by what he wrote,” Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation director Adam Moore said this week. “It’s one of the key pieces of literature in our environmental history in this country.”
