At age 46, he has been chief of police in the second smallest town in the commonwealth for nine years. His department of four swells to six in the summer months.
And last weekend, after nearly a decade of handling traffic accidents, domestic disputes and petty crimes, Aquinnah police chief Douglas Fortes had his world turned upside down. On Friday night a plane flown by John F. Kennedy Jr. plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, some seven miles from the famous clay Cliffs that have adorned picture postcards for more than a century.
An epic five-day tangle of events that began with a tragic airplane crash off the Vineyard last weekend came to a swift end yesterday when the three victims of the crash — whose names are now known around the world — were buried at sea near the site where they died.
A group of 13 citizens which includes the principals in the Herring Creek Farm Trust and several of their relatives filed a lawsuit against the town of Edgartown this week, charging that the town is endangering the entire population of Martha's Vineyard by polluting the aquifer with its sewage treatment plant and also that town officials have worked actively for years to cover up the problem.
On the Great Plains of Katama surrounding Herring Creek Farm in Edgartown, broad fields of sandplain grasslands rippled in the gusty winds as spring unfolded in all its glory this week.
Marking the second time this year that a state court has recognized protective land use regulations in the town of Edgartown, the Massachusetts appeals court early this month upheld a local board of health regulation which prohibits guest houses in the Katama area.
The regulation, first adopted by the town board of health in 1985, was rooted in concern about contamination of the groundwater at Katama. The case is important because it upholds the broad powers of town boards of health.
An unprecedented proposal to designate the entire town of Aquinnah as a district of critical planning concern (DCPC) drew heartfelt statements on both sides of the issue from a small crowd of town residents last week.
“We need some time to explore our options, because right now the permits are coming in faster than we can keep up with them,” declared Peter Temple, a member of the town planning board.
“The trophy-house building we have to stop, before Gay Head turns into another Mattakesett,” said resident Elaine Vanderhoop.
The family room in the women’s building at Vineyard House, the Island’s only sober living community, will be named for Lucy Cox, a longtime supporter of the the organization and its mission.
The Massachusetts chapter of The Nature Conservancy announced this week it will purchase the John Hoft Farm, 90 acres of rolling pastures and unspoiled morainal woodlands which embrace Duarte’s Pond and the moist bogs off Lambert’s Cove Road in West Tisbury.
The farm is owned by Daniel Alisio and will be named the Hoft Farm Preserve, in memory of his late wife, Marguerite Hoft Alisio, whose family owned the farm for over 100 years.
Nearly 20 years ago in his landmark Vineyard book People and Predicaments, Island psychiatrist Milton Mazer recalled the beginnings of Martha’s Vineyard Community Services. He wrote:
“The venture to provide human services for the Island was begun in 1960 by a small group of Island physicians and clergymen. Their almost daily experience with the many Islanders overwhelmed by human predicaments had led them to look for remedies, and a psychiatric service seemed a good place to begin.
Ronald H. Rappaport, the respected and ubiquitous Martha’s Vineyard attorney whose work cut across nearly every aspect of Island life, died unexpectedly Friday night in Vineyard Haven
