At Aquinnah Town Meeting, the Emotions Frame Museum Debate
By JULIA WELLS Gazette Senior Writer
The subject was a plan for a cultural museum in a historic homestead
high on a windswept bluff in the town of Aquinnah. But the discussion
that swirled for more than an hour and a half at a special town meeting
Tuesday night was layered with the emotion of a town torn down the
middle.
Underneath it all lay the central topic of the day: the recent court
ruling on sovereign immunity for the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head
(Aquinnah).
The people of the Vineyard are healthy - healthier, in fact,
than the general population on the mainland. They have lower rates of
obesity, they smoke less, they are conscientious about prevention and
they visit their doctors regularly.
It's 10 p.m. on a Thursday night. Steve Durkee, the Gazette graphics director, is in Dick Reston's office, his head stuck out the open skylight, smoking a cigarette. Dick is at his computer, writing headlines. Out in the newsroom, Chris Burrell is hunched over his own terminal, trying to get the tone just right on his West Tisbury backgrounder. I am rummaging around in the Gazette library looking for some poetry that will work for a skyline (the line of verse that runs across the top of the front page). I find an E.B.
The Martha's Vineyard Land Bank, the Felix Neck Wildlife Trust and the Massachusetts Audubon Society closed on a land purchase last week that will protect the last key piece of undeveloped land at Felix Neck.
No Southern Woodlands Housing; Developer Says, ‘We'll Be
Back'; Courts to Sort Out Issues in Four-Year Dispute
By JULIA WELLS Gazette Senior Writer
The latest chapter in the four-year battle between developer Corey
Kupersmith and the Martha's Vineyard Commission ended last night
when the commission voted without dissent to reject a 320-unit housing
plan for 270 acres in the southern woodlands section of Oak Bluffs.
The Aquinnah selectmen heard a distinct plea from their up-Island
neighbors this week to formally appeal the recent superior court
decision that found the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) cannot be
sued because of sovereign immunity.
Boat Line Managers Recommend Private Firm for High-Speed, Year-Round
Service Between New Bedford and Vineyard
By JULIA WELLS Gazette Senior Writer
Senior managers at the Steamship Authority are expected to recommend
today that the boat line issue a long-term license to New England Fast
Ferry LLC to operate year-round, high-speed passenger service between
New Bedford and the Vineyard.
Traffic was down, but parking tickets were up. The weather was changeable; ditto for the restaurant and retail business. The wild blueberries were not so hot, but the fishing was great - lots of big bass and small bluefish, and on the full moon in July the fluke were so thick in some places you could practically throw out an old shoe and catch one.
These are the benchmarks of the summer of 2003, and as the official summer season came to a close this week, the people of the Vineyard took a quick look back, and most could agree on two things:
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.
Operating Loss of $500,000 Is Mainly Attributable to Loss of
Medicaid Payments from the State
By JULIA WELLS Gazette Senior Writer
Leaders at the Windemere Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center
announced this week that the Island's only nursing home ended its
fiscal year with a staggering $500,000 operating loss, more than
$300,000 over the projected loss for the year. About half the loss can
be traced to retroactive cuts in Medicaid reimbursements.
