Vote in Aquinnah Thursday Attempts to Pass Override, and Restore
Items to Town Budget

By JULIA WELLS

Voters in Aquinnah go to the polls this week to conclude the annual
town meeting which began two months ago - and to say yes or no to
a $130,000 general override to Proposition 2 1/2.

If the override is approved, town employees will get a cost of
living raise and funding will remain in place for the town's share
of the Martha's Vineyard Shellfish Group. Funding for a
town-sponsored summer day camp for children also hangs in the balance.

If the override is not approved, selectmen will be forced to
confront a series of difficult decisions about how to raise more
revenues in the second smallest town in the commonwealth.

The special election will be held on Thursday at the Aquinnah town
hall. Polling hours are from noon to 6 p.m.

This marks the second try for an override to the state-mandated tax
cap.

Last month a $260,000 general override was rejected by three votes
in a special election that saw an extremely light turnout.

Selectmen later went back to the drawing board to try and cut more
than ten per cent from the $2.4 million town budget. In the end the
actual cuts added up to about $50,000; the picture was improved slightly
by fiddling with projected revenues for the coming year and selectmen
decided to come back to voters with a smaller override request.

The $130,000 override is the only question on the ballot.

The mood of the voters in Aquinnah is often a hard thing to gauge
and there were few predictions this week about the outcome of the
election.

The three town selectmen have said repeatedly that they intend to
schedule some kind of public meeting to talk about ways to increase
revenues, but at their regular meeting last week the board members kept
their heads down again on the subject.

"A lot of people in town have been asking about that revenue
meeting," executive secretary Beverly Widdiss told the two
selectmen who attended the meeting, but the selectmen did not respond.

"I guess they are waiting to see whether the override fails or
not before they go ahead and address this," said Peter Temple, a
member of the town planning board. Mr. Temple wrote a letter to the
selectmen last month urging them to take a careful look at the problem,
among other things highlighting the past due payments to the town from
the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).

The tribe signed an agreement with the selectmen some years back to
pay the town about $8,000 a year to help defray the cost of police, fire
and ambulance service for the tribal housing project. No money has been
paid since 1999 and memories differ about the agreement.

Another agreement signed in 1994 between the town and the tribe
outlined a plan to find federal funding to help defray town expenses
associated with the housing project, including school expenses, but that
agreement has also apparently lapsed.

Mr. Temple said yesterday that rejecting the override may be one way
to solve the core problem.

"The only way we are going to get the selectmen to address
revenues is to turn down the override," he said.