Town-Tribe Pact on Land Use Comes to Vote Next Thursday

By IAN FEIN

A much-debated land use agreement between the town and Wampanoag
Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) will come back before Aquinnah voters at a
special town meeting next week.

The intergovernmental agreement will top the list of a number of
hot-ticket items on the 27-article town meeting warrant, which includes
consideration of progressive energy regulations, changes to regional
school district finances, the sale of beer and wine in restaurants, and
a reduction in the quorum requirement for future town meetings. Voters
will also take up some 18 spending requests, which seek roughly $65,000
from free cash for a variety of expenses, and another $31,000 in
Community Preservation Act funds for the Edwin Vanderhoop Homestead
restoration project.

Town moderator Walter E. Delaney is scheduled to call the meeting to
order at 7 p.m. on Thursday in the old town hall.

At issue in the land use agreement is compliance by the federally
recognized tribe with local zoning laws for development projects on its
roughly 500 acres of tribal lands. Voter endorsement of the agreement is
expected next week, but not guaranteed.

An earlier version of the document, which aims to resolve the
longstanding jurisdictional dispute between the two governments, was
tabled at a town meeting six months ago after some tribal members said
they needed more time to consider its consequences. The tribal council
in January approved the document with some minor revisions, but a number
of individuals within the tribe are still unhappy with the agreement and
believe that it would further erode their ancestral rights. The
agreement would create a parallel permitting process for projects on
tribal lands, and lay out a lengthy path of mediation to resolve
potential disputes.

With climate change now much in the national news, Aquinnah voters
next week will also decide whether to take the lead on a proposed
nomination of an Islandwide energy district of critical planning concern
(DCPC). Endorsed by town selectmen and planning board members, the goals
of the energy overlay district would include lowering Vineyard carbon
emissions and foster energy independence by regulating consumption and
promoting sources of renewable energy.

The DCPC designation allows Island towns - through the
enabling legislation of the Martha's Vineyard Commission -
to adopt land use regulations that otherwise would not be permitted
under state law. Though no regulations are on the table at this time,
some examples of possible steps that could be adopted under the energy
district include a more efficient building code and requiring solar
panels or wind turbines on homes over a certain size. Any proposed
regulations would be subject to public hearings at the commission, and
another vote of support at a future town meeting.

The proposal will be on annual town meeting warrants in at least
three other Island towns this spring, though it originated in Aquinnah,
where town voters have long been at the front of the pack in adopting
progressive land use regulations.

Aquinnah voters next week will also take up a selectmen-sponsored
initiative to allow the sale of beer and wine with meals in restaurants.
The proposal comes after a surprise ballot question last November fell
just two votes shy of making the historically dry town wet.

According to the provisions of the article, which was borrowed from
a parallel proposal in Tisbury, the beer or wine would have to be served
by a waiter or waitress to a dining table, and the drinks would have to
be consumed with a meal. The bylaw would only apply to restaurants with
seating capacity of 30 persons or more - which, in Aquinnah, means
the Outermost Inn and Aquinnah Shop.

If approved at town meeting, the request would then face another
vote on the annual town election ballot in May before it is filed in the
Massachusetts state legislature as a home rule petition. If approved by
state lawmakers, the initiative would then come back to the town for one
more vote. Selectmen at that point could issue rates and regulations for
the granting of such licenses.

Two articles on the warrant next week deal with possible changes to
regional school funding on the Vineyard, and another two address the
concept of a fiber optic network that could improve cellular telephone
reception up-Island.

The first of the two school articles calls for the use of the state
wealth-based formula to determine Aquinnah's share for the two
Vineyard regional school district budgets. School officials estimate
that switching to the state formula from the existing enrollment
agreement could save Aquinnah more than $100,000, with the difference to
be made up by taxpayers in other Island towns.

Although the language of the article implies that it would require
the switch to the state formula, in fact the article is nonbinding,
albeit symbolic. A decision on the formula will be determined first by
the regional school committees, who will decide which formula to
recommend, and finally at annual town meetings when voters take action
on their respective town budgets later this spring. School assessments
are part of the town budgets.

But the Up-Island and Martha's Vineyard Regional High School
district committees are facing a bit of a gamble. If they decide to
recommend the existing enrollment formula, they will need approval on
school assessments from all district member towns at annual town
meetings this spring. Assessments based on the state formula, however,
would only require approval from two-thirds of member towns. In the end
Aquinnah voters at their annual town meeting in May could force a switch
to the state formula if the enrollment formula is recommended and they
turn it down.

The regional high school committee meets Monday to decide which
course to recommend.

Also on the Aquinnah warrant next week is a proposed amendment to
the Up-Island Regional School District agreement that would change the
formula that divides capital costs for the Chilmark and West Tisbury
schools. Instead of dividing the costs among all three towns based on
how many students each town has enrolled in the school, the proposed
changes would require the town that owns the school to pay 80 per cent
of the capital costs, with the remaining 20 per cent divided among the
other two towns based on enrollment. The idea, which will also go before
Chilmark and West Tisbury voters later this spring, grew out of
discussions within the regional district that Chilmark taxpayers should
shoulder a larger share of their school costs. If adopted, changes would
likely reduce annual assessments to Aquinnah taxpayers by a relatively
small amount.

As far as the proposed fiber optic network, the two articles next
week would authorize selectmen to join with nearby towns in the effort
and to lease part of the Aquinnah town landfill property for a future
network base station. No actual network proposal is on the table at this
point, though the articles will help determine whether voters still want
selectmen to pursue the distributed antenna system that they first
supported more than a year ago.

The special town meeting warrant is long, in part because a number
of the proposals have been awaiting votes since last fall, when voters
failed on three occasions to reach a quorum for a special town meeting.
In response, selectmen are now proposing to reduce the quorum
requirement from ten per cent of registered voters to seven per cent.
With roughly 400 registered voters in town, the proposed change would
lower the requirement from 40 voters to 28.

With so many weighty items on the warrant next week, achieving a
quorum of 40 voters is not expected to be a problem. However, in
Aquinnah, the smallest town on the Vineyard, nothing is ever certain.