1999

Leaders in the two rival golf course development groups in Edgartown said yesterday that they will merge memberships and stop competing with each other.

Owen Larkin, the managing partner for the Vineyard Golf Club, confirmed that he has signed an agreement to offer guaranteed membership to every member of the Meetinghouse Golf Club Inc. In return, the leading developers for Meetinghouse have agreed not to reapply for permission to build an 18-hole golf course on the MacKenty family property along the Edgartown Great Pond, Mr. Larkin said.

High-ranking state officials associated with the office of Gov. Paul Cellucci put heavy pressure on members of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission in an unabashed attempt to win votes in favor of the Meetinghouse Golf Club project in Edgartown, the Gazette has learned.

The commission rejected the golf club project by a one-vote margin three months ago.

A longtime member of the commission who has been a governor’s appointed member for 20 years admitted this week that she was pressured by a high-ranking state official to vote in favor of the Meetinghouse Golf project.

The developers who recently lost their bid to build a private golf club on some 200 acres of land along the Edgartown Great Pond intend to file a new plan and try again.

“We are neither dead nor finished,” declared a letter sent to the founding members of the Meeting House Golf Club one day after the plan was voted down by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

The letter was sent by mail and by fax to 30 seasonal residents of the Vineyard who advanced some $2 million in start-up money for the failed golf course project.

Ending months of debate, untold numbers of hours of public testimony and weeks of bruising deliberations, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission voted 7 to 6 last night to deny a proposal for a private 18-hole golf club on some 200 acres of land along the Edgartown Great Pond.

The developers who want to build a golf course along the Edgartown Great Pond jacked up the pressure this week in an attempt to gain favorable votes from members of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

Opponents of the golf course project also are waging a lobbying campaign, including a series of paid advertisements, but the campaign by the developers is now clearly accompanied by high-pressure tactics more commonly seen in Boston than on the Cape and Islands.

A citizens group that opposes a proposal for an 18-hole private golf club along the Edgartown Great Pond took its turn in the spotlight this week, responding sharply to an advertising campaign started by the golf course developers last week.

“They’ve ‘Gone Organic.’ We Think They’re Dead Wrong. Do You?” declares a full-page advertisement that appears in today’s Gazette.

The advertisement is a rejoinder to paid advertisements in both Island newspapers last week from the developers who want to build a golf club along the Edgartown Great Pond.

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