A longstanding effort by the town of Edgartown to protect five ancient byways suffered a setback last week when a superior court judge sent a district of critical planning concern (DCPC) designation back to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission for another review.
The five paths are Middle Line Road, Ben Tom’s Road, Pennywise Path, Watcha Path and Tar Kiln Road. Their use as cart paths and byways dates to Colonial times, and in 2007 the commission approved a town-sponsored initiative to designate them as special ways under the Island Road District DCPC.
Sky-high gasoline prices on Martha’s Vineyard — a universal truth here and an unending point of annoyance among Islanders of every stripe who pay dearly at the pump — are not the result of price-fixing, the United States Court of Appeals has found.
The Vineyard Gazette won 17 awards in the annual New England Newspaper and Press Association contest this year, including nine first-place awards for excellence in journalism and advertising. The awards were announced at the annual banquet held by the small newspaper press association in Boston last weekend. The contest saw nearly 3,000 entries from small daily, weekly and biweekly/monthly newspapers in the six-state region of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Newspapers are judged in daily and weekly categories by circulation.
After nearly two days of foundering in the surf near a remote coastline in Aquinnah with hundreds of gallons of fuel on board, the Sherry Ann, a 46-foot offshore lobster boat out of Westport, was freed from her unwanted rocky berth and towed to a nearby salvage barge Thursday afternoon.
West Tisbury will allow the sale of beer and wine in restaurants for the first time in modern history, Oak Bluffs saw a vote of confidence in town government, with two incumbent selectmen reelected, and spending was approved for two major public library construction projects, one in West Tisbury, the other in Edgartown.
And public opinion is running strongly against the roundabout in at least two towns.
These were the highlights of the annual town elections held yesterday in three Island towns.
Mike Wallace, the CBS newsman who was a household name across America and a longtime summer resident of the Vineyard, died on April 7 at the age of 93. The familiar television anchorman for the CBS Sunday evening show 60 Minutes was also a familiar figure on the Island, where he had visited since boyhood and later owned a home on Hatch Road in Vineyard Haven. The house was sold late last year after Mr. Wallace’s health had declined to the point where he no longer came here.
The Bunch of Grapes, the landmark Vineyard Haven bookstore that has been the go-to place for Islanders and summer visitors alike — including sitting U.S. presidents — to buy their books for more than 40 years, will relocate, owner Dawn Braasch announced last week.
The Bunch of Grapes, the landmark Vineyard Haven bookstore that has been the go-to place for Islanders and summer visitors alike — including sitting U.S. presidents — to buy their books for more than 40 years, will relocate, owner Dawn Braasch said.
Ms. Braasch has signed a lease with the Hall family to take over the Bowl and Board building across the street from the bookstore. The move will be complete by Memorial Day or at the latest mid-June, she said.
The place names are familiar and unchanging: Wasque, Cape Pogue and Long Point, Herring Creek Farm, Cedar Tree Neck and Fulling Mill Brook, Waskosim’s Rock and Pecoy Point, to name a few.
But the people who admire, use and could potentially contribute to the thousands of acres of land in conservation on the Vineyard have changed, and Island conservation leaders say this is what frames their biggest challenge today.
