Tisbury selectmen still have the option to place a student-written plastic bottle ban on the upcoming annual town meeting warrant.
On Monday, selectmen said they would not ask voters to decide on the bylaw proposed by Plastic Free MV, which successfully passed town meetings in the three up-Island towns a year ago. Instead, Tisbury’s warrant article would seek to develop an action plan and a bylaw for plastics over the next year.
The change came too late for the bylaw’s proponents, a student group called Plastic Free MV, to submit a citizen petition, which with 10 signatures would have been guaranteed a spot on the town meeting warrant.
“You said you were going to put it on the warrant. We would have done a petition if we had known,” 12-year-old Finn Robinson of Plastic Free MV told the board Monday.
On Wednesday, town administrator Jay Grande posted a notice for a Friday afternoon public meeting to discuss reopening the warrant and reconsidering the Plastic Free MV article.
Reached by phone, Mr. Grande said he posted the agenda after a group of students from Plastic Free MV visited his office at town hall.
He also spoke with all three selectmen before posting an agenda for the meeting. Selectman James Rogers was off-Island on a previously planned trip during Thursday afternoon’s scheduled meeting, and not expected to return Friday.
In order for Friday’s meeting to take place as posted, Ms. Loberg and Mr. Kristal will need to vote at Thursday’s meeting, which begins at 5 p.m. at Katharine Cornell Theatre.
At a late January meeting, selectmen told Plastic Free MV members they would allow town voters to weigh in on the single-use bottle ban.
Instead, a warrant article unveiled Monday calls for the town to develop, by May 2021, an action plan and a bylaw to manage plastic reduction and mitigation in Tisbury.
“That’s a different thing. We’ve been working on [the plastic bottle bylaw] for years,” said Mr. Robinson, who was joined by his 10-year-old brother Odin and their father, Tisbury planning board member Ben Robinson, at Monday’s meeting.
Board chairman Melinda Loberg said part of the reason for the change is that selectmen were not able to schedule a public hearing on the issue.
“We know how that sits with you guys. It’s really not your fault,” she told the Robinsons.
Selectman Jeff Kristal said the town’s article would allow Tisbury businesses to take part in discussions about reducing plastic use.
“I don’t know when it’s ever been such a bad thing to have conversations and allow businesses, who would be extremely affected by this, a good amount of time to bring up their concerns,” Mr. Kristal said.
Mr. Kristal and selectman James Rogers also objected to the language in Plastic Free MV’s proposed warrant article.
“It’s a little too confining,” Mr. Rogers said. “I’m totally supportive of the concept.”
Mr. Kristal said adopting the proposed bylaw would pose enforcement problems for the town.
“We can’t even address the projects we have right now,” Mr. Kristal said.
“This isn’t killing the idea of it. This is helping us to get on the same page and then together, we can present it next year in the warrant article form, in the bylaw form, and that’s a commitment I will make to you,” Mr. Kristal told the Robinsons.
The bottle ban discussion came late in a nearly four-hour selectman’s meeting that followed an earlier executive session in which the board discussed legal judgments against businessman Trip Barnes.
The meeting began a few minutes late after some confusion when a group from the Martha’s Vineyard Charter School arrived for a play rehearsal that was double-booked for Katharine Cornell Hall, where selectmen normally hold their meetings.
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