Letters to the Editor
Published: July 29, 2010
Just the occasion for your generosity for Haiti
To the Editor:
Just over six months ago Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake. We must not forget that there are hundreds of thousands of people now living in tent cities, and hurricane season is upon them.
The volunteers of the Martha's Vineyard Fish Farm for Haiti Project, along with many, many other Vineyarders are determined not to forget and have been working to make a concrete contribution for our Haitian brothers and sisters.
On Friday, July 16, the Summer Clambake Haiti Benefit was held at the Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury. Co-sponsored by the Agricultural Society, the event had the perfect location and weather for the evening.
Live music by the Jazz Duo Jeremy Berlin and Eric Johnson floated in the air while more than 95 items donated by local businesses and individuals were bid upon. Delicious hors d'oeuvres and wine that were donated by Tea Lane Caterers, Little Rock Farm, the Net Result, Sweet Life Café, Chilmark Chocolates, Pam's Pesto, Suzie Herr, Jim's Market, Al's, Kappy's, and Tony's Market, were circulating in abundance.
Trip Barnes was the auctioneer for the live auction segment of the event, and as always Trip lived up to his reputation as an entertainer.
Music during and after the clambake, followed by dancing, was provided by Tristan Israel, Nancy Jephcote, Paul Thurlow, and Tom Hodgson. Didi Jérémie, a Haitian singer and songwriter, shared his talent with us.
The event was deemed a huge success and all the proceeds will become an instrument to help many in Haiti. Medical supplies and equipment will be shipped in a donated, retired VTA bus to equip a clinic in Roche à Bateau, where one doctor is serving 100,000 people. After delivering the supplies, the bus will become a mobile clinic bringing medical relief to hundreds of people living in even more remote areas of Haiti.
Miracles can happen when people come together in solidarity and reach out to those in need.
Margaret Pénicaud
Vineyard Haven
Martha's Vineyard Fish Farm for Haiti Project, founder/director
www.fishfarmhaiti.org
Steadfast friends of the Edgartown Library
To the Editor:
On behalf of the Edgartown Library trustees, I would like to thank the Edgartown Library Foundation for another splendid Legacy of Learning event earlier this month.
While many details about the expansion of the library are still being determined, the steadfastness of the foundation, and its ability to reach across the community to all interested parties, is a bright light along the road to our mutual goal: an expanded library, which will better serve our community. The contributions raised will help the library fund many of the programs on its wish list and continue its award-winning initiatives.
We congratulate the foundation on the success of this outreach, and look forward to enjoying the "Frankly We Love the Library" event at the Katama Airfield, which will close the summer season on Labor Day.
Patricia Rose
Edgartown
A summer highlight
To the Editor:
One of the music highlights of the summer for me is attending the annual Opera Fest concert, held last Friday at Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs, where a group of teenage women and men trained by artistic director Claudette Peterson presented staged and sung arias from a diverse selection of operas. The young singers were in fine voice, attractive in their period costumes, and believable with good acting and stage presence.
Next year, more parents and grandparents should bring their children to expose them to a group of teenagers who are far removed from the teenage gangs and school bullying we so often hear about in newspapers.
Joseph Viera
Oak Bluffs and Cambridge
A cave man contest
To the Editor:
I am a high school student, and this letter was written to the Oak Bluffs harbormaster.
I'd like to bring to your attention an issue of the utmost importance that you have authority over. I mean the Oak Bluffs Monster Shark Tournament.
While it may be a major tourist attraction, it is, in my humble opinion, a vicious slaughterfest and extremely demoralizing toward sharks. This contest is encouraging people to violently dismember creatures for glory, and generally approving violence. In this society, with blood and gore splattered on every aspect of the media, do we really need more violence? And it's not as if we're killing them for food. We're just killing them because we can. Are we any better than cavemen?
Furthermore, this tournament is confirming the stereotype that sharks are vicious killing machines. This is untrue. Sharks do not maliciously search and destroy humans like the monster shark in Jaws. The four species of sharks that are known to occasionally attack humans (the great white, tiger, bull, and oceanic whitetip) are all open ocean predators and only rarely come near shore. Can you even recall the last shark attack that happened on the Vineyard, or in Massachusetts, for that matter?
Also, sharks are very necessary creatures in the process of natural selection. Can you imagine what would happen if every egg laid by every cod (each female can lay up to nine million) were allowed to reach adulthood? So long, ecosystem.
Lastly, the last thing sharks need at the moment is hunting. In recent years, shark stocks have plummeted. It is so dire that they have lost 70 percent of their worldwide habitat in the last 50 years. To say that this is disastrous would be an understatement.
Although this is a catch and release tournament, exactly how many released sharks survive being caught? Also, it seems impossible to me that 97 percent of the caught sharks are really being released, as the Boston Big Game Fishing Club website states. This website also reported that in 2008, 202 boats took in 26 sharks by the end of the tournament. If this really was just three percent of the total, then did the fisherman really catch 900 sharks? In just two days? Obviously less than 97 percent of the catch is being released.
I very much hope I have convinced you. Thank you for your time.
Thorpe Karabees
Chilmark
Change is slow, but it's possible
To the Editor:
Immigration and a poor national and world economy are two crucial issues which affect people on‑Island, off‑Island and around the world, but here on a small Island the economic fight for too few jobs takes place in a small area where personal privacy is at a minimum.
I see the tensions between Brazilians and Islanders as a multicultural fight for a place in the sun by the working and middle classes who are not at all certain that their hard work will earn them a better life ahead.
Doug Cabral wrote a fine overview of laws which might ease these tensions but nowhere in the letters that followed or comments I viewed on the net did a discussion of ethics and attitudes between the groups come up for much copy. Laws do not prevent and save us from prejudice, and prejudice is the present ill will circulating on the Island.
Granted, our government under Bush and Obama have been negligent in providing laws which might help solve these problems. Our Constitution was formed to make an ordinary citizen's life better and to protect us. I no longer believe that most of our elected officials follow this line of reasoning, and I don't absolve them of their abandonment of the people who elect them.
In the matter of immigration, many who would make worthy citizens are left to beg to get in and others get in who are unworthy. That is why (aside from my strong dislike of our present national government) I do not support a pan‑immigration bill for all illegals now in the country. People differ as individuals in the human race, not as mass groups. We have to have some kind of selection made to bar criminals and terrorists and psychotics from entering the U.S. That is only common sense.
It is also common sense to realize that Brazilians and Islanders are members of the same human race and have more than a little in common. Both groups are uneasy on our Island, and both share many common tensions. For one, it is not pleasant to live furtively and in fear unless one is well on the road to full citizenship. And for the other, it is not pleasant to fear moving off an Island that one loves because there is little or no work. The article in the MV Times of July 4 underscored the long and expensive road to become a voting citizen. It is also a long and expensive road to stay on MV without a good job. Since the lack of sound immigration laws and the poor world economy has put the two MV groups in a spot together, I think the two groups should stop fighting and abandon our present backbiting. Give raw, unprofitable prejudice a rest in favor of common sense.
As an Island we have known prejudice before and overcome it, if I'm not wrong. I believe that Oak Bluffs is historically cited as the first peacefully integrated racial community in the U.S. In the early 1900s, Irish were hated in Massachusetts. My Scotch‑Canadian Grandma came down to Boston and then to MV to marry. Her red hair and blue eyes often identified her as Irish, and once she had stones thrown at her in Cambridge.
Within my family her husband forbade her to attend the Catholic Church with their children. She dropped the Mary from her name. In turn, though, as I was growing up in Tisbury, she warned me against marrying Portuguese from the Azores (black blood might show up) and this was a common alert to all nice Island girls.
In college at McGill in Montreal, I was amazed to find the bitterness between French and English, but a bi‑culture Quebec thrives. In Chicago, I helped desegregate restaurants and had my first hospitalization in the black section of the hospital because I "was a student and didn't mind." For many civic issues I left my children and traveled all night on buses, was gassed by Nixon's troops coming across the Washington Monument ground, demonstrated against the war in Vietnam, worked to get South Boston black children bused to Hingham and Cohasset for a good education, a program that exists today. We had an epitaph painted in black on my house in Cohasset, citing the minority group I had married into. Prejudice and hate are truly ugly. In the 80s I traveled across Connecticut for "Women's, Women's Worth" a task force for the American Association of University Women, still raising a family.
To both groups fighting for a place in the world at present on MV, I can state that change does come but often it's very slow. Prejudice never works to change social conditions in a good way. All registered citizens, Islanders, and others should bombard their state and national legislators with calls and letters and demonstrations to pay attention to our immigration situation. And to the Brazilian people who hope to become our new citizens: Please try to understand the ethics and culture of this small Island and be respectful of our traditions. Be glad that you are here. We are mostly nice people.
Roberta Mendlovitz
Vineyard Haven
Without your help, this would not have been possible
To the Editor:
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and appreciation for the support and financial assistance you provided to my American family, the Espindles, to bring me back to America from Afghanistan. I have now completed my first semester at Bunker Hill Community College and would like to humbly report that I have a 3.9 cumulative score and have made the Dean's List. My goal is to major in international relations, and my desire is to improve understanding and relationship between the United States and the Middle East.
Six years ago, at the age of 15, I was given the incredible opportunity to spend one year in the United States with the Espindle family. They provided me with medical, dental, and personal care I had never known. With the guidance of my American brother, David Espindle, I learned to speak English and integrate into the world of being a high school teenager in America.
Sadly, as agreed, when that year ended I left my new family and returned home. My "mom," Dyan, promised me she would do everything in her power to bring me back some day to finish my education. She stayed in touch with me under the harshest conditions and tenaciously navigated through six years of red tape, engaging every politician who would listen to assist in my return.
In November of 2009, I was allowed to return to America under the sponsorship, for a second time, of the Espindles. I am living with them on the Vineyard and have once again incorporated into the community and have had the privilege of being able to volunteer to service. My brother, David, once more, unselfishly, has shared his clothes, his friends, and his space unconditionally. We are "salt and pepper," we are brothers of the heart.
To all of you, many anonymously, who have made this life-changing opportunity possible for me, I want to say thank you. I would especially like to thank Michael Wooley, who has donated his time and his talent to teach me to swim in an ocean I had never known in Afghanistan.
Without your support and generosity I would not have been granted, and continue to have, this opportunity. I promise to continue to warrant your faith in me.
With gratitude.
Massoud "Max" Kohistani
Vineyard Haven
Testimony to Vineyard House's good works
To the Editor:
I am writing this letter to make our community aware of Vineyard House, an organization that may not be widely known, but whose existence is so crucial — not only to the individual that is personally struggling with drug and alcohol addictions, but also to the people in the lives of the afflicted. The residual damage of these diseases has a trickle down effect on the entire community, especially one as unique and isolated as Martha's Vineyard.
I have a friend who has been haunted by the demons of drug addiction and alcoholism for years. He has suffered from depression for much of his life. It has been a long and difficult road. Last year he went to a detox facility off-island.
He made progress at this institution but at the end of the six-week treatment period he was terrified to come home to the Vineyard. He did not feel ready. He knew he would be coming back to an environment filled with the same stressors and triggers he had previously been unable to manage.
Fortunately he was able to secure a spot at the Vineyard House. He has been a resident in this safe, supportive atmosphere for a number of months. He has been able to slowly transition into his old job. He benefits from the unity felt with the others who are fighting the same battles. He is healing and moving in a positive direction.
I can honestly and sincerely say that the Vineyard House saved my friend's life. The environment has offered him a safe haven with stability and support. These insidious diseases are all-consuming, unpredictable, and continually threatening.
Success can only be measured one day at a time. Hopefully, this friend will continue to recover. Hopefully, he will be able to look back on this part of his life as the distant past. Hopefully, he will remember how the people affiliated with Vineyard House reached out to him, making it possible for him to gain confidence and eventually start believing in himself again.
Vineyard House benefits not only the people struggling with addiction, but also those who are connected — by "six degrees of separation" — all the other victims of the disease. I thank them for their dedication in offering this parachute for a soft landing.
Pia Centenari-Leonard
West Tisbury
New hospital, something missing
To the Editor:
This is a copy of a letter I sent to Tim Walsh more than three weeks ago and have not gotten a response.
I am writing you this letter with a big concern. Being handicapped, I went in for my monthly infusion today, July 2, and although you have gotten the look that you were hoping for as a Partners affiliate, the organization is lacking.
I went into the hospital and asked for directions to out-patient registration and was directed into the emergency room. I stood in the emergency room while three receptionists ignored the fact that I was standing there. Thankfully a familiar face came around the corner. He knew why I was there and directed me to the right registration area.
I followed his directions to the next registration area. After signing in, I waited for someone to come for me for my infusion.
Again, I hobbled down to the infusion room where I was consumed with disbelief. I was being directed into what felt like a broom closet with a chair and an IV pole. There were no windows, no TVs, and no bathroom. It felt like I was being held in solitary confinement because of my illness.
I find it almost cruel and unusual punishment for those of us that have to sit in a room, sometimes for hours with no windows, no TV, no books or even a newspaper.
Granted, I understand that the opening of the new hospital was only a week ago but some of these things should have been considered before the move.
Again, you got the look of a new hospital, but you missed the mark on a lot of other things.
I hope you can see this point of view as a patient and not a businessman, to see how frustrating this is. If it weren't for the compassionate nursing staff, I might as well take myself to Boston where I expect I will be treated as a number instead of as an individual.
Colleen Corr-Panek
Vineyard Haven
Many to thank for completed East Chop project
To the Editor:
It is finally done. The new, environmentally friendly drainage ditch on East Chop Drive and Mill Square Road is finished and ready to be tested with some summer downpours. The many drivers, walkers, and bikers who travel up and down the Chop will no longer need to wear waders. Thanks to the conservation commission, and especially Liz Durkee, for persisting until they were able to obtain a grant to pay for the project.
White-Lynch, Richard Combra, and the Oak Bluffs Highway Department and Tony Rebello's crew have been professional and hardworking and yet willing to take the time to explain the whole process over and over again to everyone who passed by with questions.
Thanks.
Mimi and Pat Carroll
Oak Bluffs
But for them, I would not be here
To the Editor:
Regarding the 30th anniversary of the Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway, I must say, if it weren't for Nat and Ross, I probably would not have stayed here after my first visit to Martha's Vineyard on a yacht in 1984. My world has changed a lot since deciding to settle here.
Since my experience with boating began with wooden boats, and since I cannot stand the smell of a fiberglass boat below decks, it was important to discover that, here, I was not alone in my aesthetic preference for sailing in wooden boats. Ross's and Nat's vision, industriousness and commitment to the boating community has served as an exemplary center to which people from all over the world have gravitated.
I owe them a lot, in ways that words and tangible compensation cannot account for. Thank you.
Malcolm Boyd
Tisbury
A business that will be missed
To the Editor:
I'm so sad to learn that Vineyard Photo is closing. I have been going there for years and years to have my beloved photos developed and printed there. As the years have gone by they have seen my growth as a photographer, they have commented and given me their opinion for my fair entries. (Each year, one or two are ribbon winners.)
The family business is truly that. They work each day together and are always friendly and thoughtful. They also have been very generous with my teaching at the Martha's Vineyard Public Charter School, printing students' work at a very low price and giving of darkroom supplies or film.
I wanted to say thank you to Shelia and David and their son Gavin. You will be truly missed. I wish you the best in your next adventure.
Heather Robbins Capece
West Tisbury
MVC sets conditions, but are they enforced?
To the Editor:
When the Field Club in Katama sought approval from the Martha's Vineyard Commission, the owners offered up many conditions in addition to those set by the commission in their final decision to approve the project. From that point forward, compliance with those permit conditions largely becomes voluntary with any enforcement typically left to town authorities. Unfortunately, this is the case with many of the more challenging MVC decisions.
Just about a year ago to the day, anyone living in the Katama section of Edgartown was treated to a free concert whether they wanted it or not at a nonprofit fundraiser held at the Field Club. Complaints were filed that night but no action was taken, presumably because it was a one-night affair. This year, another nonprofit is holding a fundraiser on August 1, at the same location. It is hoped that there is not a repeat of last year's intrusion on the neighborhood, but even though the show will feature the soothing tones of jazz, it is unlikely that the amplified music will restrict itself to Field Club property.
That, of course, is the issue. The Field Club approval, condition 11, prohibits amplified music that can be heard by neighboring properties (Note, it doesn't say abutters as has been wrongly interpreted, and it also doesn't mean that amplified music is okay if it ceases by 10 pm, as established in separate Edgartown zoning rules). In a letter dated June 20, 2006, that same condition was proposed and agreed to by their attorney.
There is no record of how many other events have occurred at the Field Club prior to this or even if the event this week will impact the neighborhood, but if it does and if you are concerned about those impacts on the enjoyment of your property or non-compliance with the MVC permit, call the building inspector's office, the police, or the MV Commission. File your complaint and place your concern that you would like to see anyone subject to MVC decisions comply with them and that you support our local authorities in their efforts to facilitate compliance.
Why this is important has more to do with the commission than it does the Field Club, although the conditions of that approval were intended to minimize the impact on the neighborhood. There are also requirements that buses and trolleys be utilized to minimize traffic impacts on surrounding neighborhoods (condition seven of the decision). Commission members are consistently advising the public to speak up when non-compliance with MVC decisions is observed. The MVC has minimal available staff to conduct compliance evaluations let alone initiate enforcement and perhaps that is something that needs to be changed. A small assessment could be charged to each town to provide for staff to at least perform follow-up inspections and create some documentation to show to what extent compliance is being achieved. Look to other regional planning authorities as well, to see if there are existing models to aid in this effort.
Whether the issue here is noise and a diminishment of the quality of life on MV or compliance with MVC decisions, it would really be nice to get a handle on these two issues before we all become so complacent that we loose track of what is really important here.
David Nash
Edgartown
The other side of the story
To the Editor:
I have sent this letter to the Oak Bluffs selectmen and town administrator.
This letter is in defense of Shirley Fauteux and in response to a complaint which appeared in the July 8 edition of The Times Letters to the Editor ["Bad treatment" by Jonathan Laird] about the behavior of health department agent Shirley Fauteux.
Shirley checks immunizations at the openings of Oak Bluffs camps. That is her job, whether parents or teachers like it or not. If people get their paperwork in in a timely manner, there are no issues.
On Monday, July 5, Mr. Laird entered Featherstone's camp with his young son, Jack. Mr. Laird was angry that he had to show a physician-signed immunization record. He would have had to show it to me, but Shirley was there, and he was angry at Shirley before she even had a chance to examine what papers he brought in. He brought in personal family notes, not the required forms, and when Shirley showed the booklets he brought in to me, I agreed that these were not the proper forms. Shirley said she was sorry, these were not acceptable and that his child could not be admitted to our camp. Whereupon, he shouted his anger, naming Shirley Fauteux.
Shirley was businesslike and precise. Mr. Laird could have directed his anger and frustration to me, as I did not accept his documents either. Other campers who have been turned away without proper immunization forms make the effort to get the appropriate forms, and they return and are admitted to camp.
Our Featherstone staff asks for immunization records to be brought to Featherstone before the first day of camp. If this request is met, there would be no need for any confrontation on the day of camp.
In your discussions about this matter, please recognize two things:
Shirley Fauteux was doing her job. Mr. Laird was angry that he did not have the proper paperwork, and he chose to take out his anger on Shirley
Thank you for looking at another side of the story.
Francine Kelly
Executive Director
Featherstone Center for the Arts
Oak Bluffs
Please help reduce airplane noise
To the Editor:
We have been longtime residents of West Tisbury, and the air traffic in the summer of 2010 seems quite a bit more than in past years. Our neighborhood is in the takeoff path of the northwest runway, in the vicinity of Seth's Pond. A pilot friend of ours, who flies out of Cape Cod and often visits us at the Vineyard, had some suggestions to offer that might help to reduce some of the noise problems.
Firstly, unless there is a strong wind out of the northwest, would it be possible to suggest to pilots to use the northeast/southwest runway for noise considerations and the added benefit of a longer runway for safety reasons (i.e., go/no-go decision time)?
Secondly, when taking off to the northwest, could pilots make something like a 30-degree change in heading, left or right, at 500 feet, then climb on course after reaching 1,100 feet or so?
Any efforts that can be made to lower aircraft noise will be greatly appreciated.
Richard Spillman
West Tisbury
So many came to help
To the Editor:
The Vineyard Nursing Association hosted its 11th annual Clambake on Wednesday, July 27, at the Field Gallery in West Tisbury. We were thrilled to welcome our largest audience ever to this important fundraiser.
The donations made during this night are typically used to fund the VNA's daily operations. This year, the money raised will go toward our capital campaign to purchase our headquarters in Vineyard Haven, a critical move to ensure continued and expanded services to support a growing Island population.
The night would not have been possible without the many individuals and businesses who generously donated their time and services and wonderful items for auction. We greatly appreciate the financial contributions of our event sponsors, and I wish to thank our patrons who came out in questionable weather and braved pouring rain to support the VNA.
Thank you to all
Bob Tonti
Chief Executive Officer
Vineyard Nursing Association
Don't let careless dog owners ruin the fun
To the Editor:
A couple of weeks ago, while visiting Lambert's Cove Beach for the first time with her two friendly golden retrievers, one of my friend's dogs was badly bitten by a dog that has been known to be unreliable. I have now heard about that dog from a few people.
The privilege of taking your dog swimming at LCB was shortened years back to early and late only. It is enjoyed by so many residents and visitors who tell me they rent in the area because of this very privilege. Those without dogs are delighted by watching them play and swim.
Incidents involving dogs have been so rare in all the years I have been going. Now, West Tisbury Department of Parks and Recreation will vote shortly on entirely banning dogs from our haven. It is my feeling that a few irresponsible dog owners should not be allowed to bring an end to this glorious tradition.
Let's not take the easy way out. Let's find a way to hold owners responsible, ban dogs that are dangerous, and keep this tradition going for the 99 percent of us that enjoy it so much and whose dogs bother no one.
Vivian Stein
West Tisbury
