News Briefs
Post offices announce holiday weekend hours
During Independence Day weekend, Island post offices will have abridged schedules.
On Friday, July 3, post offices will be open from 8:30 am until noon. The last scheduled mail and collection box pickups for the weekend will be noon on Friday. Post office lobbies, however, will remain open until 4:30 pm. Carriers will deliver mail on Friday the 3, as well.
Vineyard post offices will be closed Saturday, July 4, and Sunday, July 5. Regular hours will resume Monday, July 6.
For more information, call your town post office.
Photo by Lynn Christoffers
It's official, school's out and summer is here
The Martha's Vineyard school year ended Friday. At Chilmark School students anxious to begin their summer vacation included (left to right) Liam McCarthy, Cabot Thurber, Gabriel Bellebuono, Mary McCarthy and Gabriel Ambulos.
Celebrate the Fourth
The Vineyard's Fourth of July weekend festivities include the Edgartown parade and fireworks. Expect plenty of patriotic favorites and amusing floats.
The parade kicks off at 5 pm Saturday from the Edgartown School and proceeds to Main Street and along Pease's Point Way out to the Harbor View Hotel.
The parade returns along North Water Street and back up Main Street, past the float judging at the historic Old Whaling Church, and back to the school.
Photo by Jon Ollwerther
Edgartown police say parking will be limited. They recommend taking Vineyard Transit Authority (VTA) buses. Handicap parking is available at the Edgartown Yacht Club parking lot, if a handicap permit is shown to the officers stationed at the corner of Water Street and Main Street.
The official celebration ends with a bang over Edgartown harbor, as fireworks light up the night sky beginning shortly after dusk, at approximately 9 pm. The fireworks will be fired from a barge moored off the Edgartown Lighthouse. Almost any spot along the Edgartown waterfront will offer a good view of the display.
West Tisbury to clear paths and roadways
West Tisbury will begin a cleanup of foliage and dead trees that obscure sightlines on town roads and bike paths.
Spurred by citizen concerns about safety, particularly at the West-Tisbury-Edgartown and Old County Road intersection, selectmen last week asked their local highway department to begin clearing foliage and dead trees. Selectmen also began a letter writing campaign to the state highway department to prune trouble spots on State Road immediately. The state has not scheduled the work until fall.
Residents Virginia Jones and Prudy Burt said the intersection of Old County and the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven roads is particularly troublesome. "I've seen at least five families with kids stopped there. There have been some wipeouts. They can't see the intersection coming," she said.
Selectman Jeffrey S. (Skipper) Manter proposed lining the bike paths with orange stripes to alert users of the intersection ahead.
Ms. Jones, a member of the planning board, said she has also pruned extensively to clear paths and improve sightlines at New Lane and West Tisbury-Edgartown road. "I know I'm not supposed to, but it's dangerous," she said.
Selectman Richard Knabel said he has counted 59 dead trees along town roadways and bike paths that need attention.
Selectmen were also told that the road sign for Panhandle Road and Music Street has gone missing again. "This has to be the third or fourth time," executive secretary Jen Rand noted.
"I don't understand the appeal," Mr. Knabel mused over the interest of thieves in the sign at the end of Middle Road, which directs travelers to go left on Panhandle Road or right onto Music Street.
"Maybe we should paint that sign on the road as well," Mr. Manter quipped.
Selectmen mull changes to Owen Little Way
Much of the Tisbury selectmen's regular Tuesday night meeting focused on Owen Little Way, the short dead end street off Main Street that ends at the Vineyard Haven Yacht Club and at a narrow bit of public beach.
Tristan Israel, chairman of the selectman, first convened a public hearing to discuss a proposal to place a stop sign on Main Street, at the intersection with Owen Little Way, where thick hedges on either corner restrict views.
About a dozen seasonal and year-round residents of the surrounding neighborhood turned out to express their opinions. Many agreed something must be done to reduce the possibility of accidents caused by the combination of vehicles entering and exiting a road with poor sight lines and the high number of children walking or bicycling to and from the yacht club.
At times, the public hearing became a public listening session, as Mr. Israel and planning board members Tony Peak and Henry Stephenson discussed the complexity of the problem and various solutions under consideration.
Not everyone agreed that a stop sign or signs are needed or would provide a solution. A more visible crosswalk was one suggestion.
DPW director Fred LaPiana noted that the town could not install a stop sign. It will require state approval based on an engineering study.
The end of the hearing made possible a wider discussion that included residents' concerns about the use of a town-owned section of beach now sandwiched in between yacht club-owned beach.
Mr. Peak and Mr. Stephenson said the planning board will discuss issues arising from the shared beach and access with the yacht club.
About 8:30 pm, with only Joanne Jernagan, a regular and devoted attendee, and a Times reporter present, the selectmen considered their next step regarding Owen Little Way.
Selectman Jeffrey Kristal said a stop sign would only create more noise as vehicles stopped and then accelerated. He said the neighbors could help to mitigate the problem by trimming the hedges.
Selectman Geohan Coogan agreed the problem is cars exiting Owen Little Way. He said he is not averse to examining the problem, but more might be done before relying on a stop sign.
The selectmen agreed to investigate the state's approval process. In the meantime, they plan to seek a wider and more visible crosswalk and speak to the neighbors about taking steps to create more visibility.
In other business during a marathon meeting that began at 5:30 pm and ended just short of 9 pm, when selectmen began an executive session to discuss litigation, the town's three chief executives signed off on a permit that will allow R.M. Packer to install new fuel storage tanks; heard a report that dredging of Tashmoo Pond has begun; and made numerous committee appointments.
Chilmark hires new patrolman; tax collector is next
Chilmark selectmen Tuesday appointed West Tisbury police officer Sean Slavin to the Chilmark force. He will replace Brian Cioffi, sworn in yesterday as the town's new police chief following the retirement of chief Timothy S. Rich.
Mr. Slavin, a West Tisbury police officer since September 2005, is also a Chilmark special police officer. The date for Mr. Slavin's switch to Chilmark is yet to be determined. "This just happened, and Sean and I haven't had a chance to meet yet," West Tisbury police chief Beth Toomey said yesterday. "We have lots of coverage right now. That gives us time to plan appropriately. Sean has been an excellent police officer. We wish him well."
Selectmen also conducted interviews with four finalists to replace tax collector Polly N. McDowell, who will retire this month. The board planned to meet later this week to choose between current town clerk Jessica Bradlee, Emily Day, a self-employed tax accountant, stonemason and poet John Maloney, and Edgartown National Bank accountant Kristen Bradshaw.
State House News Service: Governor Patrick signs budget with more than $1 billion in new taxes
Gov. Deval Patrick approved over $1 billion in new taxes and issued roughly $147 million in line item vetoes Monday, signing a budget for the fiscal year that began Wednesday that aides said would represent the first year-to-year spending reduction of the current recession.
The $27.046 billion budget Mr. Patrick signed is about $364 million lower than the version the Legislature sent the governor because of the cuts and $217 million postponed contingent on an agreement regarding the consolidation of county sheriff operations. Mr. Patrick also prepared legislation to provide $70 million for subsidized insurance for about 30,000 legal immigrants. He left the door open to additional tax hikes.
The budget cuts $377 million in unrestricted aid to municipalities. If pending fiscal 2010 supplemental appropriations are factored in, spending in the fiscal year that starts Wednesday would rise to $27.316 billion, less than one percent below projected fiscal 2009 spending. Much of the supplemental request represents Mr. Patrick's insistence on spending that lawmakers have rejected.
Meals, hotel rooms, alcohol and satellite dishes will all grow more expensive under new taxes imposed in the budget. At the same time, Mr. Patrick vetoed $54 million from MassHealth, almost $21 million from debt service, nearly $8 million from the state's trial courts accounts, $9 million from the probation department, and $7 million from a winter road-clearing program. Education aid to cities and towns climbs to a record $4.037 billion.
Mr. Patrick joined legislators in raising the health insurance premiums for state workers, going along with a 25-percent sales tax hike as a way to invest in transportation and offset a $100 million turnpike toll increase, and using $167 million in federal stimulus aid to protect school district funding at foundation levels.
Mr. Patrick's vetoes set up a showdown over spending with lawmakers amid a testy stretch between the executive and legislative branches, as the governor for months held up lawmakers as slow-moving and change-resistant as he pushed reform bills in exchange for his sales tax increase backing.
Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei said Mr. Patrick should have nixed the sales tax hike, calling Monday "a sad day for the taxpayers of the Commonwealth, who are once again being asked to clean up the mess created by the state's free-spending ways."
