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The Martha's Vineyard Times is a weekly publication.
December 30 - January 5, 2004 Edition
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EDITORIAL Better next year December 30, 2004 Newspaper editors can’t predict the future any better than telephone psychics. We shouldn’t try. Plus, although the editorialist’s powers of moral and political suasion may be regarded as considerable by some cherished readers, most of these believers have forgotten the frequency with which they have carefully studied the writer’s calls to action and, with a cheery sort of heedlessness, done other than was proposed. Or taken no action at all. And maybe we were all better off as a result. The editorialist’s ability to discern trends in community behavior, to know the public mind, to unmask the scoundrelly public officials or exalt the diligent ones, may be regarded as uncanny, but it is really just luck. Luck, and the happy fact that sitting to one side closely observing the activities of one’s neighbors is the newspaper’s job. But editorialists are endowed with a constitutionally unlimited resilience. Helplessly, they will form and deliver opinions long after the merry, heedless forces of evolution have deleted the newspaper reading gene from humankind. So that even today, as 2004 ends and innocent 2005 debuts, you are welcome to these few choice views, on topics of general and vital concern: First, as to health care, what continues to be missing, and by its absence puts Island health care in doubt, is a community plan for the health services it needs, wants, and can afford. We mean a plan that is financially sound and one that is conceived in honest bargaining among providers, insurers, and the community, taking each and all into account. The Island Health Plan and its health clinic represent steps in that direction, and the remarkable hospital has lifted itself out of years of financial mire. But the question remains for the Vineyard community: what next, and how will the services we need be economically integrated and supportable over the long term? Next, the Steamship Authority. The Vineyard’s transportation link to the mainland will enter 2005 with promising new team members. All of the issues remain — high costs, declining traffic volumes, changing travel patterns in the market, increasing demands by Islanders who have become wealthier and more itinerant. Tough, sound choices will be needed. Is this the board and management to make them? We shall see. Housing. Prices are high and rising. Ordinary incomes will not support home ownership any more, and rental opportunities are limited and expensive. Huge and varied efforts represent a heartening, community-wide commitment to address this problem before it wounds our community. But some reassessment is in order. Will all ordinary-income Islanders from here on live in subsidized housing with limited opportunities for accumulating wealth? Will the economy be encouraged to expand to offer good jobs and growing wages to neighbors we need and want? Will all the new, affordable housing created from here on be publicly funded? Oh, and government. We waste so much time and so many resources. The school system needs streamlining, the county government needs a decent burial, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission needs to consider the Vineyard’s future in more comprehensive terms, paying particular attention to the economy as an engine of housing, jobs, wages, conservation, education, and general community good health. The schools and the towns and all of us need working, computerized information system links. And we need results-oriented leadership to get this work done. It’s too much of a list really, isn’t it? We won’t get to it all. Maybe we should simply acknowledge that it has been a year of good and bad. We admit that we are scarred and uncertain, but we know that there is a very great likelihood 2005 will be better. After all, there will be no presidential election next year. And we know there is always smiling promise and opportunity — especially in your neighborly, encouraging, indulgent, and enthusiastic company. Happy New Year to all.

©The Martha's Vineyard Times 2004 - www.mvtimes.com