Letters to the Editor
Published: September 11, 2008
Unknown Samaritans
To the Editor:
I need your help thanking a good Samaritan.
On August 2, while preparing for the Chilmark Road Race, I tripped on Middle Road, fell heavily, and couldn't stand up. A truck stopped, and the driver asked if I needed help. I did. The driver evicted his partner, they both helped me into the truck, and the driver proceeded to return me home.
I didn't get the names of these good gentlemen, but I wish to thank them both. In the end, it turned out that I had fractured my ankle and will have to wait for next year's road race to compete. But at least I was allowed to learn how kind people can be on the Vineyard.
Whoever you are, gentlemen, thank you.
Beth Kevles
Chevy Chase, Md.
Tremendous help
To the Editor:
To all the people of Aquinnah who have helped us, on behalf of all of the friends and family of Summer Wibel, I want to thank you for all of your efforts in helping us to celebrate her life. Your help in allowing us to use the parking lot at Philbin Beach and facilitating those who joined us, made a tremendous impact on what was an otherwise trying time. Thank you for all of your efforts, thoughts, and prayers.
James Klingensmith
Edgartown
School's in, drive safely
To the Editor:
Now that summer is drawing to a close, I am writing to remind Vineyard drivers to be especially careful of our students walking to and from school or waiting at their bus stops. Please remember to drive carefully whenever you see one of our big yellow school buses, and be sure to stop when those lights flash. We want our Vineyard children to arrive safely.
James H. Weiss
Superintendent of Schools
Won't fit
To the Editor:
Bradley Square peg/round hole.
Regarding Robert Wheeler's Op-Ed of September 4, bypassing town boards (40B/40R) deflates our home rule. This overwrought project (or product) is poorly planned. Moving the historic building is stupid, expensive, and perhaps unsafe. Why try to comply when the intent is to use the state override rule? Inexhaustible sums of money will not make this development fit the half-acre space safely. Please redesign and scale down.
Debbie Dean
Oak Bluffs
Support, not unfounded criticism
To the Editor:
This letter is in response to an unsettling letter written by Yann Meersseman. He continually writes letters suggesting conspiracy in the Bradley Square project. To insinuate that this worthy project was slipped into the neighborhood is to ignore the posted open meetings attended by neighbors throughout this past year. There were several televised Martha's Vineyard Commission meetings that responded to neighbors concerns, including special studies for traffic and parking. Every question was answered and changes were implemented. Street setbacks were adjusted and an arborist was consulted. Considerations of design, detail, and materials were addressed. Even the number of units was decreased. When all was said and done, the Martha's Vineyard Commission voted 13-1 in favor. I hardly consider this very lengthy process to be subversive.
Much negative rhetoric has been directed toward the Arts District from people who still do not understand the need for a safe, pleasant pedestrian neighborhood with good affordable housing and the restoration of an historic place. It was the artists who started the petition to get the stop sign at Dukes County and Vineyard Avenue and who wholeheartedly support the town's request for sidewalks. After all, we are in a walk-to-town location. How do the dissenters not see the families walking from the harbor to Smoke & Bones at night, or people walking through the campground to Tony's Market? Maybe it's because they do not live or work here.
The effort of our artist community is to improve the look and safety on Dukes County Avenue. We should not bury our head in the sand. Projects are going to come to this last strip of B1 zoned property not yet developed. Think of what could be here - there are no regulations. How about a large restaurant with take-out, or a car dump. It's possible.
The Arts District is nothing ne. It has deep roots on Dukes County Avenue. For 40 years, Molly Kahn rented spaces to artists. In the 1960s, Joe McCarren's pottery studio was active with students and potters, Barney Zeitz's stained glass studio was at 93 Dukes County Avenue, printmakers lived at Periwinkle Studio, painters and writers lived and worked at the old Boston Bakery that is now Island Interiors, and art and music by Edie Yoder was at the Dragonfly, along with many people who got their start in this location.
So yes, this is our neighborhood too and who knows when Mr. Meersseman came to Oak Bluffs. Respecting history should include all people who live and work in a neighborhood. The four live/work spaces at Bradley Square will continue to celebrate art history on Dukes County Avenue, and they will be qualified affordable housing units. We have the chance to save a historically significant piece of the Island and Oak Bluffs history - the Bradley Church, which was the first black and Portuguese church on the Island - a treasure that should be carefully and respectfully restored to provide a cultural center for all people. To insist it become another condo unit is to disrespect and disregard the history of Oak Bluffs and take the heart from this worthy project.
The tireless efforts of the Island Affordable Housing Fund and the Island Affordable Housing Trust, along with banks, the historical society, the NAACP and the Arts District, have kept the Bradley Square project on track. To have the zoning board knock it out would be a travesty, and to have Mr. Meersseman question the integrity of supportive town officials and these institutions is truly an insult.
Holly Alaimo
Oak Bluffs
Changes at Katama Airfield
To the Editor:
This letter concerns the state of Massachusetts's review of a proposed approval for modification of the conservation restriction for the Katama Airfield. Preservation of the sand plain habitat, which makes up and surrounds the Katama Airfield, represents a true environmental success story, and purchasing these lands from the original owners and placing them in public hands has avoided development of this area, and a precious piece of Martha's Vineyard can be forever protected. In allowing the grass airfield to continue, the history of aviation on Martha's Vineyard, to a certain extent, has also been preserved.
It is the aviation component of the airfield that concerns many Edgartown and Chappaquiddick residents. Everyone has become accustomed to the sound of planes overhead, and the "red biplane" has become a summer tradition for many. The proposed rebuilding of the hangar is probably a necessity, given the condition of the existing hangar, but in allowing the hangar to be increased in size, the question that comes immediately to mind is, will this allow and encourage an expansion of activity at the airport, and, of greater concern, has that expansion already occurred.
Dangerously low flying aircraft have been common all summer. Cowboy pilots seem to think the skies belong to them. The noise from the biplanes continues even when retrofits are available. The airfield has no answering machine and seems unwilling or unable to do anything about these conditions. Even the airfield commission won't return phone calls. Did anyone realize that the helicopters that use the airfield are forbidden from using it? Why must a few always spoil it for everyone else? This may be the time to encourage review of airfield operation. The Natural Heritage and Endangered Species program must approve changes to allow the increase in building size, and that review is under way. Any concerns regarding operation of the airfield should be addressed to:
Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program
MA Division of Fisheries & Wildlife
One Rabbit Hill Road
Westborough, MA 01581
RE: Project Tracking # 07-22868
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
Ian A. Bowles, Secretary
100 Cambridge
Boston, MA 02114
As holder of the Conservation Restriction, you can also share your comments with:
The Nature Conservancy/Massachusetts Office
205 Portland St. Suite 400
Boston, MA 02114
David Nash
Edgartown
Advice for the Democrats
To the Editor:
No one who watched the 1988 vice-presidential debate can ever forget Lloyd Bentsen's classic putdown of Dan Quayle.
On learning of John McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Palin, the thought immediately occurred to me of offering Joe Biden this advice: that during this year's debate, he find an opportunity to turn to Governor Palin and say, "Sarah, John McCain put you on his ticket in hopes you would attract votes from that legion of disappointed women who supported Hillary Clinton. But Sarah, I know Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a friend of mine. And Sarah, you're no Hillary Clinton."
But before I could send off a letter to Biden, Gail Collins published a column in the New York Times offering him precisely the same advice.
As I reflect on it, perhaps several million people, in addition to Collins and myself, had the same thought.
Yes, Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton. One of my gloomier acquaintances is convinced that our fate will be to have McCain win, then pass on to his eternal reward, thereby elevating Sarah to the presidency.
Will we sometime in the next four years find the Oval Office occupied by someone described as "your average hockey mom" with moose-hunting skills?
What more could the nation ask for?
R.E.L. Knight
West Tisbury
Heartfelt thanks
To the Editor:
Once more, I am profoundly grateful to our wonderful Martha's Vineyard Hospital - to our attentive, gifted and compassionate Dr. Beth Donnelly, her nurse, Sue Kennedy, and all the superb nurses on the acute care wing.
My father died in the old hospital in 1968, my mother in 1984 in the "new" one and recently my husband. In each instance, the care was extraordinary - to patient and family. The ability to look out of a hospital window and see greenery, flowers and birds or feeders was deeply comforting. With heartfelt thanks to you all.
Judy Pearse
Vineyard Haven
Not the project we thought
To the Editor:
At the Oak Bluffs annual town meeting back in April, we were duped by those who were pushing for the Bradley Project. The way the project was presented, I believe that most voters who were present had no idea that the $425,000 allocated to this project by the town would be used to create such discord in our neighborhood.
The most important of the issues that have arisen from this project is traffic safety.
Traffic studies were done with bogus results.
By adding a structure the size of the Bradley project to an already congested area, along with the new sidewalks that the town is planning on putting in on Dukes County Avenue, this will create a serious problem for emergency access to the area.
The Oak Bluffs zoning board of appeals will be re-opening the meeting on September 18 regarding this project. Please mark your calendars and attend. This could be your neighborhood next.
Carol Giosmas
Oak Bluffs
Be nice
To the Editor:
Free Mussa.
Can those of you not susceptible to blood lust (unless it involves Sarah Palin) please step up and help Rebecca Garde - no, let me rephrase that - help Mussa get to a safe refuge and home suitable to his temperament.
If the community of Martha's Vineyard cannot act to help a misguided neighbor save her dog, then how do you think you are going to "take back the country?"
Do the right thing. The dog doesn't deserve to die because the owner is negligent. Mussa apparently has no history of aggression toward people. (Unlike Sarah Palin and John McCain. Should they be euthanized? Don't answer that.)
Will someone help this woman? She is trying desperately to suitably re-home her dog.
I understand restitution is to be made to the farmer.
I no longer live on the Island but happened to read the article with its irresponsibly incendiary headline screaming "Banned dog kills In Oak Bluffs." How about "Negligent dog owners cause grief to farmer?" And framing the story around a responsible, constructive hook, such as people needing to be conscious about their choice of pet and its needs, and what can be the terrible and draconian consequences to the pet, not to mention other animals, if the owner doesn't acknowledge the instinctive nature of an animal. Instead, the article casts the animals as the villains, the writer larding the feature with a cold recitation from the point of view of "authorities."
If only we could impound the negligent parents (and journalists) who set loose on the world all their malicious children. (Think Bush and McCain. How might the world have been different if only a few kindly neighbors had intervened. "It takes a village....")
Just help the poor woman get her dog off-Island to a safe refuge. Offer to support the farmer; buy his eggs or whatever else he produces locally for you to enjoy.
Be nice.
Anna Churchill
Nokomis, Fla.
Favors Home Port under new owners
To the Editor:
I applaud the Nixons for their desire to assume ownership of the Home Port. Menemsha already has a beautiful beach that is better than any additional park. If more restrooms are needed, the town should expand the existing facilities, conveniently located in the beach parking lot. When "nature calls," no one is going to hike all the way from the beach to the Home Port site. Under the better management of proven restaurateurs, the Home Port could continue to be a destination restaurant and a boon to the other businesses in Menemsha. The eatery also provides jobs, besides being a place where local fishers can market their catch.
Christine Powers
Waltham
Unforgettable experience
To the Editor:
On behalf of Save Giovanni's Friends, Inc. and DKMS Americas, I would like to extend our sincere thanks and appreciation to the Martha's Vineyard Agricultural Society and to all those who joined the bone marrow registry during the 2008 Ag Fair. The drive was a huge success, and, as a result, we were fortunate enough to add 312 new donors to the registry. We were also invited back to the Island Labor Day weekend where we added 79 more donors during the Artisans Festival. Our sincere thank you goes out to Lisa Brown Langley and Andrea Rogers, who made this possible.
We are very grateful to everyone who joined the registry and for your selfless act in wanting to help a stranger in need. Your decision to join the registry may give someone a second chance in life, and we hope you get the opportunity some day. It will be an experience you will never forget for the rest of your life. We were honored to meet each and every one of you. Your kindness, warm hearts, and best wishes will stay with us forever.
We are educating the public one bone marrow drive at a time and ask that you help us spread the word. After hearing how easy it is to donate, many people want the chance to save a life, especially when it is a child's life. We hope that those who did not sign up, but were interested in learning more about the donating process, will consider joining the registry in the near future. We have self-test kits available at www.savegiovanni.org, so you can join the registry from the convenience of your own home.
Too many of us wait until someone we love is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, and then the search becomes critical. But it is very difficult to find a match since your genetic makeup must closely match up with a patient's. Therefore, the more people who join the registry today, the better chance a match will be found for a patient tomorrow.
Save Giovanni's Friends drives have added 16,854 donors to the registry since January 2007, and 12 matches have been found. We were just notified this past weekend that a match for a one-year-old girl has been found from a drive we did in Maine several months ago. We thrive on news like this, and it's people like you that make this possible.
Please visit our website for the latest updates and listing of future drives. If you are interested in supporting our efforts, please send an email to mguglielmo@helpgiovanniguglielmo.org or call 603-524-8284.
Anna Hantschar
Save Giovanni's Friends
