To the Editor:
A comment about Edgartown’s pending vote to withdraw from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, [which would be] a mistake.
We each of us tend to identify ourselves by our town. That’s of course until we’re anywhere else in the country or for that matter the continent. Then we proclaim with pride, “I’m from the Martha’s Vineyard.”
We may have separate town governments, schools, and issues, we may see imaginary lines dividing us, but to the rest of the world we’re the Vineyard, [which] in their eyes [is] paradise.This tiny speck of an Island shares much: the same ocean we fish and play in, the same forest we hunt and hike in, and the same tourist-based economy that’s either on or off any given season.
It’s my opinion that as each of us hunkers down in our respective towns; the success of the Vineyard requires one body who sees us as a collective economy and ecosystem, one body that is charged with the tall order of balancing the Island’s livability with our need to make a living.
Look, these are tough financial times, and everyone is trimming the fat, but this is not the time to be penny wise and pound foolish. I may live in Edgartown, but make no mistake, I’m from the Vineyard.
M. J. Rogers
Edgartown
