To the Editor:
Believe it or not, I do agree with one of the main points of Karen Elgart’s recent [Dec. 9] letter defending West Tisbury’s exclusive summer beach polices at Lambert’s Cove Beach, a public park.
She wrote “each town has set aside some space for the people who pay taxes in that town so they can have reasonable access to open space and ocean.”
Even though I am an Oak Bluffs resident, I, as well as everyone else in the country do pay taxes in West Tisbury. Because of West Tisbury’s small population, it receives money and services from the county, state, and federal governments, in excess of the taxes it pays. For instance, the proposed West Tisbury Library is to receive half of it’s funding from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. That is money the entire Commonwealth pays into. If the commissioners get grants from the federal government, then the entire country pays into it. It’s odd that the town receives tax money from everyone but restricts reasonable walk-on access to a public area. And by the way, if you read the signs at Lambert’s Cove, it equates non-residents with dogs because they are allowed on the beach at the same times.
That certainly doesn’t seem open and fair. I look forward to any continuation of this discussion in this printed forum. If not, silence is my validation; end beach apartheid.
Erik Albert
Oak Bluffs
