Selectmen voted unanimously to hire Joe Tierney as conditional West Tisbury building inspector at their meeting on Wednesday, November 5. Mr. Tierney, the town’s part-time acting building inspector since July, 2013, recently passed the necessary state certification tests and is now qualified for the full-time position, which includes the responsibility for managing town buildings.
Longtime building inspector Ernest Mendenhall, who announced his decision to retire last year after 23 years on the job, agreed to stay on as assistant building inspector. Mr. Tierney has up to a year and a half to pass two more tests to become fully certified.
In other business Wednesday, selectmen voted unanimously to allow Charles Wiley, owner of Vineyard Gardens, to remove Leyland cyprus trees that he planted on land that Vineyard Gardens owned before Mr. Wiley signed it over to the town in 2006 when the town voted at town meeting to take the land that is Old Stage Road and leads to the town dump. Selectmen acted after receiving an opinion from town counsel, Ronald Rappaport, who said that Mr. Wiley would no doubt have taken the trees before he signed the taking documents if it had occurred to him to do so.
Selectmen also agreed to ask town department heads under their purview to appear before the board to explain requests for budget increases for the next fiscal year prior to finalization of department budget requests.
Selectmen will meet with the conservation commission and the parks and recreation department on November 18 at 5:30 pm to discuss a variety of issues that include vegetation bordering the Mill Pond and changes to the path to the town beach at Lambert’s Cove.
The town holiday party is scheduled for Thursday, December 11, from 5 to 8 pm at the Agricultural Hall.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that the joint meeting with the con com and parks and rec department begins at 5 pm. It will begin at 5:30 pm.