Chilmark selectmen met Tuesday evening minus one member and voted to refer a project by MV@Play, a newly formed nonprofit, to install artificial turf fields at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.
Selectmen Warren Doty and Bill Rossi, minus selectmen JIm Malkin, made what is known as a discretionary referral at the urging of opponents of the plan. The MVC could decide not to take on the review, and leave it to Oak Bluffs town boards.
Leaders of MV@Play were not present at the meeting. Matt Poole of Chilmark, a member of MV@Play and Edgartown health agent, said he was disappointed that the Chilmark selectmen would vote on the proposal of MV@Play to privately fund and rebuild the athletic campus at the high school without including the volunteer proponents, all parents of current or former school athletes. “To us, that endangers public process where, it would seem, opponents of anything can control the outcome by ensuring that the proponents have no opportunity to present their proposals and receive an impartial hearing,” he said in an email to The Times.
Mr. Poole said MV@Play planned to go to the MVC. “The delay, which we would have told the selectmen had they chosen to include us in their decision-making, has simply been due to the demands of work and retrieving final schematics from our engineering team,” he said.
On Wednesday, Mr. Rossi said he may have acted hastily. “If I had to vote today, I would take no action,” Mr. Rossi told The Times. “I’m really neutral on the subject; I just don’t know enough about it.”
