Two members resign from advisory committee

Chittick and Piazza resign from VTA panel citing chairman.

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Alan Strahler, shown here in a screenshot from Tuesday's meeting, was criticized by two members of the VTA review committee who resigned over the weekend.

Jane Chittick and Sara Piazza have resigned from an Edgartown advisory committee looking at plans by the Vineyard Transit Authority to locate a $1.4 million electric charging station on Church Street in Edgartown.

Chittick and Piazza have criticized the VTA’s plans, saying the neighborhood location isn’t the right spot for buses to be charged. The Edgartown historic district commission has approved the project, and the Martha’s Vineyard Commission reviewed it and found the VTA charging station would not have a negative impact on the town.

Town meeting voters supported forming the committee at a June 13 session, and selectmen appointed the eight-member committee, including Chittick and Piazza, on June 29.

Both women, in emails to the committee’s chairman Alan Strahler and shared with The Times, stepped aside.

In her email, Piazza cited Strahler’s “rudeness towards me and his constant silencing, censoring, and limiting my ability to present the very valid concerns regarding the effects of the installation of inductive charging pads on historic Church Street …”

She went on to call it a “sham of a committee,” and referred to Strahler as “a bully.”

In a phone conversation with The Times, Piazza said her voice in the VTA project has been suppressed for years, ever since she and her neighbor, Chittick, requested additional review of the charging station plan.

The town voted in favor — there are enough people that question what is going on down there that they formed a committee,” Piazza said. “My concern is that with the inductive charging system, we have committed to oversize buses downtown, and also committed to Church Street being a hub for all the routes that come into town.”

She added that despite her consistent involvement with the planning process and her stakeholdership as a town resident who lives on Upper Main Street on the route buses take to the VTA station, the chairman of the committee would rarely let her voice her concerns. 

“He gives everyone else at least 10 minutes to present, but his idea of letting me present was three minutes,” Piazza said. “From the first meeting, the chairman, who is a bit of a bully, has not allowed me to speak whenever I opened my mouth and voiced my concerns over what this charging station would do to the town.”

Piazza said she is convinced that her voice would not be heard if she continued to serve on the committee, and her efforts would be better received as an independent voice. 

“I absolutely believe they do not want to hear what I have to say, and they haven’t wanted to hear from me since day one,” Piazza said. “I left in disgust; I don’t know where we go from here, but in some ways I think I have more of a voice as an independent agent.”

Chittick also issued a public email resigning from the committee, calling it a “joke.”
I too join with Sara Piazza in resigning from this absurd committee quietly formed by Art Smadbeck and James Hagerty behind our backs and in opposition to the June 13th town meeting warrant article vote,” Chittick wrote. “Sara and I were the ones who gathered petitions in January and then successfully led the townspeople to agree that our Historic District is not the place to install inductive chargers to create the VTA’s hub. Instead of our committee representing the voters, Smadbeck and Hagerty never told us they were appointing six people who were on the losing side, and only two of us (Sara and me) representing the winning side of the vote.”

Chittick went on to criticize Strahler’s treatment of Piazza. “He prohibited her from speaking when she wanted — his facial expressions caught on Zoom camera belied his total distain [sic] of her,” she wrote. “The only reason why I got to speak so much is that he didn’t dare silence me. So he took it out on Sara.”

Strahler issued a two-line email announcing the resignations followed by a comment. “We will miss their particular insights and strengths, and I wish them well,” Strahler wrote.

Chittick reacted to that comment: “What a bunch of [expletive], you sanctimonious idiot!”

During Tuesday’s meeting, that comment received a strong rebuke from committee member Keith Chatinover: “That was just extraordinarily unacceptable, and as someone who is on that email chain, it was not an email chain I had any interest in viewing with the level that I did … The inappropriate language toward Angie, toward Alan… just not not how you should conduct yourself as a human being … I was shocked, and I found it appalling.”

For his part, Strahler took the high road. “We’ll soldier on without them,” he said.

In answer to a question from a committee member, Strahler said Piazza and Chittick attempted to broaden the discussion. “A lot of the points they wanted to make are not really relevant to our charge, and when I asked them to limit their discussion to what’s relevant to the charge, they pushed back really hard. So I’d say that’s the reason they left.”

Chittick told The Times in a phone conversation that she stands by her and Piazza’s statements that the chairman of the committee was “bullying Piazza and treating her terribly.” 

She said she doesn’t think her statements should come as a surprise, after the way the committee treated Piazza and herself. 

It’s not like I am saying other things that are shocking, but that is exactly what this committee was — six people that the town didn’t vote for, completely intransigent toward fact and knowledge. It was just a joke. That’s what I said, and that’s what I meant,” Chittick said. 

She continued to say she anticipates the committee will disband soon and submit a final report to the town. “It’s not going to be a majority report, it is actually going to be a minority report, because they voted in the minority,” Chittick said.

Board member Mark Snider said members of the committee are serving for “altruistic reasons,” and have nothing to gain from the outcome except what’s best for the town. “I think I speak for all of you that we’ve all tried to be open and honest brokers, to understand the issues to make the best decision that represents the town of Edgartown,” he said. 

Julia Livingston, another committee member, agreed. “I honestly think we tried as best we could with the constraints of the meeting charge and meeting format to hear what they had to say,” she said. She added that she found Chittick’s historic insights interesting. “All of us want to do what’s right for the town of Edgartown, and none of us wants anything else.”

Livingston added that she intends to finalize a draft of the committee’s report, which will be submitted to the board of selectmen. The draft will be given to board members, and perhaps finalized at the committee’s next meeting on Sept. 29.

Neither Piazza nor Chittick appeared on Tuesday’s Zoom call.

The eight-member committee is now down to six members, with Bill Veno and Doris Ward joining Strahler, Livingston, Chatinover, and Snider.

Angie Gompert, executive director of the VTA, is serving as an adviser to the committee. 

The board, by consensus, decided to ask Chittick to summarize reports she sent to the committee down to three pages for inclusion in the final report. “If she wants something in the public record, she gets three pages,” Chatinover said.

Toward the end of the committee meeting, members agreed to make a site visit on Wednesday at 9 am. “I think it’s a great idea,” Ward said.

Chatinover said he would not be present because he’s not allowed to leave his college campus due to COVID-19. “I’ve been there a thousand times,” he said.