In a unanimous vote Tuesday night, the Tisbury select board appointed Dukes County commissioner John Cahill to the Port Council of the Steamship Authority as Tisbury’s representative.
Cahill replaces outgoing Port Council member George Balco. The board interviewed one other candidate, former SSA Capt. David Dandridge, before making its decision.
Also by unanimous vote, the board chose planning board member Paul Munafo over Tisbury Waterways Inc. board member Beverly Potsaid and Lagoon Pond Association president Doug Reece for a slot on Tisbury’s waterways committee.
Yet another unanimous vote taken by the board designated Josh Goldstein the town’s appointee to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission. Goldstein recently lost his elected seat in that body in a three-way race with Trip Barnes and Ben Robinson.
Select board chair Jim Rogers thanked Balco for his service to Tisbury. Later Balco summed up his ferry line philosophy as “what’s good for the Steamship is good for Tisbury, and what’s good for Tisbury and the Steamship is good for the whole Island. We’re all in this together.”
During his interview, Cahill noted he was currently Tisbury’s representative to the SSA’s Long Range Vineyard Transportation Task Force, the county’s representative on the SSA’s Woods Hole and Falmouth Traffic Noise Mitigation Working Group, and the county’s representative on the MVC Joint Transportation Committee.
“As a commissioner, I’m frequently involved in Steamship Authority issues,” Cahill said. He described his role as “instrumental” in the selection of Jim Malkin to replace Marc Hanover as the Vineyard’s representative on the SSA board. Cahill went on to say, “I’m in the transportation business as a Hertz agent here on Martha’s Vineyard … So when I participate in these Steamship Authority meetings, the terminology is very consistent to what I do every day for a living.”
He also pointed to several parallel elements between the way the SSA works and his business works that give him solid footing in fathoming the SSA.
If chosen, Cahill said, he would deliver monthly emails and participate in quarterly meetings. Dandridge said he would brief the board at its pleasure.
Dandridge, who is an elected member of Tisbury’s board of assessors, said he’s in a position “to bring a tremendous amount of history to the job” after 40 years observing the SSA and 25 years working for the ferry line. Dandridge said he’s been in the maritime industry since age 18, and has served on several town boards, including the harbor advisory committee.
“The institutional knowledge that I can bring to the Port Council I think could be really invaluable,” he said. Dandridge said he’d had the opportunity to work with former Vineyard SSA representatives Hanover and Kathryn (“Cassie”) Roussel, and was involved in the early design stages for the Island Home.
Select board member Larry Gomez asked Dandridge if he was tough enough to handle the other council members.
“Will you be able to stand up and pound the table for our benefit here? For Tisbury?” Gomez asked.
“I’m not much of a table pounder,” Dandridge said, “but I know I can work with them.”
“We need a bulldog,” Gomez said.
Select board member Jeff Kristal disagreed. “This isn’t the board to be a bulldog on,” Kristal said. He described the council’s role as more geared to fiscal and policy analysis, focused on providing recommendations. Kristal described the council as internally cooperative and intent on arriving “at a better product” through deliberation. He said Balco did a “fantastic job” on the council in that capacity.
Following a motion to appoint Cahill, Dandridge thanked the board for considering him, and said he’s still willing to lend a hand somehow.
The board then appointed Cahill.
Two of the three waterways committee candidates pitched themselves through a lens of environmentalism, while a third focused on boating.
“I’m certainly not a marine expert,” Munafo told the board. “I don’t have any of the scientific background for any of the marine sciences or anything like that. I am an avid boater. I’ve been a mariner, in the Tisbury scheme of things, for over 12 years.”
Overall, Munafo said he had been an “avid mariner” for more than 40 years, and holds a 100-ton captain’s license.
“I have a very, very fond love for all things connected to the waterways of Tisbury, and seeing them succeed in every way possible,” he said. “We are a boating community, and I’d like to see us embrace that even more so than we already are doing.”
Potsaid noted scientists are among the Tisbury Waterways, Inc., board members, and that board consults regularly with Tisbury shellfish constable Danielle Ewert and Martha’s Vineyard Commission water resource planner Sheri Casseau. She said her grandkids love the water, and she spends a lot of time with them at Lake Tashmoo and Lagoon Pond.
Potsaid said it was her belief that “since it is a waterways committee, there should be someone on the committee with a focus on the quality of the water — sort of an environmental take — and that’s what I would bring to the board.”
Reece said he got interested in the waterways committee “by being a little bit involved in the precursor to the committee, the harbor committee. And I started going to those meetings back when they were renewing the water regulations for the town of Tisbury, and being a waterfront owner on the Lagoon as well as the president of the Lagoon Pond Association, it was apparent that those regulations were being decidedly focused on the harbor and not all the waterways.” Reece said he felt it was “imperative” the committee include “mindsets that represent not only the harbor and the businesses along the harbor,” but also homeowners along the pond, and water quality and public use aspects. Reece said he brings to the table a degree in environmental science, and years of experience enjoying the benefits of Lake Tashmoo and Lagoon Pond.
After posing a few questions to the candidates, the board went with Munafo.
