Updated May 24
Edgartown voters overwhelmingly approved the Vineyard Transit Authority’s (VTA) inductive electric chargers at the Church Street bus stop, half of a measure to fund a $2.8 million Memorial Wharf project, and a $40.7 million budget at annual town meeting Saturday.
The meeting, which was held outside at the Edgartown School for the second year in a row due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, struggled with quorum issues. A quorum of 210 voters was needed to conduct the meeting
The meeting began 20 minutes late as voters trickled in, and a quorum count was called in the second half of the meeting when voters began leaving, and it headed into its third hour. Quorum issues aside, the town made it through an 81-article warrant.
The meeting began with voters electing Steve Ewing as the one-time moderator, due to former moderator Sean Murphy’s passing. Juliet Mulinare was also nominated for moderator, but Ewing won 146-43.
“Jeff Norton said just now, ‘You’ll wish you never did this,’” Ewing said of the former longtime moderator Philip J. Norton.
Ewing opened his moderator debut with a poem about Murphy.
“Sean grew naturally into this role/ shading steering guiding/ holding back, but ready,” Ewing recited in part. “This is democracy alive/ the big sprawl of tree deep rooted fed by the flowing river/ that is all of us the people of this town.”
The big-ticket article of the day was the approval of the VTA’s inductive chargers. At last year’s town meeting, town meeting voted 96-83 for a committee to review the Church Street project, which seeks to improve the landscape of the street and install induction chargers for the VTA’s growing fleet of electric buses. That committee gave an unbridled endorsement of the project.
On town meeting floor Saturday, Mark Snider, Edgartown’s representative to the VTA’s advisory board and a member of the committee that reviewed the project, was met with applause after explaining the advantages to the project, including greener energy, improved landscape to the street and bus stop, and no cost to taxpayers.
Snider debunked claims made by project critics and Upper Main Street residents Sara Piazza and Jane Chittick by saying the chargers would not prevent the bus stop from being moved in the future, trees in poor condition would be removed and new trees would be replanted, and the area would be improved overall.
“In the meantime, this project will improve the look and function of Church Street, and the visitors center, the air we breathe, and reduce noise pollution at absolutely no cost to any of us here,” Snider said.
Piazza, who has frequently voiced opposition to the project, gave another impassioned speech against it. She called the VTA’s need for the project on Church Street “bullying.”
“This is a con game,” Piazza said. “The VTA offering to beautify Church Street while cutting down old shade trees and continuing to fill Edgartown with too many of their big, ugly buses. How much more inconsistent and insensitive to small-town values could an entity possibly be?”
Jane Chittick said Wenatchee, Wash., was the only other place in the world that would use Momentum Dynamics induction charging. “They are not needed, and will soon be obsolete,” Chittick said.
In his remarks, Snider said it would make no sense to have the chargers at the Edgartown Park and Ride or the Dark Woods lots because they are more than a mile walk from the downtown area, and riders want to go to the downtown area, not outside of it. He added that if buses had to be charged somewhere else, some buses would need to be rerouted, causing more traffic at the Edgartown Triangle.
Eunice Youmans, a mother of three, said the buses are vital to her and her children to get around the Island, especially as a family living on Chappaquiddick.
VTA bus driver Andre Bonnell was also in favor of the project, and said he embraced the change from diesel buses to electric buses, and that his riders frequently compliment the all-electric buses.
“I got out of a Fred Flintstone car and into a George Jetson car,” he said to voters. “As a driver, please vote yes on this.”
Voters cruised through the town’s more than $40 million budget, and approved most every article, including $400,000 to rebuild and resurface town streets; $300,000 to build and repair various town sidewalks, bike paths, parking lots, and stormwater drainage systems; $240,000 to repair the rapid infiltration basin system at the wastewater plant; $230,000 to repair the wastewater plant’s Schwing pump; and $164,840 for the town’s share of technology infrastructure at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.
Several articles were indefinitely postponed, including $175,751 for restoration of the Whaling Church, $50,000 for the fireworks, and $75,949 for the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School’s other post-employment benefits, since it wasn’t approved in every Island town which it needed to pass.
Voters also approved a series of zoning changes. One change will allow a senior residential living facility to be built in town. The zoning change is one of many steps for the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital to begin moving forward with a plan to purchase land on Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road for a new nursing home.
The $2.8 million Memorial Wharf restoration project, which will replace the town wharf with a new one, similar in design, was approved by voters at the meeting, and now heads to the ballot box, where it needs another approval from voters. The annual town election is from 10 am to 7 pm, Tuesday, May 25.
Voters will also have to decide on a new town moderator by writing in a name on the ballot.
The town also approved switching its tax collector position from elected to appointed, officially switching the selectmen to select board, approved the Stretch Energy Code, and approved a nonbinding resolution that sets aspirational goals to reduce fossil fuel use on the Island.
Updated to add zoning change information. — Ed.
