Oak Bluffs will be appealing the field case against the high school. —Courtesy Huntress Associates Inc

Updated Dec. 20

The field case is headed back to court. 

During a Tuesday afternoon meeting, the Oak Bluffs planning board decided in a split 2-1 vote to appeal a Massachusetts Land Court judge’s decision. 

Board chair Ewell Hopkins and member JoJo Lambert voted in favor appealing, while board member Sean DeBettencourt voted against the motion; board member Mark Crossland recused himself. Board member Erik Albert was absent during Tuesday’s vote. 

The lengthy legal battle between the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School Committee and the planning board was over the board’s denial of a special permit to construct a synthetic field; in its denial, the board cited concerns over perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of chemicals commonly called PFAS, which have been known to cause health issues. 

A Massachusetts Land Court judge then annulled the denial last month, pointing to a state law known as the Dover Act, which gives special protections to projects with an educational component. 

The ruling was made on Wednesday, Nov. 22, and the town had 30 business days to appeal the decision. 

The planning board also met in executive session with the Oak Bluffs Select Board regarding the lawsuit last week. They did not make any public comment following the executive meeting.

When Hopkins asked for a motion on whether to appeal the land court’s decision, there was a brief pause on Tuesday. After Lambert received clarification on what the motion was about, she moved to take the land court’s decision to the Massachusetts Appeals Court. 

DeBettencourt said that it was problematic that Albert wasn’t present to cast a vote; with Crossland recusing himself, only three out of five members would actually be voting on an issue that has rattled the community. 

“I understand that’s the process, but I don’t think it’s a good look,” DeBettencourt said. He advocated for the vote to be delayed until Albert was available. 

But Hopkins said he called for the meeting as soon as “legally possible” after meeting in executive session with the select board; also, delaying it would risk missing a key deadline. 

Hopkins added that Crossland has chosen to stay out of this topic from the start of the board’s review. 

“Behind the scenes, I did everything in my power, as well as delay this vote by 10 minutes, to give Erik an opportunity to take part,” Hopkins said, adding that he tried working with Albert for the past two days so he could attend the meeting. 

“I have a hard time — regardless of the potential outcomes — seeing this path is going to lead to a better, more unified town of Oak Bluffs,” DeBettencourt said.

“I don’t know what the outcome is either, and my hope is that it does lead to a better outcome,” Hopkins replied. “We are in total support on that.” 

Albert did not respond to a request for comment. 

The board took no public comment, which some meeting attendees were not thrilled about. “Of course not,” meeting attendee Joe Mikos wrote in the Zoom chat. “What a joke[,] this is a public meeting.”

Another attendee was more verbose in his criticism of the board, particularly toward Hopkins. “This abuse of power and manipulation by the bias chair yet again! Sad for OB that this is what we get,” meeting attendee Ryan Ruley wrote in the Zoom chat. “A member traveling asks for a later meeting, and the chair says no because he is afraid of his vote. Scam artist!” 

The planning board isn’t the only town entity looking to take action against the turf field planned for the high school. The Oak Bluffs board of health gathered support from other Island health officials for a potential town construction moratorium on synthetic turf fields that contain PFAS. The Oak Bluffs board of health received pushback last month on the moratorium, and after hearing the public feedback, they decided to come back to the topic at a later date.

The high school committee has scheduled a meeting for Friday, Dec. 22, and will potentially enter into executive session to discuss “litigation strategy” surrounding the appeal. 

Committee member Mike Watts told The Times on Wednesday, Dec. 20, that the committee will need to discuss the issue with their attorney before anything is decided, but the planning board was within their legal rights to pursue the appeal. “That’s how our legal justice system works,” he said. Watts said the deadline to make an appeal was Friday, Dec. 22. 

However, Watts said the committee can’t begin the project immediately, even if they wanted to. The Martha’s Vineyard Commission originally approved the field project in 2021, but the long legal process threatened to have that approval expire. In turn, the commission voted in August to extend the approval to 60 days after the court case was resolved, meaning either after a judge’s ruling and the end of any appeal process, or following the stipulation of dismissal with the appropriate court. 

Attorneys from both parties were not immediately available for comment.

10 replies on “Oak Bluffs to appeal field case”

  1. What a joke!! This is.
    Where is all the uproar. For one person, basically: holding up this whole process( because his affiliation with the Field Fund).

  2. Where is the outcry about spending money on lawsuits from those who did nothing but complain about the school appealing the PB decision, which was overturned in land court? Come on Chilmark and West Tisbury, where are you? Oh, it only matters when the school committee challenges your beliefs. This sounds a lot like corruption in town politics. Mr. White asks the planning board to have a street name changed, I hear that he wants it changed to be named after a family member. Collusion? It makes you wonder. After all the complaining about the $$$, the planning board chair asks taxpayers to pay to defend his ego. Lastly, the planning board chair schedules a vote when he knew one of the members of the board, who would oppose the vote to appeal, is out of the country. REALLY??? He should have been allowed to enter a proxy vote. They had a month to schedule this vote but now it is imperative because of the timeline? He knew Erik was going to be gone, so he schedules the vote. Don’t believe what he says, “that he did everything in his power”, if that was the case, he would have had the vote when Erik was able to be present. Selectpersons, please get this rouge agent of yours under control, this is a bad look for you.

  3. I applaud OB to stick to a denial of synthetic turf. Many obvious health/injury reasons speak for a natural grass pitch and a turf surface is not consistent
    with the MV creditable appeal for letting nature rule and buy local.

  6. For those who think the Planning Board is unscrupulous, you can sign up to run for the Board if you don’t like their decisions. Do you have special insight into the missing member’s mind? The deadline for appeal was fast approaching; thus the vote needed to be taken.
    You may not like the Board’s decision to appeal, but it is within its right, just as the School Board was within in its right to appeal earlier.
    The school administration asserts that the Dover Amendment precludes any local jurisdiction. Some of us feel that local say in matters affecting the entire community is important; thus the legal process continues.

    1. Steve, Erik voted against the need of a special permit. He has been for the project during every step of the process, shown by his voting record and input. During the meeting, Mr. deBettencourt made it clear that having this vote without Erik was, although within the right, wasn’t the right thing to do. You could tell Mr. deBettencourt wasn’t happy. The PB Chair had several opportunities to hold this vote while Erik was present, they were at day 27 of the 30 day window, why did he wait so long? They had an executive session to discuss this where Erik was present. They had had at least 2 regular meetings and the chair chose not to put it on the agenda, when his entire board was present. Instead, he calls for a special meeting during the time he knew Erik wasn’t going to be present (it is the holiday season after all) insuring his desire for the appeal. They could have come out of the executive session they had and called for a vote, but the chair didn’t do that. He instead, knowing Erik was leaving the country, chose to hold the vote during a special, not a regularly scheduled meeting, knowing it would be difficult for Erik to attend. That alone should smell fishy. I also blame the select board, they should be stopping the funding of this rogue agent of theirs. That is within their purview, they hold the purse strings.

    2. Why wasn’t the vote done after the executive session which I believe was last week and the missing member was there? Because the chair didn’t post it that way on purpose? He isn’t that careless. It could have been handled in a way these questions didn’t come up. He chose this way. He likes the attention. Most narcissistic people do. Only mistake he made in this whole process was not following the advice of counsel when he received a written opinion at taxpayers expense. Now he has the same opinion x3. Total freedom to spend away. Why?

  7. Ryan Ruley has shown himself to be a selfless public servant, with a sterling reputation. He has not shown himself to be prone to impetuous or careless speech in the public forum. In a moment of candor, he has given us his assessment of the character of Ewell Hopkins. This is something that I hope OB voters weigh carefully, and carry with them to the polls in April.

    Since the chair has laid accountability for the engineered outcome of this sham vote squarely at the feet of Erik Albert, I do hope that Erik takes the time to give us his version of these events. I also implore Messrs. Albert, Crossland and DeBettencourt to finally stand up and do something about the rot that pervades the OB Planning Board.

    As mentioned in a previous comment, the minutes show that the chair of the Planning Board introduced a procedure to rename town streets back in May. Other members wondered how often such a thing occurred, and the chair acknowledged that it hadn’t happened in his time on the board. Shortly after the OB Board of Health appealed to other island boards of health to support them in their newfound crusade against artificial turf, lo and behold! A request to rename a town street is filed with the Planning Board! The Chair of the Board of Health would like the Planning Board to approve renaming a street after his daughter. I can’t state that it’s a quid pro quo, but it sure smells funny. Read the minutes and form your own conclusions.

  8. Thank you to the Oak Bluffs Board of Health. We are talking about the toxic effects on the Oak Bluffs and Martha’s Vineyard water table here. The Board of Health is responsible for keeping us safe, please listen to them. Ask yourself why did the mayor of Boston ban new plastic turf from all Boston’s children’s playgrounds. https://pirg.org/massachusetts/updates/big-news-boston-bans-artificial-turf-because-of-pfas/#:~:text=Boston%20took%20a%20significant%20step,be%20installed%20in%20city%20parks. ❤️

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