The upcoming Chilmark Community Center summer programs are in jeopardy, as town officials are struggling to reach an agreement with the nonprofit that runs the center’s seasonal activities.
Town select board chair Jim Malkin expressed frustration at a board meeting Tuesday with the Chilmark Town Affairs Council, the current operators of summer programming, saying that they aren’t agreeing to make changes recommended by the town. Malkin said that if the council doesn’t agree with the town’s recent recommendations, there might not be summer programs this year.
The nonprofit council has been the target of criticism for nearly a year in Chilmark, as many residents felt their summer programs did not represent year-rounders’ interests, and that they had disrespected a beloved tennis instructor, Eddie Stahl. Tensions peaked during town meeting last spring, when voters decided to create the Chilmark Community Center moderator’s committee in order to review the council’s operations and report back to the select board by the end of January.
In recent months, that public committee has unveiled preliminary recommendations, with some members recommending that council president Suellen Lazarus not return this year, and that the town’s operating agreement with the council be rewritten to allow another nonprofit to take over.
Malkin’s, and moderator committee member Matt Poole’s, more recent recommendations ask that the council add townspeople who do not serve on its board to its nominating committee, expand its membership, and agree to a “robust and inclusive volunteer summer program committee … to oversee the summer program for 2025.”
In a letter to the town a week later, however, the council wrote that preparation is already underway for this summer, and that it will try to implement some recommendations.
“To the extent that we can, we will do our best to implement some of the recommendations contained in Jim Malkin’s Jan. 6 email,” it continued.
“We continue to perform in accordance with the longstanding, operative MOU,” the council also stated.
Also in a letter to the Chilmark select board in December, the council argued that the town of Chilmark lacked the authority to influence its internal operations. The letter also stated that it could not agree to add members to its nominating committee, nor promise to expand its board.
Malkin did not appreciate the council’s most recent note, he said on Tuesday: “I found it to be adversarial — dismissive of concerns of this town-appointed moderator’s committee that was looking to strike a balance in terms of what’s going on, and get things moving forward for the 2025 season.”
He also noted that as far as he is concerned, the town has no active memorandum of understanding with the council, as the town and council failed to renegotiate their agreement more than a year ago. He said that the recent recommendations should be a prerequisite for this year’s summer activities.
“If we don’t have a summer program because we can’t get agreement to what Matt and I put together, then maybe we don’t have a summer program,” he said. “And we’ll just let people play tennis — as we are doing — in the shoulder seasons. And the blame for that can rest on other shoulders, and not on this town’s.”
Poole also advocated for a get-together between the town and council, which Malkin supported, advising that representatives of the town and council meet in coming weeks and report back to his board.
“This program — as far as I’m concerned — this summer hangs by a thread,” Malkin said.
Miles Brucculeri, a council board member, was present, and spoke in defense of the nonprofit.
“We’re excited and interested in meeting some of these demands that they’re making,” he said of officials’ recommendations.
He also felt that the town was rushing changes at the council. “I think that the board doesn’t necessarily agree that the town should mandate these things be done by a certain date,” he said. “We’re working on a lot of these issues that have been mentioned in there, and as far as benchmarks for new board members and changes to our bylaws, those aren’t things that we can snap our fingers and do, and we have been working on getting new members for a long time.”
Speaking to The Times, Brucculeri felt that his council should have had more input into the committee’s recommendations after they closed all public comments in November. “Before that, there was nothing to comment on,” he said. “No MOU draft had come up. The committee is writing an MOU … Them writing an MOU hadn’t come up until after public comment closed.”
