Except for some clarifying questions, Oak Bluffs voters mostly blazed through warrants at the special and annual town meeting on Tuesday evening at the Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center.
The largest spending project among the warrant articles on Tuesday night was for the replacement of a pump station on Dukes County Avenue for $2.5 million, which will now go before voters on the ballot at Thursday’s town election.
The town wants to build a new, elevated pump station to address storm surges, and voters overwhelmingly approved the project without discussion.
While none of the 56 warrant articles were outright rejected by voters, a few were modified on the town meeting floor, and some articles — like the leaf-blower phaseout passed in three Island towns — didn’t receive overwhelming support.
A proposal to disburse $88,000 in Community Preservation Act funding to the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association narrowly passed in a 79–71 vote. Joan Hughes, chair of the Oak Bluffs Community Preservation committee, said the proposed funding would go toward a civil engineering survey to preserve the Campgrounds, for example maintaining the roads and studying the groundwater contours.
However, Oak Bluffs resident Brian Hughes argued that the money should be allocated to a different use, such as affordable housing or another organization. He said the association generates millions of dollars, and said the organization’s religious affiliations meant the warrant article was essentially “giving money to a church,” making it unconstitutional.
“They’re pretending to be a historic preservation institute, but they’re not. They’re actually a religious institute,” he said.
Several voters pushed back against Hughes. They said the Campgrounds, also called Wesleyan Grove by the National Historic Landmarks Program, are a major tourist attraction that generates income for the Island, and highlighted the various events, like the high school graduation, that are hosted in the location.
John Freeman, an Oak Bluffs resident and member of the United Methodist Church of Martha’s Vineyard, noted that while the Camp Meeting Association was a religious organization at one point, it is “in name only these days,” and isn’t connected to any specific religion.
Community Preservation Act funding also went toward housing projects, including $128,000 to the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority’s rental assistance program for Oak Bluffs families, $63,201 for the development of the Island Autism Center, and a combined $316,600 for the Island Housing Trust for its housing projects for Vineyard school employees and veterans.
Oak Bluffs voters also approved an accessory dwelling unit bylaw that aligns with state guidelines. Voters eliminated a requirement that a homeowner occupy a house for two years before building an accessory dwelling on the property; they also struck down a prohibition on permits for accessory dwelling units being granted within the coastal district. These units would also need to be rented out for periods of at least 31 days, to discourage short-term rentals.
Ewell Hopkins, former Oak Bluffs planning board chair, tried to amend the proposed bylaw so an accessory dwelling unit would be half the floor area of the principal dwelling or up to 900 square feet in size, whichever is smaller. This is the state’s language, but the town’s proposal has the size limit at just the 900 square feet maximum.
The amendment was shot down after several voters said it would severely restrict the structures they can build, and could even incentivize building larger houses.
“Our current house is 780 square feet. We would be limited to 390 square feet for an ADU [accessory dwelling unit], which is mostly a shed,” said Antone Lima, Oak Bluffs parks commission chair.
Town voters also approved accepting the seasonal community designation. This is designed to support municipalities that experience large seasonal sways in housing demand, visitors, and employment.
Oak Bluffs voters sped through the special town meeting warrant, approving several monetary requests — the highest of which were transferring $200,000 into the Oak Bluffs Municipal Housing Trust and using $78,000 toward purchasing a mobile office trailer for the town shellfish department. Additionally, a new Jet Ski bylaw was passed without discussion. The bylaw restricts personal watercraft to 6 mph in the Oak Bluffs sections of Sangekontacket and Lagoon Ponds. It arose with town officials worried about riders unsafely operating Jet Skis and potentially damaging shellfish beds.
Meanwhile, Oak Bluffs voters approved a series of spending requests from the town, such as $50,000 to mitigate the impacts of the invasive Southern pine beetle, and equipment purchases including $100,000 for the fire department to buy self-contained breathing apparatus gear and $160,000 for the police to purchase two cruisers.
One of the largest spending requests was $335,000 to bid for and hire consultants to develop the Oak Bluffs Coastal Resilience Plan.
Oak Bluffs voters also approved a proposed $42.8 million town budget, a more than 6 percent increase from the fiscal year 2025 budget of $40.28 million, after Oak Bluffs Town Administrator Deborah Potter clarified some minor details for voters.
Still, the town was able to reduce its education spending, decreasing its share of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School budget by $3,509.84 and that of the Oak Bluffs School budget by $12,715.59.
Oak Bluffs also gave tribute to Oak Bluffs select board member Gail Barmakian and parks commissioner Richard Combra, who will not be seeking re-election to their seats after years of service.
