Aquinnah residents head to their Annual Town Meeting on Tuesday, and are the last of the six Island towns’ voters to do so.
There are 31 articles on the warrant, including a request to move properties on the Cliffs from town hands to the jurisdiction of the Aquinnah Cultural Center. The meeting is on May 12 at 6:30 pm at the Aquinnah Town Hall. Next Thursday, May 14, voters will head to the polls to elect neighbors in several races, all of which are uncontested, from noon to 8 pm at the Aquinnah Town Office Building.
Like every other town on the Island, Aquinnah officials ask that voters authorize an override of Proposition 2½, a state law that limits how much a municipality can collect in property taxes. Aquinnah’s override is to allow the town to collect $150,000 to pay for repairs to the town hall parking lot as well as $300,000 for repairs to the trim at the firehouse and replacement of siding and windows at the town office building. Also part of Article 1, town officials ask that voters allow them to use $100,000 in real estate and personal property taxes to fund the Up-Island and Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School districts’ department for the next fiscal year. Each of those requests are planned to be discussed Tuesday and then voted on through the ballot on Thursday.
The warrant includes several expenditure requests, such as $137,500 to replace and upgrade computer networks, hardware cabling, and fund a software migration at town offices, town hall, and the police station; $125,000 to repair the restrooms at the Aquinnah Cliffs; and $46,300 to acquire and install a rapid food waste recycler, which was also on several other towns’ warrants.
Voters will also be asked to adopt several bylaws, such as one to designate Aquinnah as a Fourth Amendment Workplace Community, which allows the town to support efforts to protect employees from unlawful searches and require federal agents to have warrants to enter businesses; this was recently passed in Chilmark. Another bylaw seeks to establish rules about timeshares or fractional/interval ownership units. Kayla Darcy, town clerk, said that Aquinnah used to have one timeshare property in town but that’s no longer the case. Still, town officials want the bylaw on record should another timeshare pop up in town.
Article 17 asks that ownership of Aquinnah Circle North properties, including the house and restaurant next to the lighthouse, be transferred from the town to the Aquinnah Culture Center. Article 25 asks that voters approve the select board to expand the Carl Widdis Way property, four affordable housing units that formally opened in May, to develop the second phase of the project.
There are seven positions open in the town’s government: one member of the select board, one town clerk, one member of the board of health, two members of the planning board, one constable, and one library trustee. Julianne “Juli” Vanderhoop’s seat on the Aquinnah Select Board is up for reelection this year.
There are some murmurings among residents about the possibility of write-in candidates, but Darcy said that as town clerk, she doesn’t know of any write-in candidates currently.
There is a public Zoom session to learn more about the warrant articles on Monday, May 11 from noon to 2 pm.