The best ideas
After six weeks of hour-long conversations about the Island Plan, presented this February and March at the Edgartown Library, I come away with two central thoughts.
Time to reassess on housing
This page does not share the views of those who have imputed the vilest motives to leaders of the private nonprofit housing groups, whose efforts have been weakened so badly during the past five months.
The high price of affordability
The provision of needed affordable housing on Martha's Vineyard has become exclusively the responsibility of a series of public-private partnerships. Zoning and development rules prevent the market from contributing much, if at all.
Taxpayers contribute,...
Republican Scott Brown
Tuesday's special election to fill the Senate seat that is vacant because of the death of Edward M. Kennedy is an opportunity for Massachusetts voters, including us Vineyarders, to strike a blow for political...
The love doctor is in and online
If you're an Islander, young or old, looking for love in all of the few available places and unsuccessful, the Internet has you covered. If you've been to one potluck after another, till you...
Not the last word
Since early November, I've been working freelance for the Martha's Vineyard Commission to copy-edit and wrestle onto pages the final, printed version of the Island Plan. I note this at the outset so that...
Illusions, reality, and business
That there is an agricultural aura surrounding Morning Glory Farm and a bedrock, founding fathers, even 19th century ethos attached to the preaching of Jim Athearn in his community planner role should have no...
Nothing Smart about it
Nowadays, it's all about mileage and doing the right thing. When I was a kid, it was all about style, or at least our dim, dumb sense of style. Kids hankered after GTOs, Vettes,...
Cape Wind – not persuasive
Cape Wind has won an important victory in its pursuit of federal, state, local, and popular permission to build its 130-turbine project on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound. The environmental impact statement (EIS) released...
Clumsy and costly
There is no apparent link between the Steamship Authority's demand that Ralph Packer's Tisbury Towing get a license to transport freight to and from Martha's Vineyard with its tugs and barges and the boatline's...
Our incarcerated guests
Every review of the vital services provided the community at the Dukes County Jail and House of Correction revives the community debate over whether and when to replace and, almost certainly, expand the ancient...
Gotta shop
Until a few years ago, we worried that Islanders had got into the habit of shopping at the Hyannis Mall or BJs or the other mainland big box stores, especially for Christmas. Supporting this...
Thinking outside the bubble
There's been a surreal quality to all this past year's news of economic disasters. The most difficult idea for us to accept on the Island, I think, is that perhaps the value of real...
Change on the way
In the bowels of The Martha's Vineyard Times' techno center, things are humming. Change is on the way at mvtimes.com. In the nearly two decades that the newspaper has published a web site, it's...
Our 2009 to-do, no, must-do list
For several years, in the last newspaper of each year, we've asked Island leaders to write about the year ending and the one impending. This year, Nelson Sigelman, The Martha's Vineyard Times managing editor,...