Commentary
I moved to the Vineyard in 1966 and have been passionate about fishing from the beaches for more than 35 years. Over the years, I have seen many changes on the Island and have been especially affected by the loss of access to too many of these beaches.
When you’re a kid and are near water and see a stone, you skip it. Maybe you are lucky one day and you find a slate mountain. To a kid it seems to be a mountain, but it is a pretty big hill — or maybe it’s just a piece of a hill. You are on a path in a woods, it’s hilly terrain with lots of rocks and boulders jutting out into your way. The path winds around, slippery in places, for there are some tiny waterfalls here and there, and they make everything damp. You are 10, maybe 11 years old.
House bill 254 is not constitutional and if up held would set a dangerous precedent, potentially affecting all waterfront landowners.
Neither surf nor turf, land or sea, salt marshes are a spongy, mucky, stinky in-between zone full of biting, stinging, snapping creatures. Yet they are stunning to the eye — think Poucha Pond, Mattakesett Bay, Nashaquitsa Pond. And more importantly they are one of the most productive ecosystems on earth.
Salt marshes — our local coastal wetlands — provide recreation, jobs, human health and safety protections, and an incredible array of environmental benefits.
Community Services at Half-Century Mark
LISA’S ORDEAL
Editors, Vineyard Gazette:
I would love to talk about how Lisa Scannell, known to many as Lisa Ben David, is a dedicated member of the Martha’s Vineyard equine community, about how her passion and discipline is contagious, or how her knowledge of all things horse related is never ending. But none of this is news to anyone. Anyone who knows Lisa knows that’s she is a strong, driven individual who never cuts her students any slack in training them to be the best horse people that they can be.