Oak Bluffs voters next week will decide how many people should be allowed on the back of a rental moped in the latest attempt to further regulate the controversial two-wheeled tourist vehicles. 

Residents will consider the proposed moped bylaw change at the Nov. 4 special town meeting, which includes several other bylaw amendments on the 14-article warrant. The town meeting will be held at the Performing Arts Center at the regional high school at 7 p.m. 

Proposed by the select board, the new moped bylaw would limit rental mopeds to only one rider in an attempt to make the rentals safer. Currently, renters are allowed to have both a driver and a passenger on a single moped, a practice that town officials worry contributes to more crashes. 

The article would also reduce the maximum number of moped rental licenses from five to three, and cap the number of moped registration decals the select board can issue each year to 178. The bylaw is limited to only rental mopeds and does not regulate e-bikes. 

Moped rentals have been one of the Island’s most contentious issues for decades and Vineyarders say that tourists often aren’t able to safely navigate the Island’s narrow, sandy roads. Recent debate has mounted in the wake of several moped-related crashes, including one where a Florida woman died in 2024 after her moped collided with an oncoming vehicle.

The select board held a public hearing in early September on a draft of the bylaw and several select board members expressed safety concerns about current moped regulations on the Island.

Select board chair Dion Alley said in an interview this week he fears visitors aren’t always aware of the dangers of mopeds when they rent them. He wants to help local renters run their businesses more safely.

“Unfortunately for some, [renting a moped] ends in tragedy, and that’s not what we want,” he said. “We, as an Island, and we, as a town, don’t want to leave that impact on people.”

An Island group called the Rental Moped Action Committee, formerly known as Mopeds Are Dangerous, has been advocating for decades to tighten up restrictions on moped rentals, with some wanting rentals off the table entirely.

Former Chilmark police chief Tim Rich has long organized the Rental Moped Action Committee. He saw several gruesome rental moped crashes over the course of his career, including one involving his own son, who ran over a driver ejected from a moped and into his car’s path. The moped driver did not survive.

Mr. Rich praised the select board for its efforts and sees the bylaw change as a way to make the Island safer.

“Ideally, if there was a way to make [rental mopeds] go away, that would be my first choice, but I’m a realist,” he said.

But John Leone, who is partial owner of all three moped rental agencies in Oak Bluffs, which are the only moped rental shops left on the Vineyard, called the proposed bylaw change an attempted “taking” of his businesses by the town.

“This is just another way of putting us out of business,” he said.

Mr. Leone is also not convinced ending two-seater mopeds will make the Island safer.

“It’s going to put more scooters on the road, because a couple would have to take two mopeds instead of one,” he said.

Mopeds aside, most of the articles on the warrant are part of an effort to update the town’s general bylaws. 

The first several articles seek to update and amend municipal personnel bylaws regulating, for example, appointment procedure for town employees. 

Also included are updated bylaws designed to standardize and consolidate documentation of existing committees’ current functions, including the finance and advisory board and the capital program committee. If the latter article passes, the capital program committee will be renamed the capital improvement committee. This is to avoid confusion with the community preservation committee.

Another article would incorporate the town administrator’s role in the Oak Bluffs bylaws ahead of town administrator Deborah Potter’s planned departure from the town’s top position in 2026. It would also codify the assistant town administrator’s ability to act as the town administrator during unscheduled absences or during longer vacancies with approval of the select board.

There is also an article seeking to update the town’s bylaw protecting wetlands. The most significant change would be the addition of “ecological climate resilience criteria as defined by the Department of Environmental Protection” to the list of interests protected by the bylaw.

Mr. Alley said that a lot of these bylaw changes will simply codify already existing features of Oak Bluffs’s town government.

“Not everything has to be a material change, but it’s things that have to go back to the voters, because it is in the bylaw,” Mr. Alley said.

Mr. Alley said that the special town meeting warrant doesn’t accomplish as much as he had hoped. The warrant residents will vote on at special town meeting does not include a number of originally proposed articles, including a new bylaw aiming to address dilapidated buildings in town and a new set of restrictions on events at residential properties. 

Earlier this year, officials said they were too crunched for time to get the articles in shape for approval.

“We didn’t get done as much as I would have liked to, or the board would have liked to, but it’s a start,” Mr. Alley said.

How voters participate at special town meeting on Nov. 4 will look a little different than it has in the past. This meeting will use electronic voting, a first for Oak Bluffs. Residents will use remote control-style clickers to vote instead of raising their yellow cards.

Oak Bluffs town clerk Amy Del Torto attended the select board meeting Tuesday to introduce the technology. She mentioned that Aquinnah has used electronic voting in the past and that most of the clickers to be used at the meeting are on loan from Aquinnah.

Ms. Del Torto said the technology allows for immediate tallying of votes, making for a more efficient meeting. She also said it provides voters with more anonymity than raising a yellow card.

“It would allow anonymous voting, which would hopefully encourage more people to come to town meeting, and also encourage more of a real vote... without social pressures of neighbors and other voters seeing how they’re voting,” she said.

Oak Bluffs special town meeting takes place on Tuesday, Nov. 4 at the Performing Arts Center at the regional high school at 7 p.m.

Editors note: the article was updated regarding details about where the meeting will take place. It will be held at the  Performing Arts Center at the regional high school.