News
The statistical evidence shows the real estate market on Martha’s Vineyard remains in a hole, but the anecdotal evidence suggests it might at last be beginning to climb out.
Figures for the period up to the start of August this year show sales numbers and prices both down sharply compared with the same period in 2007 — which was itself a bad year for real estate.
The median price paid for family homes to August 4 was down in all the Island towns, according to figures from Banker and Tradesman online, which compiles its figures from sale documents.
It was hard to believe on a casual drive through the Camp Ground down Jordan Crossing and around Trinity Park encircling the Methodist Tabernacle on Tuesday afternoon, the day before Illumination Night, that some 24 hours later cottages on these same streets would be dressed in their finest lanterns and lit to the highest heavens in what has arguably become the most enchanting night on the Island — Grand Illumination Night.
In the annals of thankless jobs on the Vineyard, the Oak Bluffs Firemen’s Civic Association’s effort to organize the annual fireworks display — a staple of summer on the Vineyard for over three decades — ranks right up there with moped dealer and traffic cop.
In a move which acknowledges almost a year of bureaucratic missteps, Aquinnah selectmen have announced their plan to scrap an energy district of critical planning concern, created to help push through a pioneering bylaw on wind turbines.
But those involved have voiced a determination not to give up on an initiative praised as much for its concept as it was damned for its presentation during multiple appearances on the town meeting floor over the past year.
Back in the year 2000, Nantucket town clerk Catherine Flanagan Stover learned a startling statistic: that for each person not recorded on the street list — the official record of town population — the town lost some $1,100 in state and federal funds each year.
Ms. Stover, the keeper of Nantucket’s street list, quickly became convinced that the island was missing out on millions of dollars because people for various reasons were not on that list. The same was probably true for the Vineyard.
The Edgartown library has been provisionally awarded $4.59 million as part of an omnibus bond bill that authorizes a total of $137.5 million for public library construction across the state.
The grant would help pay for an expansion project for the library on North Water street with a price tag of $15 million.
The library began action on the project in 2004 when the town agreed to buy the Capt. Warren house next door to the library on North Water street.