News
For close to two hours, in the new documenatry Under Our Skin, the bad news about Lyme Disease was laid out before a capacity crowd at the Chilmark Community Center on Wednesday night. And it was very bad.
The good news came afterwards, and it was just a little bit good. But perhaps we should be grateful for anything which might lead to better treatment of this most difficult and mysterious of illnesses, which statistics suggest is probably more prevalent on the Vineyard than anywhere else in America, if not the world
The music is over, the roadies have taken up the stage and the crowds are long gone, but the glow of Sunday’s Martha’s Vineyard Festival at Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs remains for many who saw or participated in the marathon 10-hour concert featuring acts including the Boston Pops and Gladys Knight.
“It was a howling success, truly a magical night on the Vineyard,” said Renee Balter, a board member for Friends of Oak Bluffs, one of several nonprofits that sold tickets to the event as part of a fund-raising agreement with concert organizers.
One of the great public views on the Vineyard at the Tashmoo Overlook is disappearing behind a wall of willows, but instead of calling in tree surgeons to open the vista up, the trees’ owners have called in their lawyers.
The Tisbury selectmen complained on Tuesday night that despite more than a year of attempts to negotiate a solution, the owners of the trees, the Thomas and Ginny Payette family of Tashmoo Farm, remained intransigent and have now refused to talk further, except through their legal representative.
Is the Vineyard over-policed? The subject comes up frequently — in conversations at dinner parties and at annual town meeting time each year, when voters are asked to spend money on new cruisers and ever-expanding budgets for six town police departments.
The answer depends entirely on your point of view.
But here are the facts.
There are currently 109 full-time sworn officers in Dukes County, Martha’s Vineyard and the town of Gosnold.
Despite sky-high fuel prices and a slumping economy, early numbers released by the Martha’s Vineyard Airport this week show a summer season only slightly slower than last year. “We’re staying encouraged here,” said airport manager Sean Flynn this week.
Mr. Flynn reported a 6.4 per cent drop over last year in the number of commercial passengers leaving the Vineyard in May, June and July.
Susan Wilson is a runner. She runs everywhere she goes — Egypt, France, Viet Nam, England, her home in Princeton, N.J. and Chilmark. They’re all good places to accelerate her body past a walk. In fact, at 78, she was the fastest female in her age category in Chilmark Road Race last Saturday. She has won that honor 11 times, in her 60s and her 70s.