Charitable Giving Declines on Island

Vineyard Institutions Worry the Squeeze Will Eliminate Services in Competitive Market for Needed Contributions

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

It\'s known as the giving season, but as holiday lights glow along darkened main streets and the clock winds down on 2002, an array of vital Vineyard institutions report a troubling trend: Charitable contributions are down this year.

Flash Comes Home for the Holidays

By C.K. WOLFSON

It was a blustery mid-October evening when Pond View Farm staff member Mauricio Brandao found the little school pony standing in the corner of the field. Flash, the sweet-natured, 18-year-old, chestnut gelding - everybody's favorite - was refusing to come in for his nightly feeding, refusing to move at all or bear any weight on his right leg.

Housing Opens New Life for Two Families

By MANDY LOCKE

The phone call came at just the right moment for one Island family.

The couple - we'll call them Joe and Sarah - was being driven out of yet another rental, this time because of the owner's decision to put the house on the market. They know the routine all too well, having moved more than a dozen times in their eight years of living on the Island.

SSA Board Settles Bothersome Issue Of Cost Allocation

By JULIA WELLS

At a meeting marked by general good humor and a series of brisk business decisions, Steamship Authority governors voted without dissent yesterday to adopt a modified cost allocation policy that puts to bed an internal accounting issue that has been at the center of a simmering political feud for the last year.

"I feel we should vote on this and get it done," said Nantucket governor Grace Grossman, who surprised her Vineyard critics by leading a move to vote for the policy.

Pressure to Delay Airport Master Plan Vote May Jeopardize Final Approval of Study

By JONATHAN BURKE

Public pressure to delay a vote could prevent adoption of the proposed master plan for Martha's Vineyard Airport, the product of a two-year, $332,370 study.

Conspicuous by its absence from the plan is the failure to designate airport land for a new county jail, a concept which enjoys the support of many in the community.

Early Retirement Program Attracts 26 County Officials

By JULIA WELLS

A highway superintendent, an executive secretary, a librarian and a jail administrator are among a long list of Vineyarders who will take early retirement this year under a program made possible by an act of the state legislature.

Approved last spring as a cost-cutting measure and signed into law by acting Gov. Jane Swift, the law cleared the way for towns and counties to offer early retirement to employees.