REASONS TO VOTE NO

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Two of the qualities of life in our community in Vineyard Haven will be affirmed by voting no on Article I to permit the sale of alcohol in the town of Tisbury on April 27: our grandchildren and “getting away from it all.”

I often tease my students that in writing for an English class, the writer can use language playfully — metaphor to create nuance and alliteration to draw images. History writing, I tell them, is intended to be as a dry as a bone: a recitation of the facts. Though now we know that history is an intertwined story of multiple perspectives where the voices of many should be heard, the debate continues over the form that voice should take.

It took 10 years for the voters of West Tisbury to make up their collective mind about what to do with the historic town hall building, left to our care by previous generations. Its maintenance had been ignored for decades, not by any malign intent, until it became obvious to enough people that something had to be done. So after an extended and bumpy decision process, we now have an impressive building to meet our needs for the 21st century and beyond, and one that more than respects the 19th century external sensibility of the original structure.