Festival Network, the national entertainment promoter that has held concerts in Ocean Park featuring the Boston Pops for the past two years, has yet to pay approximately $5,000 owed to the town for use of the park last summer, and questions have surfaced about whether the company will be holding a concert on the Vineyard next summer.
In another indication of the struggling economy both here and across the nation, Oak Bluffs town leaders on Tuesday reported a projected budget shortfall of $336,000 for the current fiscal year, due largely to declining revenues tied to the sharp downturn in new construction.
The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School hockey team rolled over Bridgewater-Raynham by a score of 5-0 on Wednesday to win both ends of a home-and-home series with the Trojans and run their record to an impressive 6-1-1 on the season.
As they near the half-way mark of the season, the boys’ hockey team is almost a lock to qualify for the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association tournament.
Island police this week announced the new Martha’s Vineyard Tactical Response Team, an elite, highly trained group of officers that will assist the police departments during critical incidents such as hostage situations, searches for armed subjects and civic disorder.
The town of West Tisbury, a breeding ground for property tax rancor in recent years, had a record high $289,000 in tax abatements in 2008 based on approximately $68 million in total adjusted property values.
While town officials say the high number of abatements can be tracked directly to the current triennial real estate revaluation and a spike in waterfront property values, some residents insist that they signal a continued level of discontent with the current assessment system and the company hired to help conduct the revaluations.
With the country in a recession, all six Vineyard towns yesterday rushed to file applications to receive funding through an ambitious economic recovery plan from President-elect Barack Obama that recalls the late Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal plan of 1932.
