Julia Wells
When campers from the Vineyard's own Camp Jabberwocky went on an unusual tour in Canada this year, their slogan was a single question that was at once jocular and earnest. "How's your news?" they inquired in on-the-street interviews with everyday people.
As the year 2001 comes to a close, it is perhaps an apt question for the Vineyard: How's our news?
This is how it was:
New Bedford SSA Maneuvers Fail
By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer
The Falmouth Steamship Authority governor checked the city of New Bedford in its own game of ferry chess yesterday, refusing to honor an 11th-hour request from the Whaling City to extend a trial high-speed ferry project, after the city solicitor abruptly pulled the plug on the project two weeks ago.
How many pounds of flour, how many pounds of sugar, how many pounds of butter have passed through this place in the last 37 years? How many scones, how many shortbreads, how many jars of beach plum jelly, how many rhubarb pies?
No one ever counted. And no one ever wrote down the recipes.
The developers of the Down Island Golf Club turned up the heat on the Martha's Vineyard Commission last night, hammering home the threat of a large low-income housing project if the golf club plan is not approved.
Vineyard Officials Clash in Fight Over Boat Line Appointment; Political Dialogue Grows Ugly
By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer
Political chaos broke out across the Vineyard this week in the aftermath of the surprise vote by the Dukes County Commission last week to replace J.B. Riggs Parker, the Island Steamship Authority governor who has presided over the most divisive period at the public boat line in recent memory.
Meet Kathryn Roessel: New SSA Governor Brings Law to Post
By JULIA WELLS
Her name is Kathryn but she goes by Cassie. She is 47 but looks 29. She wears traditional Vineyard attire: jeans, windbreaker and a silver scallop-shell necklace. She grew up in Pittsford, N.Y., and her speech has the flattened O's that are uniquely associated with upstate New York in general and Rochester in particular. She has a Cairn terrier named Tugboat.