Boat Line Forum Pushes Plan to Boost Passenger Traffic with Fast Ferries

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

A plan to pump up passenger traffic to the Vineyard and pay millions of dollars to develop the port of New Bedford in the years ahead was pitched to the people of the Island this week as a way to increase operating revenues for the public boat line, reduce car traffic in the port towns of Falmouth and Hyannis and open up more space on ferries for Island residents.

Golf Course Hearings Loom

Ethics Commission Clears MVC Members of Conflict

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

In a clean sweep that leaves the 21-member Martha's Vineyard Commission intact for an intensive development review of the Down Island Golf Club project, the state ethics commission has cleared five members of the commission of conflict of interest.

"I've been cleared," said commission member James Athearn yesterday.

Oak Bluffs Leader Loses Vote at MVC

Commission Rejects by a Wide Margin Rusczyk Push to Change Commission On Kupersmith Housing Development

By JULIA WELLS

An Oak Bluffs selectman was rebuffed last week when he urged the Martha's Vineyard Commission to reverse its decision to go to court to compel a regional review of Connecticut developer Corey Kupersmith's affordable housing project.

SSA Public Hearing Set Tuesday at Crucial Stage In Planning for Future

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

The Steamship Authority will host a public hearing on the Vineyard early next week, marking a crucial juncture in a tangled discussion about the future of the boat line that was established to serve the two Islands - and about the role of expanded ferry service between the Vineyard and New Bedford.

The hearing begins at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in the Oak Bluffs School.

His own story is told through the stories of others: A World War II aviator whose face and hands were burned beyond recognition; a young boy who was abandoned by his mother and locked away in an institution for 20 years because of a facial deformity; identical twins who were the first successful kidney transplant patients in history.

Eleven years ago, Dr. Joseph E. Murray won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his pioneering kidney transplant work in the 1950s.

There is no access for people with disabilities on the New Bedford passenger ferry Schamonchi, and a Cape Cod advocacy group recently filed a forma