Public Hearings Open on SSA

Special Task Force Headed By Retired Judge Rudolph Kass Begins Deliberations on Future Boat Line in New Bedford

By JULIA WELLS

A special state task force charged with studying ferry and transportation problems on the Cape and Islands will hold a set of public hearings beginning next week in New Bedford, and continuing through the month of February on Nantucket, Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard.

A new plan to protect the rugged and pristine north shore of the Vineyard is expected to be unveiled next week.

The leading spokesman for the Herring Creek Farm Trust told the Edgartown planning board this week that the sale of the farm to a private buyer now hinges on the board's approval of a luxury home subdivision plan for the farm.

Steamship Authority governors unveiled an ambitious business vision for the 21st century yesterday that calls for a new emphasis on summer visitors to both Islands with more passenger service, reduced car service, streamlined high-speed ferries from distant ports and a price tag that is potentially sky-high.

And when they exhaled from that, the boat line board voted to ink a $1.75 million deal to buy the New Bedford passenger ferry Schamonchi.

The Herring Creek Farm Trust has filed a new lawsuit against the Martha's Vineyard Commission, appealing a recent decision by the commission to eliminate a private beach association from a development plan for the farm. The 32-lot luxury home development plan for the farm was approved by the commission in November. The approval was accompanied by some 22 conditions. One condition eliminated a 250-member private beach association from the plan.