Martha’s Vineyard is growing rapidly more populous, older and more diverse according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Overall, the population of Dukes County grew 10.3 per cent in the decade 2000-2010, well down on the 29 per cent growth of the previous decade, but still the highest by far of any county in Massachusetts.
Fourth graders at the Tisbury School and their teacher Pam Herman last week presented the American Red Cross with $4,730 to support the Japan Relief Efforts after the earthquake and tsunami disaster. The children organized an event called Jump for Japan, in which they jumped rope and asked friends and family to donate an amount of money for each jump, sometimes a dollar, sometimes more.
The good news for the Vineyard economy is that in the first three months of this year banks loaned some $240 million for new mortgages, well above the numbers for the previous two recession years.
Even better, said Chris Wells, president and chief executive officer of the Martha’s Vineyard Savings Bank, most of that was for new purchases rather than refinancing of existing loans, the biggest part of the mortgage business during the downturn.
On first glimpse, through the trees along Northern Pines Road in Vineyard Haven, the new building might be taken for an incongruously placed sports grandstand.
It’s a huge inclined rectangle, propped on poles, eight feet off the ground at the front, 28 feet at the back, looking out across a pretty green field.
Just two weeks after it finished accepting proposals from wind power developments in waters south of the Vineyard, the federal government has more than halved the area in which it will allow wind farms.
Citing concerns from fishermen, the state and others about potential adverse impacts, particularly on fishing and migrating marine mammals, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has reduced the size of the prospective area from 3,000 square miles to 1,300.
Tisbury town leaders and those involved in building the town’s new $7.4 million emergency services building are in the process of vetting a new construction supervisor, after the former one was sacked over the trouble-plagued project.
The former construction supervisor was terminated at the town’s request, in response to a long list of faults in the building, which have delayed the project. An interim supervisor is in place, but has yet to be approved to take over permanently.
