Go to just about any meeting to do with any aspect of government on the Vineyard and it feels like an AARP convention. Just like the rest of America, the Vineyard is pretty much a gerontocracy these days, a government of the people by the elders.
So, where are the young faces? Who are the future leaders? Are Island youth disengaged, or just otherwise engaged? And what vision do they have for the future?
Citing diverse issues from bird strikes and toxic unexploded munitions to ancient spirituality and hard economics, Islanders lined up on Wednesday night to express their concerns about the possible effects of planned commercial wind farms near the Vineyard.
Well over 100 people attended the public hearing called to receive feedback on the Oceans Management Plan, billed by the state government as a first-in-the-nation attempt to manage all development in Massachusetts waters. But just one issue dominated proceedings: wind generation.
In an extraordinary display of unity, the Vineyard’s six towns, the Dukes County Commission and Martha’s Vineyard Commission have formed an unbroken front to oppose state plans to permit huge commercial wind-farming operations in Vineyard waters.
They will do it through a moratorium on all large-scale wind power developments on the Island and in surrounding waters, which will come into force in two weeks’ time.
It’s the winter of year 2016, and somewhere in the ocean south of Martha’s Vineyard, 17 turbines are turning in the cold wind, generating enough electricity to meet all the power needs of the Island.
They are not owned by some profit-driven corporation, these turbines, but by the residents of this place. And people’s power bills are about half what they were in the bad old days when power was imported from dirty, fossil-fuel-burning power stations on the mainland, and $80 odd million of Island money was exported each year in return.
The Steamship Authority foresees another tough economic year ahead, with its 2010 preliminary draft budget projecting a further decrease in operating revenue.
The draft, presented at Tuesday’s meeting of the board of governors on Nantucket, expects passenger revenues to decline 2.1 per cent and freight revenue to fall 4.6 per cent.
Even when offset by an expected 11.4 per cent rise in rent revenue from barge operations, the overall decline is expected to be 2.1 per cent. Total operating revenue is expected to be just over $81 million.
Take a quick look at the annual town reports for Tisbury and Oak Bluffs and it becomes immediately apparent why the towns have begun investigating the prospect of cutting back and/or merging their police departments.
They are extraordinarily expensive.
