Thirty years ago the town of Tisbury moved several departments into “temporary” accommodations, grandly called the town hall annex, opposite the elementary school on West Spring street. All this time later, they are still there.
Now, the town is looking to move them again, sometime around the end of this year, into alternative temporary accommodations, so the West Spring street site can be redeveloped into Tisbury’s new emergency services facility.
We are all the products of a series of accidents, really. Every human is a personification of chaos theory. As a butterfly flaps its wings and sets in train a hurricane, an act of generosity 50 years ago in Kenya gives America a President.
To explain. There were two American teachers, Helen Roberts and Elizabeth Mooney living in Nairobi in the late 1960s, and they had taken a shine to a bright young student. They wanted to foster his brilliance and they paid for him to fly to America to continue his education.
That Kenyan man was Barack Obama Sr.
President Obama and his wife Michelle will leave the Vineyard tonight, two days ahead of schedule, to attend the funeral of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in Boston.
Although the funeral mass, at which Mr. Obama will deliver a eulogy for his friend, mentor and ally, is on Saturday, the first couple will fly out the previous evening because of concerns about approaching bad weather.
Tropical Storm Danny is forecasted to affect the Island on Saturday.
President Obama and his family arrived on the Vineyard on Sunday afternoon for a one-week vacation and received a typically warm welcome from Islanders, despite the fact that the arrival was closed to the public and surrounded by tight security.
Summer White House spokesmen yesterday blamed bad weather for the closed arrival — the first hurricane of the season was churning in the Atlantic far offshore — but suggested that Mr. Obama could be more accessible in future.
The operators of the high-speed ferry between Martha’s Vineyard and New Bedford want to abandon the service in the winter months, following a recession-induced collapse in the numbers of riders.
New England Fast Ferry manager Mike Glasfeld told Steamship Authority governors this week that the viability of the winter operation depended on contractors commuting to the Vineyard. Last winter, because of the slowdown in construction and other activity, the ferry moved an average of one quarter of the passengers it needed to break even.
In sharp contrast to previous Presidential visits, the public will be shut out when Barack Obama and his family arrive on the Vineyard somewhere in a five-hour window on Sunday afternoon.
As the Martha’s Vineyard Airport and later a White House spokeswoman confirmed yesterday, there will be no chance for the media, or, more importantly, Islanders to see the First Family.
“It will be what’s called a closed arrival,” said the airport manager Sean Flynn.
