Remy Tumin
Thimble Farm is now expected to go on the market after a community coalition that had formed last year to buy the farm failed to raise enough money.
The group was called the Martha’s Vineyard Farm Project and the goal was to buy the 37-acre farm that is currently leased by Whippoorwill Farm owner Andrew Woodruff.
But farm owner Eric Grubman, a seasonal resident of Katama, confirmed that the coalition was unable to realize a plan to buy the farm and turn it into a nonprofit food-producing operation.
After two years of planning and proposals, Tea Lane Farm has a new tenant farmer.
Krishana Collins was awarded the Tea Lane Farm lease Friday evening. The vote was 5-3.
The joint vote was taken between the board of selectmen and the town Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank Commission advisory board. The vote was between two candidates, Ms. Collins and Rusty Gordon and Sarah Crittenden, who proposed a vegetable farm.
Ms. Collins plans to grow lilies, zinnias, bok choy and salad greens.
Tea Lane Farm could soon be home to pick-your-own strawberries or fields of thousands of lilies and zinnias. Finalists for tenant farmer of the historic 18th century farm presented their plans to the Chilmark selectmen this week.
The three finalists — Rusty Gordon and Sarah Crittenden, Krishana Collins and Allen Healy — were interviewed at a joint meeting between the selectmen and Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank town advisory board on Tuesday night.
The long-running debate over dogs on Lambert’s Cove Beach isn’t over yet.
West Tisbury voters, who agreed three weeks ago at their annual town meeting to let residents walk their dogs on the beach on summer mornings, are being asked back to a special town meeting on June 5 to decide whether they want to pay to enforce good behavior by owners and their pets. The warrant is expected to ask voters to back funding for a seasonal assistant animal control officer to patrol the beach, as well as to consider bylaw changes addressing leashes and litter.
By REMY TUMIN
The cost of doing business is going up in Aquinnah this year, where voters will face a sizeable increase in the annual town operating budget at their annual town meeting Tuesday night, followed by a large general override question at the annual town election the next day. Aquinnah is the only town on the Island to seek a Proposition 2 1/2 general override this year.
“It’s a reality that it has to happen — costs are going up for all of us,” selectman Jim Newman said this week.
By REMY TUMIN
The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) has no authority to build a casino on the Vineyard under state or federal law, town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport said in an opinion this week.
The opinion was requested by the chairman of the Aquinnah selectmen three weeks ago, following an announcement by the tribe that it would consider some kind of casino operation on the Vineyard as it scrambles to compete for one of three state gambling licenses expected to be issued in the coming months.