Last night I attended a meeting of the selectmen about the plans for the reconstruction of Beach Road. While there were lot of differing opinions coming from every corner of the room, and conflicting opinions about what works and what doesn’t, there was an almost unanimous agreement about which of the three options presented was preferred — option two, the one called the “hybrid option.”
At the end of the evening, after all this discussion, two of our three selectmen voted against this choice, citing their own personal opinions about an alternative they that liked better.
Sometimes a community is divided on an issue and a selectman has to make a tough call that might alienate half the town, but that is not the case here. Remarkably, dozens, perhaps hundreds of members of this community, volunteering their time, attending meetings and hearings, reviewing plans and reports from local and state agencies, have managed to produce a plan that enjoys wide support.
I would like to remind our elected officials that they were chosen to represent the town, not to replace it.
I appreciate the fact that their objections are sincere; I have a few of my own and it is altogether possible that one or more of these alternatives are better. But if that’s the case, one has to make a cogent and winning argument for it. Failing that, an elected representative of the town needs to either vote for the community’s choice or abstain.
At this point, I would urge our selectmen to take this up at their next meeting and reconsider this willful and arbitrary decision. If not, then the town should call a special meeting to allow a formal vote by the whole community on this important issue.
Lacking that, I would recommend that the planning board refer this issue to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission as a development of regional impact, which it manifestly is.
Henry Stephenson
Vineyard Haven
Comments
Submit this to the commission
tom hodgson wtSubmit this to the commission for a decision? That makes no sense at all. This "SUP" thing is their proposal in the first place, so how could they possibly act in a neutral manner?
I couldn't agree more!
Katherine Scott TisburyI couldn't agree more!
Plus, let's waste even more time and lose even more state money!!
Yesterday's vote on this issue was to my mind absurd (Read the wording of the motion and see if it is clear what the selectmen are saying and voting on) and reflected nothing so much as the pressure selectmen are getting--- from members of the Visioning Group on the one side, the Commission in the person of Bill Veno on the other to get on their SUP train, and general fears and timidity about alienating any businesspeople by approving of any takings to get a decent roadway, sidewalk, and bike path between Five Corners and the sea wall. The Visioning Group is pushing their desire to see an SUP very hard as a total consensus view, as expressed by Henry Stephenson's somewhat overheated letter expressing outrage that any selectmen might not have been convinced by the group's arguments. It is not a consensus view. I, too, remain unconvinced by their arguments, especially after taking a leisurely walk between Five Corners and the Sea Wall and back, and then looking at the DOT's January 205 plan (which, IMO, makes eminent sense).
Consensus of whom, one may ask. I find notable the number of column inches the Gazette devoted to Mr. Veno's views in its Friday report. Mr. Veno was apparently speaking for himself and Mr. Turner, not the whole Commission, which has not taken Beach Road under advisement AFAIK. Furthermore, my understanding is that the SUP plan being pushed by some in the MVC goes around the back along the Lagoon, so the idea of a Beach Road SUP is AFAIK a changeling suddenly discovered on the doorstep of either the Stone Building or the KC Theater.
In sum, the selectmen yesterday (Oct. 6) made a very silly decision, voting on an incomprehensible motion. I hope the DOT does the right thing and follows their own sensible plan to resolve current issues with the stretch between Five Corners and the sea wall and to give the town of Tisbury a decent and WORKABLE (not ideology-driven) roadway, bike path, and sidewalk that follows the symmetrical plan.
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