The Martha’s Vineyard Commission has an important role to play when it comes to planning and protection of the Vineyard environment, a majority of people polled by the Vineyard Gazette Harris Interactive survey said.

The commission was singled out for special questioning in the survey which polled more than 500 seasonal and permanent residents on issues ranging from quality of life to cell phone service.

The Vineyard was a different place 25 years ago. The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank was barely two years old. The Martha’s Vineyard Commission, a unique regional planning agency founded by an act of the Massachusetts legislature with special powers to plan and regulate development, was a little more than a decade old. These were the late Reagan years and the national economy was booming, as the U.S. had entered one of the longest periods of sustained economic growth since World War II.

In the late 1980s, with real estate prices on the rise and new building starts at an all-time high on Martha’s Vineyard, the Gazette commissioned a poll of seasonal and permanent residents to gauge public sentiment around development. The results revealed a deep and widely-held concern about the fast pace of growth and its implications for the Island environment and quality of life, a concern that cut across every demographic category, part-time and full-time residents alike.

Except for the baroque chirping from the rafters, the Tabernacle is empty and quiet enough to make one want to whisper. It is 40 minutes before the Island Community Chorus begins to rehearse for its July 6 summer concert. Music director Peter Boak arrives carrying a collapsible stepstool and music stand. He climbs to the stage to arrange and consider.

Every morning Rosileia Mandelli wakes up to bird song. Actually, bird symphony might be a better description for the trilling and twittering that emanates from her kitchen in the early hours of the day.

Alongside family portraits and vacation photos, six bird cages hang on the kitchen and living room walls of her Oak Bluffs home. Adriano, her husband of 13 years, has raised and bred canaries since he was a boy growing up in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, the westernmost city in the state of Paraná.

Our Island Club, a consumer savings program that raises money for local organizations, contributed more than $50,000 to Island charities last year.