News
In a decision that helps cement the ongoing efforts of Island towns and conservation groups to protect the ancient ways that crisscross the Vineyard like so many strands of history, a superior court judge ruled yesterday that Rogers Path in West Tisbury is open for public use.
“The public has the right to use the entire length and width of the way,” wrote the Hon. C. Brian McDonald, an associate justice of the superior court.
A battered and idling Island workforce may get some relief in the coming weeks: the 2010 U.S. Census has begun aggressively recruiting census workers for the decennial inventory of the American people. Census officials expect to hire hundreds of Islanders for the house-by-house head count here.
Nearly $2 million in federal clean water funding awarded this week to Oak Bluffs and Edgartown is expected to bring several long-awaited wastewater projects to fruition, including a sewer tie-in for the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and for the YMCA now nearing completion.
Federal authorities plan to open up almost 4,000 square nautical miles of ocean near the Vineyard for potential wind power generation.
A draft Request for Interest (RFI) map presented to a renewable energy task force meeting of state, local and federal representatives on Wednesday identifies a vast arc of ocean, extending from the Rhode Island border, southwest of the Island, across to the south of the Vineyard and Nantucket, then running north and east to the entrance to Nantucket Sound.
After hearing an appeal from an oysterman who had his license suspended for fishing after hours, West Tisbury selectmen decided this week that an overhaul of town shellfish regulations is in order.
Devin Greene’s appeal of a three-day suspension came before selectmen at their meeting Wednesday afternoon. The suspension was ordered by the town shellfish committee last month after a member of the committee had seen Mr. Greene oystering on the Tisbury Great Pond after the 4 p.m. deadline.
Corrections
A story last Friday’s Gazette about the centennial of the grounding of the schooner Mertie B. Crowley misspelled Levi Jackson’s first name.
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An interview in last Friday’s Gazette with the Rev. Vincent G. (Chip) Seadale, the new rector at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, reported incorrectly on where his wife Colleen works. She is a bereavement counselor and therapist for Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard.
The Gazette regrets the errors.