News
Tech Center Dedicated
To Professor Terry Jewett
Paraphrasing the late Prof. Terry Jewett, who thought that every day was a great day for sailing, family, friends, colleagues and students gathered Nov. 17 in the student lounge of Monroe College in New Rochelle, N.Y. to dedicate the Jewett Technology Center and to celebrate the life of the popular IT professor who died suddenly, May 3, 2009, while cycling in Camden, Maine.
Nov. 16 would have been Mr. Jewett’s 66th birthday.
DCPC Hearing
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission will hold a public hearing on designation of the land zone of the Island wind district of critical planning concern on Thursday, Dec. 10 at 7:30 p.m., at the commission office in the Olde Stone Building in Oak Bluffs.
Red Stocking Fund
Applications to receive assistance from the Red Stocking Fund, the annual holiday clothing, food and gift drive for Island children from birth through eighth grade, are due by Tuesday, Dec. 8.
Applications can be picked up at any of the Island elementary schools, at most of the local banks, the tribal headquarters, the Boys’ and Girls’ Club, the Health Access Program, the Vineyard Food Pantry, and at the Department of Family and Children.
Admitting the mistakes of the past and pledging a new future of transparency in their financial affairs, leaders of the Island Affordable Housing Fund took the floor at the Vineyard Haven library on Wednesday night and faced the public over what one member of the audience called a breach of public trust, when the fund defaulted on its payments to the county rental assistance program early this fall.
“How could you do this? There are single mothers using this rental program,” declared Penelope Dickens, a renter who also uses the program.
The Martha’s Vineyard Hospital this week came a step closer to realizing a three-year plan to reshuffle the Island’s mental health and walk-in clinic services, and gain extra parking space at the same time.
The plan involves a three-way deal, in which land adjacent to the hospital, now owned by the state Department of Mental Health (DMH) will be handed over to the hospital to be used as a parking lot.
On the eve of a public hearing and subsequent formal adoption of the Island Plan, a comprehensive blueprint for the future that has been on the drawing board at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission for more than three years, the Edgartown selectmen have said they cannot support the plan in its current form.
“I think it’s a mistake to rush something that we’re going to live with for the next 50 years,” said selectman Arthur Smadbeck. “I think it deserves a lot more attention before we adopt it.”