News
Oak Bluffs selectmen reacted with laughter but also some worry on Tuesday to a proposal from a Hollywood production company to shoot a pilot in town for a reality docu-drama depicting the lives of young people spending the summer on the Vineyard.
A majority of selectmen felt the proposal from 25/7 Productions about filming of a program called, appropriately enough, The Vineyard, was hilarious bordering on the absurd, noting it was clearly written by someone pitching a television show and not someone who has spent much time on the Vineyard.
There was good news and bad news this week for the YMCA of Martha’s Vineyard, as the nonprofit announced that executive director John Clese is stepping down, and that construction of the new $11 million YMCA on the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road is set to begin in the coming weeks.
Mr. Clese will end his work for the YMCA on July 1, said president Chuck Hughes. Meanwhile, ground-breaking on the new 38,000 square-foot-building is tentatively set for May 18.
Mr. Hughes called it a bittersweet time for the YMCA staff and family.
The newly created Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard opens today at the site of the Katharine M. Foote memorial shelter in Edgartown, quietly taking over where the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which ran the facility for the past 50 years, left off.
The old MSPCA sign came down early yesterday morning, and the last remaining animals — which included a German Shepherd mix and several cats — were adopted over the past week or sent to the MSPCA shelter in Centerville.
A project by the Island Housing Trust to build eight affordable homes at 250 State Road in West Tisbury has rankled some elected officials who question why the cost of construction — which is partially subsidized by the town — is so high — and why the contractor hired to build the project is also a member of the trust’s board of directors.
Chilmark voters opted for smaller government and a quieter town at Monday’s annual town meeting, approving a reduced town budget and stricter new noise bylaws.
The budget cuts, however, amounted to the lightest of prunings — about $6.64 million for fiscal year 2010 compared with 2009’s $6.68 million appropriation — after the meeting rejected proposals for a more serious attack on staff costs.
William S. O’Connell may have clear-cut a 100 by 106-foot area on his land in Chappaquiddick, put up a wind sock and a sign saying “Heliport,” but that did not make it a heliport, a Dukes County Superior Court judge was told on Friday.
Nor did occasional takeoffs and landings make it one, argued Thomas C. Grassia, appearing for Mr. O’Connell, who is battling the town of Edgartown over its refusal to allow him to fly to and from his Chappy home.