News
Everyone knows Martha’s Vineyard is a very windy place, right? The “Saudi Arabia of wind,” to use the vogue cliche among the boosters of wind energy.
Wrong. And, thinks Tyler Studds, who is something of an expert on wind generation, that’s a most regrettable perception.
As a team of surveyors prepares to prep the Vineyard for the 2010 U.S. census, the dismal economy is adding bite to questions about accurately counting the transient Island population — since census numbers translate into government spending numbers.
The census provides a population snapshot of one day in April. It’s also a federal spending tool which the census bureau says accounts for some $300 billion in federal spending. Using census numbers, the government allocates spending for schools, roads, bridges, hospitals and other essential services.
When Elio Silva quietly opened his State Road store the Tisbury Farm Market last fall with a limited stock of coffee, yucca and a few more low-cost products, he began expanding immediately — responding to customer requests to include gourmet and organic produce and substantially undercutting Island competitors in the process.
Meanwhile, down the road in a red barn currently housing a signless, nameless Brazilian store, he has added a large basement kitchen, hired several chefs and is buying in product for a new gourmet grocery and health food store.
It’s a pretty safe bet that among the small group of people who walked a couple of miles through the Sheriff’s Meadow Middle Road sanctuary last Saturday, none was happier to be there than Adam Moore.
Not just because of the beautiful surroundings, with those views across Chilmark Pond to the Atlantic. Nor even because Mr. Moore, as executive director of the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation for the past 10 months, is ultimately responsible for the stewardship of this and many other beautiful places on Martha’s Vineyard.
A trio of enterprising young men appeared before Oak Bluffs selectmen Tuesday with a proposal to reduce summer traffic, raise money for charity and help the environment: bicycle rickshaws to transport people up and down Circuit avenue and other parts of town.
The three men are from Newburyport Pedicab — John Pasquina, 26, Blake Harris, 19, and William Pasquina, 29. Their pedicabs are basically bikes that haul a small sitting area behind them.
In a change of course from previous years, the Dukes County Commission on Wednesday unanimously voted to endorse a bill, now before the state legislature, that would merge the Island sheriff’s department into the state system and place it under control of the Executive Office of Public Safety.