The new tax bills for Tisbury Great Pond properties were a shocker all right. The camp that I co-own with my three siblings, as the Sturgis Family Trust, was valued at $2,123,800 in fiscal year 2007. Now, with no effort on our part, it’s supposedly worth $4,419,700. For years we’ve been managing to pay the taxes — $9,568 in fiscal year 2007 — by renting the camp out most of the summer. The new tax bill, $17,511 and change, means renting for nine or ten weeks with no margin for error: no cancellations, and nothing left over for maintenance either.

All in the Family

By William A. Caldwell, Pulitzer prize winner, long-time Vineyard Gazette columnist etc. From the Vineyard Gazette editions of January, 1983:

Restoring Veterans Park

War Veterans Memorial Park was built more than half a century ago by hand by a small group of Vineyard Haven veterans who were members of the George W. Goethals American Legion Post. The men spent their weekends hauling fill and toting rakes and shovels to convert ten acres of swamp in an area known as Cat Hollow to a public park.

Shrinking Island Schools

Growing communities traditionally have meant growing schools, both for the number of students attending them and the teachers and staff charged with educating them. So it has gone on the Vineyard, where the regional high school has never had to cut staff.

Now a budget squeeze has led administrators to eliminate a half position for the coming school year in the music department, a move that has sparked a grass roots Islandwide effort to raise funds to restore the position.

Cases in Point

The recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in an esoteric Norwell case — a case that relied heavily on an earlier Edgartown ruling — offers a reminder that the Vineyard has generated a good deal of solid case law over the last thirty years, especially in the area of land use.

MORGAN FAMILY THANKS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

To our family and friends, we extend our sincere gratitude for all that you have done to see us through our loss. For errands, flowers, cards, phone calls, food, kind words and especially for the hugs — a heartfelt thank you!

Your love and concern for our family has warmed our broken hearts and been a tribute to Bob that will not soon be forgotten.

Thanks for all the ways that you have been present for us.

Allouise Morgan

Edgartown