With the announcement by executive director Mark London that he will retire at the end of next summer, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission has been handed an opening to articulate its mission and reconsider its priorities and the time to do it right.

Opening upon South Road, Chilmark, is a private driveway extending northerly to a dwelling site half a mile away or better. There is nothing remarkable about this driveway, except that portion where it enters the highway.

We are responding to the commentary in last week’s Gazette by Polly Simpkins on her father’s 86th birthday. Thank you Polly for your heartfelt and caring article about your dad and those who struggle with memory loss.

Groundsel trees are in full bloom and thriving these days in the vast salt marshes that ring the many Island saltwater ponds, their gray-green silvery flowers leaning and nodding in the autumn winds that buffet the shorelines.