Controversial Road Plan Wins Approval in Edgartown Meeting
By IAN FEIN
Edgartown voters last night continued to back the Pennywise Path affordable housing project, turning a deaf ear to pleas that called for postponing the controversial taking of a second access road to the development.
Residents approved all 12 articles on the special town meeting warrant, including a $310,000 appropriation to bring water, sewerage and electricity to the project.
At Aquinnah Town Meeting, the Emotions Frame Museum Debate
By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer
The subject was a plan for a cultural museum in a historic homestead high on a windswept bluff in the town of Aquinnah. But the discussion that swirled for more than an hour and a half at a special town meeting Tuesday night was layered with the emotion of a town torn down the middle.
Underneath it all lay the central topic of the day: the recent court ruling on sovereign immunity for the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).
Seven minutes before midnight Tuesday, Edgartown town meeting voters wrapped up a long list of business - supporting a $19 million operating budget and killing proposed house-size caps on Chappaquiddick.
But the night's liveliest debates for those in the crowded pews at the Old Whaling Church, and perhaps the most interesting result of the week, centered around a funding request to hire a housing inspector to license the town's 1,500 rental properties.
Aquinnah Voters Face Town Meeting Vote On $2 Million Budget
By JOSHUA SABATINI
The last town meeting of the Island's political season takes place in Aquinnah on Tuesday, when residents will gather in the town hall at 7 p.m. to vote on a $2,056,058 operating budget and 14 warrant articles.
Although predicting the need for a Proposition 2 1/2 override, selectmen are in the dark as to the exact status of the town's free cash.
In a marathon annual town meeting, Edgartown residents voted down the Martha's Vineyard Commission's designation of Chappaquiddick as a district of critical planning concern (DCPC).
Voting 195 to 134 not to establish the boundaries of the Chappaquiddick district, the town eliminated the district designation in one fell swoop.
