Chappy Landowners File Formal Appeal to State Tax Board

By IAN FEIN

More than two dozen Chappaquiddick landowners took their property tax disputes to the state last week, filing formal appeals of their town property assessments at the Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board.

The 26 property owners are challenging the values of 46 individual parcels, currently assessed by the town of Edgartown at a total of $116 million.

Questions Continue to Pile Up for Cozy Hearth Housing Plan

By IAN FEIN

The Martha's Vineyard Commission last week stepped up its scrutiny of an unusual affordable housing subdivision proposed for Watcha Path in Edgartown.

After taking almost two hours of testimony in its third public hearing session on the project, the commission sent applicant William Bennett of Chilmark away last Thursday with a growing list of questions and asked him to return with more detailed answers at another public hearing next month.

A longstanding land use battle off Moshup Trail in Aquinnah resurfaced on another front this week, when the town conservation commission took up the application of a landowner who wants to build in and around a wetland.

An evolving plan to manage and restore the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest is set for its first public airing tomorrow, when state environmental officials will come to the Vineyard to discuss efforts to alleviate fire danger in the forest and to undertake the largest ecological restoration project in the history of New England.

Selectmen in Five Island Towns Confer on County Government

By IAN FEIN

Raising questions of cost and effectiveness, selectmen from across the Vineyard agreed this week to reexamine the role of Dukes County government.

The decision marks the first step in a process that could imperil the future of regional government on the Vineyard.

State officials and congressional delegates claimed victory and expressed relief this week about a recently released report that indicates Otis Air