New Bedford Ferry Divides Selectmen

Vineyard Leaders Order SSA Governor to Return for Further Consultations Before Final Decision on Fast Ferry

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

For the second time in a month, a large group of Vineyard selectmen this week wavered on the subject of high-speed ferry service out of New Bedford, asking the Island Steamship Authority governor to meet with them one more time before he makes any decision on a trial fast ferry project.

The popular low-cost excursion fares for Vineyard residents on Steamship Authority ferries are now slated for major change, if a proposal by boat line managers is approved next month.

New Bedford SSA Suit Goes to Trial

By JULIA WELLS

A federal judge ruled last week that a lawsuit between the city of New Bedford and the Steamship Authority can go to trial, although the judge imposed a set of strict limits that will block any plan by the Whaling City to turn the case into a giant legal fishing expedition.

Vineyard SSA Governor Loses Battle to Impose $7 Million Fee on Nantucket

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

Vineyard Steamship Authority governor J.B. Riggs Parker lost a skirmish yesterday in his battle against Nantucket when the Falmouth and Nantucket boat line governors voted to eliminate a complicated cost allocation policy that could have led to ruinous fare increases for Nantucket in coming years.

"It's time to put this behind us, develop a new policy and go forward," declared Falmouth boat line governor Galen M. Robbins.

He arrived when the Martha's Vineyard Commission was still in its early years - not yet a decade old, not yet accepted as a full member in the peculiar society known as Vineyard government. In fact, when Charles W. Clifford took over as executive director of the commission in 1982, if the commission was anything at all in the Island community, it was a point of controversy.

The impact of bringing more summer visitors to the Vineyard using high-speed ferry service from New Bedford, the tricky practice of carrying fuel on the boats, and the role that the public boat line plays in the lives of Islanders - these were all subjects for discussion at the Martha's Vineyard Commission last week.