The Steamship Authority has decided against closing its offsite booking office, at least for the foreseeable future, although it will relocate.
Tuesday’s July meeting of the SSA board of governors at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven was told the boat line would advertise this week for new premises and already has had preliminary discussions with management at the airport about moving there.
The picture of Martha’s Vineyard’s cinematic near future painted by Richard Paradise, the driving force behind the Martha’s Vineyard Film Society, is appealing.
On almost any given night, in season or out, Islanders could nip down to the Tisbury Marketplace for an intelligent film. A foreign language one, perhaps, or a documentary, or something art-housey, or maybe a classic.
David McCullough laughingly calls the pretty little eight-by-10-foot structure in his back yard his “world headquarters.” Naturally, he was keen to pass on the details of its architecture and history.
“This is where I’ve worked since 1972,” he said. “It was built by Alan Miller, an artist with carpentry. He built the Black Dog in Vineyard Haven. He built numerous buildings around the Island, all distinctive.”
Could it be that western system of market capitalism has broken down so badly that its failings present a threat to democracy itself?
That was the question left ominously hanging at the end of a presentation by three eminent economists — two from the Harvard Business School and one private forecaster — at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center on Thursday night.
After a strong start, the Vineyard real estate market appears to have weakened dramatically in the latter part of the fiscal year just ended, according to data for the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank.
Land bank revenues, generated from a two per cent fee imposed on most real estate transactions and therefore a good indicator of the overall health of the property market, were a little over $7.7 million in fiscal year 2011, a modest increase on last year’s $7.4 million and well up on the $5.76 million of 2009.
Scores of Island families face a future without money for vital early childhood education for their children, and help with leaky roofs and inadequate heating and sanitation, all because of a clerical error which resulted in the Island missing out on $2 million in state grants.
