Tisbury town leaders hope the long saga of the Garde family’s chicken-killing dogs is over. But if his recent actions are any guide, Ken Garde thinks differently.
The selectmen have banned three of the family’s dogs from the town. A judge has twice backed their actions. The town now plans to enforce the order to get the dogs out of Tisbury.
And Mr. Garde’s response? He recently reregistered the dogs.
He also took out papers to run again for his long-held seat on the town board of health.
There’s been a great deal of focus lately on the local effects of the rush by federal and state authorities to build big wind farms near the Vineyard to ameliorate climate change, but very little focus on the local effects of climate change itself.
Except in Oak Bluffs, where there is quiet work underway to prepare for the worst, including sea level rise that is expected to erase beachfront property as it is now known, and the potentially ruinous effects of extreme storms caused by climate change. And it’s all backed by a state grant.
Federal Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar came to the Vineyard and Cape Cod on Tuesday to consult with Indian tribes opposed to the Cape Wind development, then held a press conference on the wind farm site in Nantucket Sound to say that the meetings had not decisively moved his view of the project.
Secretary Salazar said he was “very bullish” about the future of offshore wind energy in general, but that all options were still open regarding Cape Wind’s plan to build 130 turbines on Horseshoe Shoal.
Secretary Ken Salazar said he was “very bullish” about the future of offshore wind energy, but refused to give any hint of whether or not he would approve the controversial Cape Wind project, during a media conference aboard the Coast Guard vessel Ida Lewis on Tuesday afternoon. Speaking on board the buoy tender at the site of the proposed development at Horseshoe Shoal, Secretary Salazar indicated that the prospect of any compromise between those for and against the wind farm appeared unlikely. “I’m not holding my breath,” he said.
Federal authorities plan to open up almost 4,000 square nautical miles of ocean near the Vineyard for potential wind power generation.
A draft Request for Interest (RFI) map presented to a renewable energy task force meeting of state, local and federal representatives on Wednesday identifies a vast arc of ocean, extending from the Rhode Island border, southwest of the Island, across to the south of the Vineyard and Nantucket, then running north and east to the entrance to Nantucket Sound.
After almost two years of escapes, complaints, hearings, appeals and ever mounting financial cost to the town of Tisbury, town administrator John Bugbee dares to hope that the long saga of the chicken-killing Huskies belonging to the Garde family may finally end today.
