Long before Texas gave the world its better-known gift to democracy, George W. Bush, it gave the Vineyard Deborah Medders.
It was 1988 when Ms. Medders came to the Island from the Lone Star state, and saw for the first time that unique New England exercise in participatory democracy which is town meeting. She was enthralled.
“I remember so clearly my first town meeting, winter 1988. I was just so taken with this government of the people by the people,” said Ms. Medders this week, after presiding over yet another town meeting.
Tisbury voters will consider a budget of almost $20 million, as part of a 44- article annual town meeting warrant on Tuesday.
The total is an increase of 7.6 per cent on last year. Education costs make up almost 40 per cent of the total, and the biggest single cost increase is the town’s contribution to the regional high school, up almost 10 per cent, largely due to the new school funding formula foisted on the Island by the state.
Though it is brief and stated without much detail, an article on the warrant for Tisbury’s special town meeting on Tuesday puts forward a radical idea.
The proposal foresees an energy future for this part of the world in which the people would own the means to produce their own electricity.
All the article seeks is approval to apply for membership in the Cape and Islands Electric Cooperative Inc., and authorization for the selectmen to negotiate terms and conditions.
Oil prices sitting stubbornly at more than $10 per barrel above budget forecasts. Cost overruns on capital projects totaling almost $3 million.
It was a sober March meeting for the governors of the Steamship Authority this week.
The good news was that the actual and projected traffic on SSA ferries remains strong. But it was the bad news which took up most of the time at Tuesday’s meeting.
The options for getting to the Vineyard, particularly at times other than the summer high season, continue to diminish.
Following the recent cutbacks in off-season high-speed services to the Island from New Bedford by the New England Fast Ferry, two more boat lines have flagged their intention to reduce the number of runs they do to the Island.
Hy-Line Cruises has notified the Steamship Authority, which licenses ferry service to the Island, that it intends to shorten by two months its operating season between the Vineyard and Hyannis.
A few things became quite clear at Wednesday night’s public hearing on the draft environmental impact statement on the Cape Wind project.
The first was that about twice as many Vineyarders, assuming those who attended are broadly representative of Island opinion, oppose the project as support it.
