All Change Is Not Created Equal

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Susanna J. Sturgis

Over and over opposition to the roundabout has been explained away as “people don’t like change.”

To which I say that “people” — which is to say me — don’t like having change shoved down our throats by people who don’t know what they’re doing. But “people don’t like change” and its corollary, “change is inevitable,” are hurled about often enough that I’m getting a little testy. These aren’t explanations. These are excuses.

Sure, some change is inevitable. New inventions bring change. Some books and works of art bring change. No one can stop the changes being wrought by the internet. I don’t have a cell phone, I don’t want a cell phone, but I have no illusion that my decision is having any effect on the changes being wrought by cell phones. Governments who try to restrict access to the internet look like the tyrants they are, and more to the point, they fail. Same goes for those who try to ban particular books, or “smut,” or liquor.

But many changes have more modest causes. They don’t come like tidal waves. The roundabout has a traceable trajectory. It’s not a force of nature. It’s not the result of economic forces beyond our individual control. It’s not a technological innovation that everyone craves as soon as they hear about it. The roundabout project has come this far thanks to the actions and choices of a small number of individuals.

Back in the early 2000s, there was a two-way stop at the blinker intersection. Traffic on the Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road proceeded at will. Traffic on Barnes Road had to wait for an opening. Because of the volume and speed of the east–west traffic, especially at peak times, this could take a while. Frustrated north–south drivers grabbed whatever little break they got. The result was accidents, some of which were serious because of the speed involved.

In 2001 Oak Bluffs asked the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) to explore alternatives to the two-way stop. One of them was the roundabout. In 2003 the four-way stop was instituted. The “crash rate” (as the engineers call it) dropped dramatically, and most of the accidents that did happen were fender-benders.

Exploration of alternatives continued. In 2004, petitions containing the signatures of more than 1,600 Vineyarders opposed to the roundabout option were presented to the Oak Bluffs selectmen. The BOS then asked the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC) to collect data and compare alternatives. Note that Mark London became MVC executive director in October 2002. He’s a roundabout guy. The timing is significant.

During the summer of 2006, the Oak Bluffs board of selectmen held three public hearings on the roundabout proposal. These were Oak Bluffs hearings. Petitions containing another 1,400+ signatures were presented — and ignored. In September 2006, the OB BoS voted for the roundabout. The vote was 3–2: not exactly a landslide. In the town meeting system of government, town meeting serves as the legislature, but the roundabout never appeared on an Oak Bluffs town meeting warrant. The selectmen chose to treat it like a minor highway repair: no need to bother the voters with such a trivial matter, eh?

Besides, the Oak Bluffs selectmen were already working hand in glove with the Martha’s Vineyard Commission — the MVC staff, that is. The commissioners themselves, most of whom are either elected directly by the voters or appointed by our elected officials, seemed oblivious. This appears on the MVC website:

Primary authority under the Act is vested in the Martha’s Vineyard Commission whose mission is to help carefully manage growth so that the Vineyard’s unique environment, character, social fabric and sustainable economy are maintained as development takes place.

Did it never occur to any of the commissioners that this wasn’t just a routine one-town highway repair project? Mark London and the MVC staff aren’t elected by anyone. Voters in Aquinnah, Chilmark, West Tisbury, Tisbury, and Edgartown didn’t elect the Oak Bluffs selectmen. Who was representing the rest of the island — including the more than 2,600 Vineyarders who signed those petitions — in this?

At this point the roundabout went underground. Most of us thought it had gone away for good. In 2010 the Oak Bluffs board of selectmen signed a contract with MassDOT: the state would both run the project and pay for it. For a town with OB’s financial and managerial problems, this was important. The voters, i.e., town meeting, hold the purse strings. If the state was paying, the selectmen didn’t have to explain themselves to the voters.

The roundabout resurfaced with a vengeance this past April. It looked like a done deal, a fait accompli. It wasn’t. Richard Knabel, West Tisbury selectman, was astonished that it had never been considered as an island-wide development of regional impact (DRI). He initiated the process that led at last to DRI consideration by the MVC. What happened next has been covered in this blog: see the blography in yesterday’s post, “Goofs Don’t Have to Be Forever.”

Some people are furious that the West Tisbury selectmen made that “discretionary referral.” As far as I know, these people don’t stand to benefit in any material way from the roundabout project; the construction contracts will, as usual, all go to off-island companies with off-island employees. But Richard and the rest of us opponents are repeatedly accused of getting in the way of progress and being afraid of change. Interestingly enough, those leveling the accusation seldom have specific reasons for supporting the roundabout: they’re just angry at us for getting in the way.

I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I do have a theory: Some people get really uncomfortable when other people try to shape the changes that are shaping their lives, and that discomfort not infrequently turns to anger. If you can’t stop change, there’s no point in trying, right? But if it’s possible to make changes, then maybe you should get off your duff and do something. I think the possibility pisses some people off.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
the courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference

Trip's truck pulls a U-turn at the blinker

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Goofs Don’t Have to Be Forever

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Susanna J. Sturgis

In our last installment about the roundabout proposed for the blinker intersection, things were looking pretty bleak for the home team. Not that the project’s proponents were looking especially good: at around 11 p.m. on October 6, after yet another interminable, lackluster discussion, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC) deadlocked at 6 for and 6 against, whereupon Chris Murphy, the current MVC chair, cast his tie-breaking vote for the project — “for the Oak Bluffs selectmen,” he said.

Coming soon to the blinker intersection?

Of all the piss-poor reasons to support the roundabout, that is without doubt the piss-poorest. Mr. Murphy’s remark has been widely interpreted to mean that he was voting for political reasons rather than on the merits of the project. He may or may not have been conscious of this.

At the time I wrote:

Still — you know what? I don’t believe this thing is going to be built. Short of legal action, for which we don’t have the money, I don’t see how it’s going to be stopped, but I still don’t think we’re going to have a roundabout where Barnes Road meets the Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road. As far as I can tell, most Vineyarders don’t want the damn thing. Whether we have the guts to stop it is open to question.

Occupy the blinker intersection?

Well, it’s been an interesting three weeks. At the MVC’s October 20 meeting, Lenny Jason urged his fellow commissioners to rescind the October 6 vote. Only someone who voted with the majority can move to reconsider a vote — Lenny has been adamantly against the roundabout from the beginning — but apparently anyone can move to rescind a vote. Chairman Murphy, he of the ill-advised tie-breaking vote, noted that two commissioners, one pro and one anti, weren’t present and so scheduled the rescission discussion for November 3. What makes this especially interesting is that Mr. Murphy could have squelched the idea. He didn’t, and not because he’s against the roundabout.

Roundabout opponents report being accosted at the grocery store, the post office, and social events by people who think the project is absurd and can’t believe it’s going forward. One can only suspect, and hope, that some glimmers of this sentiment have reached Mr. Murphy.

On Facebook, a group called “Go Around This” appeared out of nowhere last week. It already has 240 members. This week STOP THE ROUNDABOUT ads are going into both the Martha’s Vineyard Times and the Vineyard Gazette. Readers are urged to contact their commissioners or to e-mail their views to stoptheroundabout@gmail.com; volunteers will make sure that their comments are relayed to the commissioners. The grapevine is humming, the NO ROUNDABOUT petitions are circulating again, and the Times has set up an opinion poll on its website.

Wow.

Could the spirit of Occupy Wall Street be trickling down to Martha’s Vineyard? There’s a welcome feistiness in the air, and it’s not just the briskness that October always brings. Interested in circulating a petition? Contact me on Facebook or give me a call — I’m in the book. See you at the MVC offices, 33 New York Ave., Oak Bluffs; 8 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 3.

The story so far, as blogged:
“Bull’s Eye,” about the October 6 vote to build the roundabout
“Weasels,” about the October 3 land-use planning committee (LUPC) meeting
“The Hearing Continues,” about the continuation of the public hearing on September 22, at which Angie Grant of the VTA (Vineyard Transit Authority) told the MVC what they needed to know about buses and bus stops
“Now Playing!,” introducing Trip’s now famous video (September 20)
“Roundabout TV,” onstage at the making of the video, featuring Trip’s Big Truck (September 18)
“Public Hearing,” a flabbergasted account of the September 1 public hearing
“Whose Blinker?,” musing on how we see the blinker intersection depends on the routes we usually take
“Roundabout,” about the August 4 MVC meeting, at which the DRI was discussed and accepted, along with some definitions for the civicly clueless — which I was at the time

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Creative Living

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Susanna J. Sturgis

An incomplete list of my interactions with Dan Waters, in no particular order but all from the current calendar year:

  • I attended a performance at the Vineyard Haven library in which Dan and Jemima James performed a selection of songs, some by her, some by him, some by other people. Dan sang at least one song in Portuguese, which he speaks fluently, having grown up in Brazil.
  • Dan e-mailed me to ask if I’d make a contribution to Nina Violet, a stupendously good local musician who was working on a new CD. Sure, I said, and snail-mailed him a (modest) check.
  • Checked in regularly with Dan’s Facebook page to monitor the progress of hummingbirds, turtles, and other denizens of his Indian Hill neighborhood.
  • Also on Dan’s Facebook page, participated with several other Dan fans in improvising some wildly funny stories based on current (Vineyard) events. When Dan got home, he said he couldn’t leave us alone for a minute. True, but then he did it again.
  • Attended a PowerPoint presentation by Dan about the proposed expansion and renovation of the West Tisbury Free Public Library, of which Dan is a trustee.
  • Stopped by Dan’s Indian Hill Press booth at one of the summer artisans’ fairs at the Grange Hall to replenish my stock of his wonderful note cards. Dan writes the poems, carves the linoleum blocks, and composes the type on a Linotype machine. He manages to capture the verities of Vineyard life with more wit and fewer words than anyone else.

Yeah, it’s one guy doing all that stuff, day in, day out, so no one was surprised when it was announced earlier this month that Dan would be the recipient of this year’s Creative Living Award. (Several people did express surprise that he hadn’t won it long ago.) The Creative Living Award is given each year to honor the late Ruth Bogan, who, in the words of her friend Ruth Redding, was a “gallant woman who loved beauty, who loved the Vineyard and who believed anyone can do anything.”

Late yesterday afternoon, he received the framed certificate and the accompanying check  at a well-attended and convivial presentation at the Grange Hall.

One by one, the four speakers created a verbal picture of Dan that I totally recognized as the Dan whose path has crossed mine several times (already) this year. Fan Ogilvie, West Tisbury’s current poet laureate — Dan was her predecessor, the first poet laureate in the town’s history — talked about Dan’s poetry, not the pithy quatrains for which he is best known, but two of his longer works: “A Night in the Azalea Garden” and “The Hag of Tiah’s Cove,” which you can find featured along with several other long Dan poems on the West Tisbury library’s website.

Jemima sans guitar

Jemima James — onstage without a guitar! — talked about how Dan had recalled her to music when, exhausted by dealing with stage fright and lack of what the commercial world calls success, she had given it up. They’d play in his living room a couple of times a week — and after a while they were gigging in public. We all knew Dan as a poet, artist, and master of old print technology — who knew he was also a pretty good singer and guitarist?

Beth Kramer, director of the West Tisbury library, was up next: she nominated Dan for the Creative Living Award knowing he was going to win, but not realizing that if he did, she was going to have to give a speech. Naturally she talked about the key role Dan has played in the library’s expansion plans, especially in letting the town’s residents know what is going on.

Artist James Evans, the youngest of the speakers, spoke of Dan the mentor: when James met Dan, he was a 15-year-old high school student with artistic gifts but no idea what if anything he could do with them. Dan encouraged him to stay in school and keep creating, then when the time came helped him apply to college.

Dan accepts his award. The hands recording the occasion belong to his partner, Hal Garneau.

In a word, Dan Waters isn’t and doesn’t aspire to be an anguished artist working in isolation from ordinary mortals. He’s deeply connected to the community he lives in; as he inspires its members, its members inspire him. So it was no surprise that while he was accepting this richly deserved award, he scanned the audience and couldn’t help noticing what a creative and artistic group we were. I looked around: damn if he wasn’t right. I was surrounded by artists in all sorts of media, quite a few of whom probably don’t consider themselves artists, and people who, day in, day out, are encouraging the creativity of others while they express their own.

Now I’m going to quote something that Dan didn’t say in his acceptance speech. He wrote it, though; I know, because I’m stealing it from the Indian Hill Press website.

“Martha’s Vineyard is a small, tight-knit community that’s strangely old-fashioned in at least one important respect: it recognizes and appreciates original home-grown expression. We wouldn’t have such a healthy population of eccentrics and independent thinkers if we didn’t understand the personal journey and forgive the occasional mistake. In a country that prizes superstardom, our island perversely favors local personages. Our resistance to homogenized mainland entertainment may stem from being surrounded by ocean, our lives bound by something intangible yet coherent. Whatever the reason, I feel immensely lucky to live here.”

It must have something to do with the ocean — and with the fact that so many people on this side of Vineyard Sound are willing and able to egg each other on as we follow our eccentric and independent paths. I don’t know if I feel lucky to live here. Sometimes I just feel doomed. But this is why I believe the place is worth fighting for.

Lots more where this came from, @ Indian Hill Press.
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Occupy

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Susanna J. Sturgis

Occupy-ay-ay
Occu-pie-in-the-sky

Since I’m blogging from the Seasonally Occupied Territories, you must have guessed I’ve had something to say about Occupy Wall Street, but my occupation — which is to say “editing” — has preoccupied me big-time for the last couple of weeks.

Two deadlines are met, my time is my own (at least for the next 24 hours), I’m pondering Occupy Wall Street.

I’m in favor, of course. I favor any sign that people are disgusted with the state of affairs in this country, and that they’ve identified economics as an underlying cause, and that they’re willing to take to the streets. Maybe it’s catching on among the younger generations that there’s more to political organizing than clicking and texting and signing cyber petitions.

On the other hand, the framing is facile. The 99% vs. the 1%? How cohesive could that 99% be and, more to the point, how big is the percentage that’s claiming to speak for it? Everyone’s the hero of their own story, as I repeat ad nauseam. 99% makes nearly all of us — at least everyone we know — heroes. The flip side is that nearly all of us define the problem so that we’re part of the solution. The civil rights movement made a lot of white people nervous, women’s liberation made a lot of men nervous. If 99% of us are part of the solution, what’s to be nervous about?

It’s too easy. Obsessing about corporate greed and greedy plutocrats is too easy. Those greedy plutocrats didn’t get filthy rich with their own two hands, no sirree. They had help. Lots of help.

Ours.

We staff their corporations from bottom to almost-top. At least 99% of their workforce is us. Fixing computers, driving cars, setting up meetings, making plane reservations, doing all the myriad tasks that make it possible for 1% of the population to be filthy rich. What if we stopped doing it? What would it take to get us to stop doing it?

Aha. Now you’re beginning to think like a labor organizer or a civil rights activist or a radical feminist. What if we withdrew our support from the system that’s oppressing us? How could we keep them from eating us alive?

All politics is local, as the late Tip O’Neill so famously said. Occupy Wall Street is politics seen from the wrong end of a telescope. Seen from the other end, politics looks more like the Martha’s Vineyard Commission meetings I’ve been to in the last few months: banal and boring with just enough flashes of courage and insight to keep you going. How many Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation contributors and board members are part of the greedy, villainous 1%? Not many. Possibly none. They’re still doing a pretty good job of holding up their end in the greed-and-villainy department.

If all of us are heroes and none of us is part of the problem, if we meditate and eat island-grown produce and go to town meeting, why do the problems keep getting worse?

All politics is local, and Wall Street is a long way away. Where is our Wall Street? What should we be occupying? Should we be sitting in at the banks, or the real estate offices, or the Steamship Authority dock? The more I ponder, the more complicated it gets, and the less satisfied I get with Occupy Wall Street. Good theater it is. Good politics? Not so much.

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They’d Rather Sue

Posted on October 16, 2011 by Susanna J. Sturgis

For those following Ben Ramsey and Nisa Counter’s adventures in Massachusetts Land Court . . .

In our last episode, Judge Sands encouraged the parties to consider mediating their dispute. Mediation encourages opponents in a dispute to work together to come up with a solution that both sides can live with. It’s generally less expensive and less time-consuming than pursuing a case through the courts, and it’s less adversarial: the parties are encouraged to cooperate in finding an answer instead of each using the law to bludgeon the other into submission. In court, one side wins and the other loses. Mediation tries to find a middle way.

What’s not to like? Ben and Nisa have been totally for mediation, negotiation — any way to work it out outside the courts — since back before anyone on Martha’s Vineyard had heard of the case, since before any of us knew that SMF claimed to own a small parcel of Chilmark land that Ben and Nisa had bought (after exhaustive title searching, deed examining, and hunting for old landmarks) from Ben’s aunt Billie. Knowing that Nisa and Ben’s financial resources were very limited, SMF decided to sue in land court — a process that can drag on for years and cost tens of thousands of dollars.

That was this past July. Rather than get steamrollered by SMF’s legal clout, Ben and Nisa decided to start telling Vineyarders what was going on, using the time-honored poor folks’ newspaper, aka the grapevine. Facebook is a grapevine on steroids and speed; still, it was another month before I got wind of the story. (For the record: I didn’t know Ben or Nisa at all. I was dimly aware that Nisa ran a fitness business, but y’all know that fitness and I don’t exist in the same universe so we hadn’t met.) By mid-August, when the story first appeared in the island newspapers, I’d learned enough to realize how one-sided the coverage was, particularly that of the Martha’s Vineyard Times. (See “What’s Up with the Martha’s Vineyard Times?” for details.) Not only did the Times not print my letter, it banned me and Jackie Mendez-Diez, another vocal supporter of Ben and Nisa’s claim, from posting comments on their website.

“The truth will set you free,” so the saying goes, “but first it will piss you off.” It seems the Times is still at the pissed-off stage.

The Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation hasn’t got that far yet. They’ve just rejected the judge’s recommendation that the parties mediate their dispute. Bring on the bludgeons and the big-bucks lawyer.

I’m mystified. As I said: “What’s not to like?” Well, I can think of one downside to mediation: Mediation would reveal the facts of the case more promptly than an extended court case. Maybe SMF wants to draw the process out as long as possible — perhaps in the hope that Nisa and Ben won’t be able to raise the money to stay the course? (I would never, ever, ever suggest that lawyers stand to rack up more billable hours if their clients don’t mediate.) But why?

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the grapevine. We’ll do our theorizing based on what we know. Based on what we know, it looks like Sheriff’s Meadow has lost track of its mission and that it’s not interested in being a good neighbor.

Not to Ben and Nisa, at any rate. Maybe their other neighbors have more clout?

The once and future carpenter's tent

The earlier chapters:
“Land Grab”
“What’s Up with the M.V. Times?”
“So Long, Tent”
“Has SMF Lost the Plot?”
“Defense Fund Established for Ben & Nisa”
“Turning Point”
“How the Story Ended . . .”
“It Ain’t Over Yet”

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It Ain’t Over Yet

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Susanna J. Sturgis

My September 10 post about Nisa Counter and Ben Ramsey’s struggle to defend their small piece of Chilmark against a land grab by a Vineyard conservation organization was titled How the Story Ended . . . That ellipsis at the end was intentional: unlike a period (“full stop” as the British call it), an ellipsis is open to other possibilities. Ben and Nisa had decided that they didn’t want to mortgage the next several years of their lives to raising money for and paying legal bills, with no guarantee that their quit-claim deed would be recognized at the end of it. What sane working person would?

But the idea that the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation (SMF) was going to win because it has connections to power and money in the bank didn’t go down easy. As Nisa said in a phone conversation yesterday (Saturday, October 8): “We didn’t have money to pay a lawyer — but it didn’t make sense to let it go.”

Nisa and Ben

So last Thursday, October 6, Nisa and Ben — unrepresented by counsel — went back to Boston and scored a moral victory in Massachusetts Land Court: Ron Rappaport, one of SMF’s lawyers, has excused himself from the case. How is this significant? Let me count the ways. If you don’t live on Martha’s Vineyard, you probably don’t recognize the name. If you do — you hear it all the time. Rappaport’s middle name should be Ubiquitous. His firm, Reynolds, Rappaport, Kaplan & Hackney (partner Jane Kaplan is RR’s wife), is counsel to five of the island’s six towns and the M.V. Land Bank Commission, among other things.

The disputed parcel of land belonged to the Hancock family. The late Herbert Hancock was Ben’s uncle; Ben and Nisa bought the property from his widow, Billie. Ron Rappaport was the Hancocks’ estate lawyer; he valued the family properties when the estate was being settled. More, he was a pallbearer at Herb Hancock’s funeral. Given his prior relationship with the Hancock family, plenty of people were disgusted with his decision to represent Sheriff’s Meadow in their suit against Hancock kin. It might not be a literal conflict of interest, but it still smelled pretty sleazy.

My hat

So Ron Rappaport’s withdrawal from the case looks like a three-bagger for the home team. Sure, he’ll most likely be sharing his inside info with SMF, but if public pressure wasn’t a factor in his decision I’ll eat the Greek fisherman’s cap that I’ve been wearing for nearly 30 years.

Thursday’s court hearing was a “settlement conference.” It wasn’t meant to reach a settlement; the objective was to ascertain what the opposing parties were willing to do to reach a settlement. Sheriff’s Meadow offered Ben and Nisa $10,000 for their land. They declined the offer. Ben and Nisa pointed out that SMF’s counsel, Diane Tillotson, had violated the order of Associate Justice Alexander Sands that the parties refrain from debating the case in the press. Tillotson then produced a sheaf of photocopies from Nisa’s personal Facebook page and Youth Lots vs. Tax Breaks, the FB page established to share information about the case. (In the interest of full disclosure: I’m a co-admin of the Youth Lots vs. Tax Breaks page.)

Judge Sands called online media a “new frontier” and didn’t seem to think that it fell into the same category as traditional news media. Nisa pointed out that she couldn’t control what her friends posted on either her page or the Youth Lots page — or in independent blogs. Since neither the Martha’s Vineyard Times nor the Vineyard Gazette has shown any interest in telling Ben and Nisa’s side of the story, they seem to be in compliance with the judge’s order.

Also noteworthy: When they filed their suit, Sheriff’s Meadow seemed willing to let the legal process drag on ad infinitum. They had the money to sustain a prolonged legal battle; their opponents didn’t. Time = money, right? Originally they wanted a court date in December 2012. Now they pushed for this December, 2011. Too soon, the judge thought, and set a date for late April 2012.

Why the change in SMF’s strategy? Based on scuttlebutt and hearsay, I can guess: Plenty of people have been calling SMF director Adam Moore to express their displeasure with SMF’s tactics, and he’s having a hard time getting his work done. Others have spoken with SMF board members, and some have said they won’t contribute to the organization’s work unless the suit is dropped. And more people are linking this case to other less than stellar decisions in SMF’s recent past. Director Moore, for instance, seems to be living in a house that SMF had built for him — on a donated property within a stone’s throw of the ocean whose donor intended it to be used for agriculture. (Moore is not a farmer.)

Time, in other words, is no longer on the side of the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation.

Judge Sands urged both parties to agree to mediation, and furnished a short list of qualified mediators who specialize in property disputes. Ben and Nisa spent nearly a year trying to get Sheriff’s Meadow to negotiate or agree to mediation. SMF, thinking it held the whip hand, preferred to sue. Now they have 10 days to give the judge their answer.

Nisa and Ben will be leaving shortly for Panama, where Nisa’s family lives and Ben has work for the winter. They’ll be back in the spring — or sooner, if SMF agrees to mediation.

Ellipses rule. It ain’t over till it’s over . . .

The dismantled tent, waiting for spring

The earlier chapters:
“Land Grab”
“What’s Up with the M.V. Times?”
“So Long, Tent”
“Has SMF Lost the Plot?”
“Defense Fund Established for Ben & Nisa”
“Turning Point”

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Bull’s Eye

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Susanna J. Sturgis

Coming soon to an intersection near you?

In yet another lesson in the banality of local politics, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission on Thursday night voted 7–6 to approve the roundabout, with a few conditions most of which had to do with landscaping, bus stops, and safety for bicyclists and pedestrians.

The vote was closer than I expected. Linda Sibley of West Tisbury and Ned Orleans of Tisbury, both of whom had been talking as if they were going to vote yes, voted no. The commission was deadlocked at 6–6. Chris Murphy, the current MVC chair, broke the tie by voting yes “in support of the Oak Bluffs selectmen.” This was no surprise. Neither was the smirk on his face when he cast his vote. From the beginning he’s been consistently supportive of the project and hostile to those who opposed it.

Voting yes: Holly Stephenson, Doug Sederholm, Chris Murphy, James Joyce, Fred Hancock, Erik Hammarlund, and John Breckenridge.

Voting no: Brian Smith, Linda Sibley, Camille Rose, Ned Orleans, Lenny Jason, and Christina Brown.

My mind is so boggled it can’t boggle anymore. I don’t get it: Why can’t these people have a real discussion? Time and time again I wanted to be crouching on the floor in the middle of their horseshoe-shaped table, prompting them with facts, insights, and questions raised in the public hearings. But what about this? Have you forgotten that? Just for a moment forget about the damn experts and think about what you know about this intersection and about Martha’s Vineyard.

Noticed in passing: Once upon a time, the big selling point for the roundabout was safety. Opponents kept asking just how dangerous the four-way stop was (answer: not very), and how much the roundabout could be expected to improve it (answer: not much). At this meeting, the safety issue was being pretty much blown off. Safety for motorists, that is. The MVC did seem to be uneasy about the safety implications for bicyclists and pedestrians, with good reason.

Hapless John Breckinridge didn’t like the “helicopter pad aspect” of the project, but since he’s from Oak Bluffs he apparently felt obliged to present a united front with his town’s board of selectmen. He did, however, propose a string of conditions to do with landscaping. I think he said that landscaping, including the use of “native plants,” is key to maintaining island character. Yeah, right: the island character of a helicopter pad. He also tried to make it a condition that his town, the one that’s foisted this project off on the rest of us, wouldn’t have to cover the cost of anything the state didn’t pay for.

Trip Barnes’s video was mentioned, and the fact that the attempt to show it at a previous meeting came to nothing for lack of adequate equipment. Pro-roundabouters were ridiculing the whole premise that big trucks would have any trouble with the roundabout, then Christina Brown said that “when someone submits testimony, we don’t argue with them; we listen to them.” So the video was shown, the revised version that includes Craig Hockmeyer providing a bicyclist’s perspective. At the end Doug Sederholm said that if this were a court of law, the video wouldn’t have been admissible because it didn’t deal with the facts. Pot calls kettle black, I say: Sederholm and his co-religionists have managed to discount any facts that threatened to interfere with their lust for roundabout.

Every time Brian Smith spoke, he addressed the issue and he made sense. He had done some research of his own on the matter of bicycle safety. I was seriously impressed by this guy. He’s the selectmen’s appointee from West Tisbury, the town I currently live in.

Oak Bluffs selectman Greg Coogan sprawled in a chair by the door, twitching. Was he having a bad dream? stroking out? Fascinated, I kept sneaking glances in his direction. In September 2006 the Oak Bluffs board of selectmen voted 3–2 to approve the roundabout project. Of the three who voted for it, Coogan is the only one still in office. If he’s ever made a mistake in his life, he doesn’t know it.

MVC meetings are supposed to end by 10 p.m. After that motions to extend the meeting had to be made, seconded, and passed. It was, if I recall correctly, in the third of these 15-minute extensions that Christina Brown pointed out that the commission had to consider the “benefits and detriments” of the project as a whole. Up to this point, the commission had spent the overwhelming majority of its time dicking around with the roundabout’s specs. At long last, for maybe 15 minutes, they talked about the pros and cons.

Finally they took the vote. 7–6. Better than I expected, but it still sucks.

Still — you know what? I don’t believe this thing is going to be built. Short of legal action, for which we don’t have the money, I don’t see how it’s going to be stopped, but I still don’t think we’re going to have a roundabout where Barnes Road meets the Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road. As far as I can tell, most Vineyarders don’t want the damn thing. Whether we have the guts to stop it is open to question.

Occupy the blinker intersection?

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Weasels

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Susanna J. Sturgis

Fresh back from a lovely if wet weekend in western Massachusetts with lots of dogs (mostly though not all malamutes) and dog people, tonight I did my civic duty and went to a land use planning committee (LUPC) meeting.

Plus je vois des hommes, plus j’aime mon chien. That means “the more I see of men, the more I love my dog.” Hommes in this case includes both hommes et femmes.

Warning: This is another roundabout blog. If you’re sick to death of the roundabout, wait for the next blog. (I’m sick to death of the roundabout too. I wish it would go away.)

The LUPC isn’t a real committee. It consists of whatever members of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC) decide to show up to discuss an issue that the MVC is considering — in this case, the roundabout. After duly discussing the issue, the LUPC can recommend approval, disapproval, or approval with conditions. The MVC is not obliged to follow the LUPC’s recommendation. Commissioner Sederholm noted this as if to suggest that the MVCommissioners are capable of independent thinking. Having seen what I have seen over the last couple of months, I remain skeptical on this point.

A grand beech threatened by the roundabout

How to describe the LUPC meeting? The mind boggles. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? The honorable commissioners obsessed about the details of the roundabout plan: How will the roundabout affect congestion at either end of the Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road? How often does summer traffic back up as far as NSTAR (the electric company)? They made a big deal about the supposed confusion that drivers are said to confront at the current four-way stop while ignoring their own statistics, which say that there are 4.25 “crashes” (that’s expert-speak for “accidents”) and 1 “injury crash” (you can figure it out) per year at the four-way stop. If the confusion were that serious, wouldn’t the number of crashes be worse?

One of my most favorite stories is “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” You know the story, right? Some fast-talking scammers sell the emperor a new wardrobe to parade down the street in, but the new wardrobe is strictly virtual: no one can see it. But the emperor is parading down the street thinking he’s decked out in these fancy duds, and who’s going to tell him anything different? He’s the emperor, after all. He knows what’s what and the rest of us are just peons. He’s walking down the street buck nekkid and most of the crowd is totally convinced they’re seeing velvets and laces and brocades. Until an uppity kid calls out: “But he isn’t wearing any clothes!”

I bet that every one of us who knows the story identifies with that kid, the one who cries out, “But he isn’t wearing any clothes!” We’re convinced that in that situation we would be that kid. I bet most of the commissioners are convinced that they’d be that kid.

They’re wrong. Every last one of them is wrong. This roundabout is parading down the street with no clothes on. It has no reason to exist, but none of the commissioners can say that out loud. They can’t say “This project isn’t necessary.” They can’t say “The ‘applicant,’ aka the Oak Bluffs board of selectmen, never had popular support for this project.” They can’t say “All this project has going for it is momentum.”

So the LUPC meeting, which began at 5:30, hit 7 o’clock, and the commissioners had to decide whether to continue the meeting to the next night or to skip straight to Thursday’s MVC meeting. Without making a recommendation. Without obligating any commissioner to go on the record as yea, nay, or yea with conditions.

Weasels.

Just as I was thinking that my contempt for these people couldn’t get any worse, the hearing officer said that this was one of the best discussions this body had ever had. The mind, like I said, boggles. This evade-the-issues, miss-the-point discussion was one of the best this body had ever had? That’s beyond pathetic.

Weasels, all of you. Weasels.

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Travvy’s Loot

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Susanna J. Sturgis

Here’s Travvy — that’s Masasyu’s Fellow Traveller, RL2, RA, CGC — with his loot from this weekend. Someday I will blog more about our journey together and why I believe that clicker training could even fix the U.S. Congress, but for the moment let it suffice to say that when Travvy says he works very hard, he’s not kidding. The big ribbon is for finishing our Level 2 title (RL2) in APDT Rally Obedience. APDT = the Association of Pet Dog Trainers. Our trainer is Karen Ogden of Positive Rewards Dog Training, Vineyard Haven.

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The Boat

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Susanna J. Sturgis

People who’ve got some relationship with Martha’s Vineyard love to go on, often at great length, about why Martha’s Vineyard is different from anywhere else: its beauty, its beaches, etc., etc., etc. Having dwelt on the cherished isle for 26 years (and counting), I’ve come to believe that the more you know about Martha’s Vineyard, the better you’ll understand the rest of the world, and the more you know about other places in the world, the better you’ll understand Martha’s Vineyard.

This tends to undermine the notion that Martha’s Vineyard is unique.

Nevertheless, I am right this moment pondering what makes my life — not unique, but different from that of my off-island friends. I am pondering this because I am currently off-island. Travvy and I are competing in a Rally Obedience trial in Westford, Mass. (As I write this, we’re at a Motel 6 in Nashua, N.H.)* I am pondering this because the highway miles from home to Westford can be covered in two hours, but Saturday morning I got up at 5 a.m. in order to get to Westford by 10:30 or so.

The highway miles from home to Westford could be covered in two hours if Martha’s Vineyard weren’t surrounded by water. This doesn’t make Martha’s Vineyard unique, but it does make my life different from the lives of my off-island friends. To get to Westford by 10:30 a.m. or so, I had to be on the 7 a.m. boat. To get on the 7 a.m. boat, you’re supposed to be in line at the Steamship Authority dock by 6:30. Getting dressed, packing my stuff and Travvy’s stuff, loading the car (usually I do this the night before, but last night was pouring buckets), and taking Trav for a brief walk? Maybe I could do it all in an hour, but the absolute necessity of being on that boat makes me set one alarm for 5:00 and another for 5:05.

I made it.

I paid $59 to get Malvina Forester, Travvy, me, and our gear on that 7 a.m. boat and was properly grateful that this was $29 less than it cost us to get off in June. Knowing I was going off-island, of course I let Malvina’s gas gauge slide as close toward empty as I could so I could fill up on the other side. The price differential for gas here and away is 75 cents and up a gallon. Put 10 gallons in your tank on the far side and you’ve saved $7.50, which is (I just did the math) like getting almost 13% off the cost of your off-season boat ticket, 8.5% in summer when the fare for vehicle less than 17 feet long and 6 feet high is $88. Not bad.

The Bourne Bridge

My return reservation for Sunday night was on the 7:30 p.m. We usually make return reservations for later than we think we’ll need, on the theory that you can often, especially in the off-season, get on an earlier boat, but if you miss the boat you’re booked on you’re SOL, especially in high summer: you’re in the back of beyond with all the other reservation-less standbys. Having made good time from Westford, I rounded the curve on Route 25 to see the Bourne Bridge rising ahead — it always makes my heart skip a beat or two. Four o’clock: another half hour to Woods Hole, not much chance of getting on the 5:00, so I stopped for gas in Falmouth.

When I rolled into Woods Hole at 4:35, the Nantucket was discharging its vehicular passengers. I sized up the lines of cars with reservations, then all the standbys ahead of me. Would we make it onto the Nantucket? Prognosis looked poor to doubtful. The freight boat looked likely, if it was making a return trip to Vineyard Haven, but this was a mixed blessing: the freight boats are boats, whereas the big ferries are more like parlor cars that float. The only beverages served on the freight boats come from vending machines, and I really wanted a beer. Only a Vineyarder will understand the thrill I felt when the SSA employee waved me forward and Malvina rattled onto the freight deck of the Nantucket. My rez was for 7:30, I rolled off in Oak Bluffs at 5:45, and I got my beer.

Here’s how to tell someone who knows Martha’s Vineyard from someone who doesn’t: Ask her what SSA stands for. If she says Social Security Administration, she flunks. If she says Steamship Authority, she’s one of us.

*As I write this, I’m sitting in my little apartment in West Tisbury. Writing on the road plays havoc with your verb tenses. Sorry.

 

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