November 2015
Dear Neighbors and Friends,
Aquinnah/Gay Head Community Association (AGHCA) is a not-for-profit corporation supporting educational, environmental protection and conservation, historical preservation, and other civic activities. Our primary focus is Aquinnah, but many of our activities have benefited the Vineyard as a whole. We have written to many of you for a number of years to ask for your help in sustaining those activities. However, because of the financial impact of the casino lawsuit discussed below we have indefinitely suspended all other activities that call for material financial outlays. (For those interested, the enclosed “flyer” describes AGHCA’s activities and its policies regarding litigation.)
We are now writing to ask specifically for your support in helping us meet our considerable accrued and projected future legal expenses with respect to the action brought by the Commonwealth (in which both we and the Town of Aquinnah then intervened) against the Tribe alleging that it has contravened controlling Massachusetts laws pertaining to its proposed establishment of a casino in Aquinnah. This case was tried in a federal District Court, and the Judge recently issued his decision which strongly upholds our, the Town’s and the Commonwealth’s positions in all material respects. As anticipated, the Tribe has indicated that it will appeal. AGHCA will participate in that appeal, as no doubt will the Town and the Commonwealth.
The Tribe asserted positions in the litigation that, if upheld, would vitiate most of the Settlement Agreement’s key provisions and conditions. In particular, the Tribe is attempting to avoid the waiver of sovereign immunity embodied in the Settlement Agreement, which would have extraordinary impacts on all of us, including by calling into question the ability of the Town of Aquinnah or other Island jurisdictions or bodies to enforce zoning, building, and other regulations on any lands now owned or later acquired by the Tribe, wherever located. Although rejected by the lower court, all of the lower court’s determinations that bear on these matters will be “up for grabs” as part of the appeal process.
Litigation like the casino case is extraordinarily expensive. Even though we had accumulated a sizeable “nest egg” in anticipation of such litigation, it is spent and our accrued “litigation debt” and anticipated on-going appeal expenses necessitate our asking everyone for an “extra measure of support” at this time. Frankly, we must ask that everyone be as generous as possible.
In this regard, a few Aquinnah residents have stepped forth very generously and have agreed to provide “matching contributions” (equaling several hundred thousand dollars in the aggregate). PUT SIMPLY, TWO CATEGORIES OF DONATIONS WILL BE ELIGIBLE TO BE MATCHED DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR – (A) ALL DONATIONS OF $10,000 OR MORE AND (B) ALL DONATIONS WHICH ARE DOUBLE (OR MORE) THAN THE DONOR’S LARGEST PRIOR GIFT TO AGHCA.
AGHCA has Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, making your contributions to AGHCA tax deductible to the extent permitted under law. Our activities are funded entirely from contributions from individuals. We ask that you be as generous as you can and that as many of you who can “take advantage” of the match program now in effect.
Sincerely,
Larry Hohlt, President