Aquinnah's recently completed town-wide revaluation has some unwelcome surprises for beach lot owners. But for a group of long-lost taxpayers, owners of nine parcels previously thought to be town-owned, the tax bill will arrive like a winning lottery ticket.
Aquinnah will experience a drop in real estate value of $3.2 million, ...
As erosion inches the Gay Head Lighthouse closer to the edge, the Martha’s Vineyard Museum is moving ahead with a study to assess the urgency of relocating the 156-year-old structure.
The study will take place over the course of three years and provide a “more realistic” prediction of what the long-term ...
Reports that the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) wants to open a bingo hall in Aquinnah came as a surprise to members of the Island community this week. But documents filed with the federal gaming commission show plans to conduct gaming on the Vineyard have been in the works ...
After nearly two hours of debate at a special town meeting Wednesday night, Aquinnah residents voted to allow Vineyard Power to install 200 solar panels at the town landfill. The one article-warrant passed 29-13.
The 60,000 kilowatt system will power all of the town buildings and street lights.
A long-running effort by an Aquinnah property owner to build a house on a lot off Moshup Trail was blocked by the town planning board plan review committee this week, which found the lot lacks adequate road frontage under new zoning rules adopted by the town eight months ago.
After a ...
The good news began in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, when 68 flapping fish were delivered to the Wampanoag Tribe’s hatchery in Aquinnah near the edge of Menemsha Pond. The adult winter flounder had just been caught earlier Tuesday by Greg Mayhew and his son, Todd, in the Menemsha ...
The Wampanoag Planning Department extends an open invitation to the Island community to attend a public hearing on Friday, November 12, 2010 from 5-6:00pm to review the results of a Wind Feasibility Study conducted on Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) trust lands in the Town of Aquinnah. The Tribe collected wind data for over one year at the old LORAN Station site and has drafted a report that details the technical feasibility of erecting
The most important, longest running, and most costly campaign in the Vineyard Conservation Society’s 45-year history involves environmental legal defense at Moshup Trail. The lawsuit isn’t over, but we have registered a significant win, described in this issue of the Almanac.
This IS NOT the end of the need for funding for VCS land protection generally or for our work at Moshup Trail specifically. In fact, this should be the stimulus for giving more, and
Much attention continues to be focused on windfarm development in Vineyard waters allowed under the Massachusetts Oceans Act. Some of you may be intersted in attending a meeting to discuss wind farm development in Rhode island waters south of the Vineyard will take place on this THURSDAY, 10/21 at 5pm at the Oak Bluffs Library.
Massachusetts and Rhode Island recently agreed to collaborate on wind development in a designated area of
This week, Aquinnah town officials said they plan to take steps to clean up scores of plastic mesh bags used to raise oysters. The bags now litter the western shoreline of Menemsha Pond.
The bags, most of them derelict, make a final footnote to an ambitious project to raise oysters that began with the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) in 2002.
For years, rafts of tribe-owned black bags and a work barge floating in Menemsha Pond generated complaints from
In the summer of 2004, two teams of Air Force reservists traveled from their home base, Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to Aquinnah to begin erecting the steel frame for a new community center building for the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head.
The Wampanoag Community Center remains unfinished, six years after Air Force construction units completed most of
The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) last week removed brush it had placed to block a path opposite Clay Pit Road, that gave access to Lobsterville Beach. The tribe’s action followed a meeting August 9, between a representative of the town’s three-member board of selectmen, Aquinnah town counsel, and the tribal council.
The blocked path had threatened to become a line in the sand over which the limits of the 1983 settlement agreement that led to federal recognition
In December 2004, the state Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled that the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) is subject to local enforcement of zoning regulations with respect to the construction of a small shed on the so-called Cook Lands.
The dispute centered on the language of the 1983 settlement agreement between the town, the state, the tribe, and the non-resident taxpayers of what was then Gay Head. That agreement, which was at the heart of the lawsuit that consumed
A sandy path to Lobsterville Beach in Aquinnah has been reopened to the public, halting, at least for now, a contentious land-use battle between the town and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).
In a letter to the Aquinnah selectmen dated Aug. 12, tribal council chairman Cheryl Andrews-Maltais confirmed that the path would be reopened.
“The tribal council will permit the town temporary foot access across the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) Trust Lands on a designated path
The Massachusetts Land Court has upheld the town of Aquinnah in a pivotal case that will ultimately decide whether a large swath of rare, salt-blasted coastal heathland along Moshup Trail remains forever wild or is opened up for development. Click here to read the decision as a PDF.
In a decision issued August 12, the land court ruled that Bear Realty Trust and a group of other landowners do not have access to some 30 acres of landlocked
The annual Aquinnah/Gay Head Community Association Reception will be held at the Vanderhoop Homestead on Aquinnah Town Circle this evening, August 16, starting at 5 p.m.
Richard Skidmore, who with his wife Joan LeLacheur, has been “in charge of” maintaining the Gay Head Lighthouse for 20 years will be our speaker. Richard will be talking about the Light’s history, its fragile location and its future.
As usual, the Reception is free (although donations to help defray its expenses will be cheerfully received). We will be
The access path at the foot of Clay Pit Road to/from the Vineyard Sound beach has been re-opened. This is a very positive development and is part of an on-going process between the Town and the Tribe. A PDF of the letter of yesterday’s date from the Chairwoman of the Tribe regarding this matter can be read by clicking here.
We thank both the Town and the Tribe for their on-going efforts to bring this matter to a
A meeting between the town and tribe in Aquinnah has finally taken place, but no agreement has been reached on whether an access path to Lobsterville Beach, blocked off by the tribe last month with a rope barrier and a blockade of branches and brush, will be reopened.
“I met with the tribal council on Saturday, which actually for us was a historic moment, because we’ve not done that before,” selectman Jim Newman said at a meeting of the Aquinnah
The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), in a meeting August 1, approved a feasibility study for a casino on tribal land in the town of Aquinnah. How serious the tribe is about pursuing a gambling hall in the Island’s smallest town remains unclear.
“There’s no news on that horizon,” Naomi Carney, Aquinnah Wampanoag gaming corporation chairman, said when reached by The Times and asked about the vote to authorize a study. “There is nothing to tell on that as
AGHCA will hold its annual RECEPTION this coming Monday, August 16 (rain date August 17), starting at 5 p.m., at the Vanderhoop Homestead (on the Aquinnah Circle at the Head of the Cliffs). Ample free parking will be available in the adjoining Town parking lot.
Our speaker this year will be Aquinnah resident Richard Skidmore, who will talk about the Gay Head Lighthouse – its fascinating past, its present role, and the
In order to help the Aquinnah Selectmen and the Wampanoag tribal council in their discussions about the Lobsterville beach access issue, AGHCA president Larry Holt sent the following cover letter and memorandum to town hall and to the tribe:
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