In the Island’s last annual town meeting of the season, Aquinnah voters will gather Tuesday night to take action on 54 warrant articles and a $4,237,432 operating budget for the 2017 fiscal year. The meeting begins at 7 pm in the Aquinnah old town hall.
The warrant includes an article modeled after similar articles passed in West Tisbury and Chilmark, designed to increase the stock of affordable housing by allowing for the creation of accessory apartments and two-family dwellings by special permit.
One day later, voters go to the polls Wednesday between noon and 7 pm in old town hall to elect town officers. In the only contest, Macey Dunbar and Gary Haley will square off to fill the seat formerly held by Spencer Booker, who did not seek re-election to the three-member board of selectmen.
Voters will also be asked to take action on three ballot questions. These include a request to pay for the $450,000 bond to purchase a new fire pumper truck and a request for $54,043 to fund payroll costs in the assessors, board of health, and public works departments.
Selectman Jim Newman told The Times the town does not have a pumper truck, and the existing fire truck is well worn. He said the budget requests are related to increased hours in town departments.
Selectman Juli Vanderhoop said the old fire truck has reached its dependability limit for fire fighting, and will be recycled for use as a heavy-duty plow: “The current engine has been there since I was 10 or 12 years old, and although I’d like to think it wasn’t a long time ago — it was.”
Commenting on the override request, Ms. Vanderhoop said the town needs to generate more revenue to ease the burden on taxpayers who have lived in town the longest and are being the hardest hit. “This town needs help,” she said.
Ms. Vanderhoop said she would like to see the Wampanoag Tribe, which accounts for a portion of the town’s costs but not its tax base, work with the town to craft a solution.
Legal costs rise
The FY17 operating budget of $4,237,432 represents a 5.6 percent increase over the $4,011,849 FY16 appropriations, and does not include the Prop. 2.5 request of $54,043 to help fund three town departments.
Significant increases occur in the categories of general government, public safety, and culture and recreation.
The legal budget will increase from $75,000 to $90,000. Mr. Newman said the town has experienced high legal costs associated with two ongoing battles, one of which appears to have ended.
In November, U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV said the tribe cannot turn its long-unused community center into a gambling hall. The 40-page decision was rooted in the Settlement Act signed by tribal leadership in 1983 and ratified by the state legislature in 1985 and by Congress in 1987. The tribe has appealed that decision.
In April, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a group of property owners who had sought to develop landlocked parcels they own off Moshup Trail have no rights of access. In his 26-page decision, Justice Francis X. Spina reversed an Appeals Court ruling issued in January 2015 that the owners of three tracts of land off Moshup Trail in Aquinnah had the right to access their properties based on the historical “custom and practice of common access” by members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head.
The police department budget will increase from $554,401 to $580,005. Mr. Newman said much of that increase can be attributed to overtime, which he said relieves the town of hiring an additional full-time officer with benefits.
The Tri-Town Ambulance service will increase from $251,920 to $263,151.
Community programs will nearly double, from $20,163 to $45,036.
The cost of education, a budget buster in many towns, will increase from $1,205,282 to $1,273,072. The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School assessment will drop from $311,763 to $283,629. The Up-Island Regional School District assessment will increase from $893,519 to $989,444.
CPA requests
Four articles pertain to Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding, and requests to spend CPA funds. Voters will be asked to divy up $190,000 in CPA funds for various purposes that include open space, historic preservation, and housing.
Spending requests include $25,000 for the continued restoration of the Gay Head Light, and a total of $53,000 for plans associated with the Aquinnah overlook and circle.
Increasingly, towns are pooling CPA funds for projects of regional interest, which includes affordable housing. Aquinnah will be asked to contribute $20,000 to the Island Housing Trust development of Kuehn’s Way, a 22-unit affordable housing project, in Tisbury, and provide $6,000 to the Martha’s Vineyard Museum for emergency restoration and repairs to the roof of the Marine Hospital building, the museum’s new future home in Vineyard Haven.
The Wampanoag Tribe has also requested $15,000 in town funds for the restoration of the Christiantown [Mayhew] Chapel in West Tisbury. West Tisbury voters last month agreed to provide $10,000 in CPA funds to repair the chapel roof. Bettina Washington, tribal historic preservation officer, said the tribe will contribute $10,000, and is poised to accept a bid from a contractor to do the work.
The small chapel, which dates to 1829, has been allowed to deteriorate since its ownership was transferred in November 1993 from Dukes County to the tribe. For years, a small hole in the roof has grown larger. A plastic tarp now covers the hole in the roof.
The chapel is named for Thomas Mayhew Jr., the first minister to Christianize any of the indigenous peoples of New England, beginning in 1643 when he was 22. The land was set aside by the Wampanoag Sachem Josias as a place of worship for Indians who converted to Christianity. The praying Indians, as they came to be called, and their descendants constitute the oldest continuously existing community of Christian Native Americans.
Housing needs
An effort to generate more affordable rental housing options is behind a request to amend the town’s zoning bylaw to allow for accessory apartments and two-family dwellings.
For example, an apartment would be allowed by special permit as an accessory use to an owner-occupied single-family dwelling, subject to conditions. The apartment must be rented year-round, and income would be limited to a maximum of 120 percent of annual median income (AMI) as determined by the Aquinnah housing committee.
An accessory apartment may be rented or provided free of charge on less than a year-round basis for an owner’s caregiver while the owner is in residence on the property.
The bylaw would also allow for the creation of two-family dwellings, again with conditions meant to insure affordability. And units could only be occupied by “persons domiciled on Martha’s Vineyard year-round who the Aquinnah Housing Committee determines are eligible to rent, as demonstrated by income, residency, and other documentation required by the Aquinnah Housing Committee.”
In other zoning business, voters will be asked to adopt new regulations governing the floodplain zone to conform with federal guidelines.
In other business, the shellfish committee will ask voters to prohibit dogs from Red Beach to protect shellfish habitat, and to raise the fines for violations of the town’s leash laws.
Voters will also be asked to take ownership of the last 1.1 miles of West Basin Road and parking lot, which now provides the only nonresident parking available for beachgoers and boaters using the launch ramp. Asked if the town would restrict any portion of the parking to residents in the future, Mr. Newman said, “We wouldn’t do that; or at least I wouldn’t do it.”