Relevant Local Info

Sen. Elizabeth Warren tackled housing on Martha’s Vineyard on Friday as costs continue to soar while working people are priced out of a market that caters to wealthy visitors with a median home price that breaches $2.5 million.  Warren was on the Island to learn more about the reality of housing for locals and present a substantial housing act that became federal law this July. She toured workplace housing and lended her ear to the issues and the achievements made toward tackling the Vineyard’s housing crisis. 

The Trustees of Reservations, which manages various conservation lands on Martha’s Vineyard, was deemed by a Massachusetts Land Court judge to have overstepped its bounds on Cape Poge, bringing to question where oversand vehicles will be allowed on Chappaquiddick Island’s northern point.  Land Court Judge Sarah Turano-Flores ruled on Tuesday, Aug. 11 that the Trustees violated the easement rights of Victor and Dawn Robert Bruno Colantonio, Cape Poge property owners, and that the nonprofit organization had overburdened the area by allowing visitors on oversand vehicles to traverse its trails. 

An oversand vehicle (OSV) trail on Chappaquiddick Island that was inaccessible for years due to erosion has been restored, just over a month before the Vineyard’s premier fishing tournament begins. The Edgartown conservation commission unanimously voted on Wednesday, August 12 to reauthorize the Trustees of Reservation’s operation of a 450-foot trail that connects its Wasque Reservation and the state-owned Leland Beach, opening a vehicular land route between two fishing hotspots on the southeastern corner of Chappy. 

Three local soccer players, who play on the nonprofit Martha’s Vineyard United (MVU) travel team, were selected for the Olympic Development Program (ODP), a youth soccer pipeline that identifies and develops talent across the country. Rafael Assis, Mateus Deassis, and Thales Fernandes, earned the spots through weekly ferry trips for extra practice and exposure and dedication to improvement, the young locals said.

One day before Wampanoag tribes observed the 350th anniversary of Metacom Day, Aquinnah Wampanoag citizen and educator Brad Lopes brought the history of King Phillip’s War through a Wampanoag lens to the newly renovated Vineyard Haven Public Library.  Lopes presented about the war to community members and discussed the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), whose ancestors lived through the war and who continue to navigate the impacts of colonialism on the island of Nôepe, the indigenous name for Martha’s Vineyard, on Tuesday night.