Tonight's the night

West Tisbury's Annual Town Meeting starts at 7p.m. tonight and, because there was a delay in getting all the articles on the warrant for the Annual Town Meeting, there will also be a Special Town Meeting.

Most of the articles on both warrants are rather mundane, but Article 19 is one that can start bringing the Town into the 21st century. This article requests that a committee be formed to conduct a Town-wide space needs assessment. Up to this point, the Town has addressed its space needs on a one-by-one basis. A typical approach has been: We don't provide our Town employees with adequate work space, so let's renovate the current Town Hall. A better approach is: how can we best solve the problem of providing adequate space to our Town employees. To do so requires a look at all of our building and land assets as well as the additional needs that will have to be met soon, such as the police station, library, animal pound, community hall.

There will also be considerable interest in the three Town Hall articles. Article 1 of the Special Town Meeting asks for $36,000 to get a better estimate of the cost of a less ambitious Town Hall renovation. The sponsors of this article apparently believe that the taxpayers will approve more money being spent on what seems to be a lost cause. Article 39 of the Annual Town Meeting asks for a rescission of the vote approving $3,705,000 for renovation of the Town Hall; this sum was almost $2,000,000 short of the proposed costs. The question here is the legalities of the article as $300,000 of the appropriation has been spent. Article 40 asks the Town to authorize the Board of Selectmen to sell the Town Hall to a conservation group and lease it back. This will never fly as it is giving the Board of Selectmen a blank check with no Town Meeting oversight.

The oddest article is 41 which wants to create the honorary office of Poet Laureate of West Tisbury. Since the Town considers itself the Athens of Martha's Vineyard, perhaps the first appointee will write his poems in Greek.