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Vineyard connections: MVRHS students return to Visiting Vet returns B2 the Island to teach B14

Thursday, April 30, 2026

THE MARTHA’S VINEYARD TIMES

Volume 43, Issue No. 17

2 Sections

Price $1.00

Overrides, the Fourth Amendment, and Little Lady Chilmark and Tisbury voters cast their votes at town meetings. BY THE MV TIMES

NICHOLAS VUKOTA

The first 100 days GM Kryska guides the Steamship Authority through choppy water into summer. BY EUNKI SEONWOO

ummer is fast approaching the Vineyard. The lead-up to the tourism season is well underway as summer residents return to open their homes and visitors are steadily increasing. The Island, which will see its population surge from 20,000 year-round to more than 100,000 during July and August, is bracing for the onslaught of summer.

Ruling throws MVC housing role in flux Puts future of affordable housing on shaky ground. BY SARAH SHAW DAWSON AND EUNKI SEONWOO

recent ruling by the Massachusetts Housing Appeals Committee (HAC) has thrown the Island’s governing guardrails for large affordable housing developments into uncharted territory. The ruling, issued on Tuesday, April 21, deemed that the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC), the regional regulatory authority that has reviewed large housing developments for decades, is a “local board.” This categorization essentially pushes out the commission from making major decisions on projects proposed under a state housing statute called Chapter 40B. Continued on A7

At the helm of this always-fraught journey into summer is Alex Kryska, the new head of the Streamship Authority, who has been steering for a little more than 100 days. He is plunging into his first summer season as the head of the ferry service, the Island’s lifeline, which has been plagued with technology glitches as well as staff shortages and ferry repairs that leave passengers

intensely frustrated. It is now in Kryska’s wheelhouse to solve these problems and steer the ship into a successful summer for a tourism economy that collectively relies on the hum of summer for the vast majority of its gross annual income. In a wide-ranging interview with The Martha’s Vineyard Times, Kryska said Continued on A6

t annual town meetings in opposite ends of the Island — Tisbury and Chilmark — two cash-strapped town governments passed amendments that would allow for an override, and they expressed shared values in supporting local initiatives that uphold constitutional protections against illegal search by federal agents and a willingness to provide municipal funding to restore a beloved wooden lobster boat named the Little Lady. With an economy that is leaving towns in America and across Martha’s Vineyard in a tough financial position, each of the Island’s town governments are seeking Proposition 2½ overrides to cover rising school costs, insurance, employee salaries, inflation, and expenses that have outpaced the state’s 2.5 percent tax levy cap. That includes the two towns from opposite ends of the Island — the up-Island, rural town Chilmark and the down-Island bustling port town of Tisbury — both gathered this week to address a number of these issues at town meetings,and both sought overrides. In Chilmark, residents also overwhelmingly passed a citizen’ petition designating the town a “Fourth Amendment Workplace.” In Tisbury, after a heated debate,a 75-night limit lift on short-term rentals was denied. Tisbury still has 36 warrant articles remaining, including the Fourth Amendment article (article 33), and both of its overrides, one to cover a budgetary funding gap and another for a sewer project. The meeting continued on Wednesday night at the Tisbury School. And while the results were issued past our print deadline, Chilmark voters went to the polls Wednesday to vote on ballot questions, including whether cell towers should be allowed, budgetary overrides, and the next select board member. Follow continuing coverage online this week.

Read full coverage of town meetings starting on A8. An editorial on the Fourth Amendment appears on A4.

A line in the sand State digging into fierce debate over how Chappy beaches can be accessed by vehicles. BY EUNKI SEONWOO

t’s almost time to deflate the tires and get out on the coastline of Chappaquiddick. Some look forward all winter to this time of year when they can get out on the beach with family and fishing poles packed into their four-wheel-drive vehicles. Others dread the way the vehicles and the coolers of beer and noise that come with them degrade the sanctuary of the breathtaking and pristine stretch of beach. The state has dug in on the hotly debated issue of how Chappaquiddick beaches are accessed by over-sand vehicles, or OSVs to use the official parlance, in a decision that seems to be welcomed by stakeholders on all sides of the criss-crossing lines made by tire tracks on Chappaquiddick’s beaches. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection issued a superseding order of conditions on April 13 that established parameters for OSV access to Leland Beach, which is just south Continued on A6

Norton Point Beach.

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