The Vineyard Gazette – Martha's Vineyard News

A controversy over the management of the Chilmark Community Center and the town's tennis courts continued to roil the small island town this weekend.

A Sunday morning forum on the town meeting petition to reorganize the city tennis program quickly grew contentious.

The forum, hosted by the Chilmark Town Affairs Council, the nonprofit organization that oversees programming at the Chilmark Community Center, was also attended by community members associated with the Friends and Associates of Chilmark Tennis organization, who wrote an article have proposed organizing a town meeting to separate the tennis clubs. courts outside the council's jurisdiction.

One flashpoint issue centers on former Chilmark tennis pro Eddie Stahl, who members of the city's tennis community believe is at risk of not having his contract renewed for camp this summer.

The discussion on Sunday quickly expanded, however, as town residents highlighted perceived issues of lack of transparency and lack of engagement among Chilmark Town Affairs Council leaders.

“We were not treated in good faith,” said Max Simon, a member of the tennis friends group, whose speech was greeted with applause.

Thirteen members of the Chilmark Town Affairs Council board of directors have resigned in the past 18 months, according to Mr. Simon. Two of them, he said, Chris Fischer and Ben Lilienthal, resigned yesterday over a YouTube video asking voters not to support the tennis group's citizen petition.

“It was despicable,” Mr. Simon said of the video. “It implies that we are in it [the Friends and Associates of Chilmark Tennis] are regressive at best and racist at worst.”

The video, titled CCC Decision 2024, was produced by Kyle Williams, a seasonal resident of Oak Bluffs and chief empowerment officer at anti-racism nonprofit A Long Talk.

Mr. Williams has previously conducted diversity and equity training for the Chilmark Town Affairs Council and the Chilmark Community Center summer camp.

Suellen Lazarus, president of the Chilmark Town Affairs Council, said the board was not involved in the development of the video, but they knew Mr. Williams was making a video and provided him with footage of the camp that he could to use.

“We know people are very upset about the video taken by Kyle Williams,” Ms. Lazarus said at Sunday's meeting. “We fully understand that and are concerned about it. We asked for it to be removed as soon as we saw it.”

The video, which focused on the impact of a 2021 incident involving an eight-year-old Black child and two white boys at the camp, has been removed.

Since the 2021 incident, the Chilmark Town Affairs Council has hired three different executive directors for the summer camp program, the umbrella under which the summer tennis program operates.

Ms. Lazarus, a seasonal islander and founder of the Martha's Vineyard Book Festival, attributed some of those high sales to problems with the tennis group. In early 2023, she said, executive director Kiera Lapsley decided to resign after community backlash over her hiring decision of a youth tennis professional.

Ms. Lazarus said friction with the tennis program also led to the departure of a former executive director, Alexandra London-Thompson, in 2021. In an interview with the Gazette earlier this year, Ms. London-Thompson expressed her frustration with the tennis community. but said she left for health reasons.

Betsy Burnett, another member of the tennis community who spoke Sunday, read a letter from 2023 camp director Troy Lawson. In his letter, Mr. Lawson wrote that he had planned to return to work this summer, but that Ms. Lazarus had withdrawn the job offer she had previously made.

“Shortly after I accepted the position, Suellen called me again… and surprised me by telling me she was rescinding the offer I had already accepted,” Mr. Lawson wrote. 'My strong impression was that she withdrew my offer because I did not share her negative view of Eddie [Stahl].”

Ms. Lazarus disputed his letter, saying she never made him an offer, highlighting the conflict between his obligations at the camp and as a teacher in California.

“There is definitely a misunderstanding, because there was never an offer,” she says. “He certainly mischaracterizes his desire to return.”

This summer, Susan Pimentel Andrien, a permanent seasonal resident of the island, will take over the position.

Speaking at the forum on Sunday, Ms Andrien highlighted the work she has done in community engagement, while also speaking out strongly against the tennis petition.

“This would divide us forever,” she said. “The center would never be the same again.”

Ms. Andrien declined several times to comment on whether Mr. Stahl would be rehired as a tennis pro before the summer, saying she could not discuss personnel issues.

Former and current members of the Chilmark City Affairs Council also spoke at the forum.

Nancy Grundman, a former member of the city council, said she resigned from the board in 2022 in part because she felt her views on behalf of the tennis community were dismissed.

“I felt like I wasn't being listened to,” she says. “The [Chilmark Communtity Center] today is silencing the voices of the community and centralizing power and decision-making among the world's small elite [Chilmark Town Affairs Council] plate.”

Heather Quinn, a current member of the board of directors and early childhood program director for Martha's Vineyard Community Services, spoke out in favor of the tennis group, while also expressing concerns about the leadership of the Chilmark Town Affairs Council.

“I have felt constantly marginalized,” she says. “To be honest, I've sometimes wondered if it's because I live in an affordable house in Chilmark, rather than a second one.”

After more than an hour and a half of discussion, Ms. Andrien closed the meeting, prompting boos from the crowd.

Chilmark voters will have the opportunity to weigh in on the tennis article at the town meeting at the Chilmark Community Center on Tuesday, April 23, beginning at 7 p.m.