News
West Tisbury selectmen will continue to explore options regarding development of the town’s planned solar array at the landfill. Town counsel Ronald Rappaport appeared at Wednesday’s board of selectmen meeting to discuss the matter, reporting that the Cape & Vineyard Electric Cooperative (CVEC) had amended the contract he and associate Fain Hackney negotiated in December of last year. The original project lender had withdrawn, and CVEC had found a new lender, Deutsche Bank.
A month after the conservation commission ordered the removal of a Chilmark house perched on an eroding bluff, the commission Wednesday heard plans for the home’s removal: the guest house is slated to come down immediately, with the main house dismantled in phases depending on the rate of erosion.
The 650-square-foot summer home on Stonewall Beach, owned by Natalie Conroy, stood eight feet from a cliff in late February. Ms. Conroy applied to move the house nine and a half feet back from the bluff, an application the commission denied because it would encroach on wetlands.
Island selectmen joined volunteers Wednesday to deliver Meals on Wheels, part of an annual campaign to raise awareness of the program. Last year the Meals on Wheels program increased by almost 30 per cent, with 50 volunteers delivering almost 30,000 meals to home-bound seniors from Aquinnah to Chappaquiddick. Those interested in donating their time to the cause should contact Heidi Dietterich at 508-693-4393, extension 192.
On March 28 in Gloucester, a fisheries hearing will take place regarding perhaps the most iconic and traditional of all Vineyard fish: the magnificent Broadbill Swordfish. The federal government has recently proposed a new open-access permit that would allow small-boat fishermen to retain and sell swordfish caught by rod and reel or harpoon. By strictly regulating large, industrial-scale vessels, U.S. swordfish have recently become a shining example of responsible and successful management, with all current science pointing to fully-rebuilt stocks.
For the past 10 years art teacher Janice Frame has met with students after school on Tuesday afternoon in the school library. She and the students meet to review poems, short stories and artwork for the Martha’s Vineyard high school student literary magazine Seabreezes. Ms. Frame, along with English teacher Bill McCarthy, acts as an advisor for the magazine.
Skip Finley, director of sales and marketing for the Vineyard Gazette, has been named one of six recipients of the Broadcasters Foundation of America’s 2013 Ward L. Quaal Leadership Awards. Mr. Finley, a veteran radio executive, served as managing partner in Noepe Communications prior to joining the Gazette staff earlier this year.