Aquinnah voters agreed to condemn the federal government’s handling of the Cape Wind project, explore the use of solar panels at the landfill and trim the Tri-Town Ambulance budget at the annual town meeting Tuesday night. And an article to banish the practice of tabling controversial issues? That was tabled.

Nearly all of the 30 articles on the warrant passed during the three-and-a-half-hour meeting that saw much debate over the ambulance budget, an amendment to the town affordable housing bylaw and an article to reduce the size of the quorum.

This spring endangered Northern Atlantic right whales have been seen and photographed swimming in Vineyard waters. Marine scientists who monitor right whales, considered the rarest among marine mammals, reported seeing 57 whales off Noman’s Land and nearly a dozen south of the Vineyard two weeks ago. More than 200 whales, about half the known population, have been seen since January in Cape Cod Bay.

Aquinnah voters opted for a changing of the guard at the annual town election this year, electing former Wampanoag tribal council chairman Beverly Wright as their new selectman.

Ms. Wright defeated two-term selectman Camille Rose 124-95 in the Wednesday election.

A total of 225 voters turned out at the polls, 56 per cent of the 398 registered voters in town. Town clerk Carolyn Feltz presided over the election which still involves hand-counting ballots. Aquinnah uses an antique voting box from 1880; each paper ballot is cranked through the machine.

Entrepreneurship is in Elio Silva’s genes. Growing up in the landlocked, coffee-rich state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, he worked beside his father as he grew a small grocery into a major supermarket. In his 22 years on the Vineyard Mr. Silva has imported the lessons and work ethic ingrained in him during that time to the two stores he runs on State Road in Vineyard Haven: Tisbury Farm Market and Vineyard Grocer. He has also imported some delicious Brazilian coffee. Last week the Martha’s Vineyard Commission approved Mr.