One of two defendants who stole the safe that contained the life savings of an elderly Oak Bluffs man paid a visit to the Gazette on Wednesday to say that he was sorry for the crime and to correct the record on the facts in the case which he said had been portrayed inaccurately by police and in the press.

Oak Bluffs voters approved a nearly $25 million budget at Tuesday night’s annual town meeting. But the budget contained cuts to services and personnel, and if passed alone, town administrator Michael Dutton explained, would leave paving undone and no salaries for a new town finance director, two teaching aides at the Oak Bluffs school and other expenses. So voters moved to place on the May 26 ballot two separate override questions to restore those cuts.

With little discussion, Edgartown voters unanimously said yes to moving the public library to the old Edgartown School at Tuesday night’s annual town meeting. Despite lingering questions about what would happen to the historic Carnegie building and the dilapidated Warren House, cheers erupted when the article passed to accept state grant monies to fund half of the project, should the grant be awarded. It was the first time voters had the opportunity to approve the move from the current North Water street site.

Tisbury voters will have to convene for at least one more night, after Tuesday night’s meeting failed to even begin consideration of the 37 articles on its annual town meeting warrant.

Instead, the meeting spent three hours working its way through the warrant for the special town meeting which was supposed to be held last week, but was postponed for lack of a quorum.

In the end, despite vigorous debate and minor amendments on several of the 16 articles on the special town meeting warrant, voters approved them all.

A sharply divided gathering of 270 West Tisbury voters agreed to take the first step to allow the sale of beer and wine in restaurants on Tuesday night. It was an annual town meeting when nothing seemed to come easily and voters bogged down frequently, and when it came time to vote on the beer and wine question late in the evening, tempers had begun to fray. “It’s totally unfair, we are being ambushed by this whole scenario,” said Kell Hicklin, owner of the Lambert’s Cove Inn and one of the backers of the petitioned article.

Oak Bluffs police announced on Monday that they have arrested a pair who robbed a well-known elderly Oak Bluffs man of his life savings last month, although they have not recovered all the money. Police said $85,000 was stolen from the man, whose name is being withheld, but only about $37,000 has been recovered.

The robbery occurred on March 19, when the man reported to police that his safe had been stolen while he was off-Island visiting family for two days. It contained his life savings of about $85,000.