News
“We let pigs live like pigs,” says Matthew Goldfarb, executive director of the Farm Institute, the nonprofit that runs the Edgartown-owned Katama Farm.
It’s an allowance that benefits animals and farmers alike: by the time the pigs leave the paddock later in the spring, the soil will be ready for reseeding. Meat-eaters benefit as well. Pigs free to trot and root, pigs fed corn grown in an adjacent field, provide guilt-free bacon.
Most town office seats will be uncontested in the Edgartown annual town election this year, with the single exception of the planning board.
Dudley Levick 3rd and Michael McCourt will vie for a one-year planning board term. Mr. McCourt was appointed an interim member of the board in December to complete the unexpired term of Alison D. Cannon, who resigned. Mr. Levick has long been active in town shellfish matters.
Legislative Delegation
Cape and Islands Rep. Timothy Madden and Sen. Robert O’Leary will be on the Vineyard on Monday, March 1 and will be holding open hours at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven from 3 to 5 p.m. To schedule an appointment, please call legislative liaison Nell Coogan at 508-693-3200.
House Tour
South Mountain Company of West Tisbury will host a deep energy retrofit house tour on Sunday, March 6. Learn how a house can be renovated for profound energy-use reduction, increased comfort and greater durability. Meet at 11 a.m. at the Red Beach parking lot off Lobsterville Road in Aquinnah. A free shuttle from the parking lot to the house is provided, as are refreshments. For details, call 508-693-4850, or visit southmountain.com.
The town election season this year will feature contested races for selectmen in Oak Bluffs and West Tisbury, as a full slate of candidates vie to fill the seats of two outgoing incumbents.
In West Tisbury, selectman Dianne Powers decided not to run again after serving a single term on the three-member board. When reached by phone this week Ms. Powers, also Dukes County register of deeds, offered a simple reason why she was calling it quits after one term. “I need to focus on my work at the registry of deeds,” she said.
Oak Bluffs selectmen on Tuesday rejected three applications for new tour bus companies in town, postponed action on a request from the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital for permits for four fuel storage tanks, one of which is 38 years old, and agreed in principal to a new reverse 911 system to alert residents via cell phone, text messages and e-mails during emergencies.