News
Hello, Kayla
Gina Williams, formerly of Edgartown, and Brian Bundza, of Milton, N.H., announce the birth of their daughter, Kayla Belle Bundza on Jan. 3, 2009 at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Me. Kayla weighed 5 pounds, 12 ounces at birth. The proud grandparents are the late Frank J. Williams and Dona Lyons of Summerville, S.C. and Debbie Bundza of Rochester, N.H. and the late James Bundza.
Tax Volunteers Needed
Volunteers are needed for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, which operates in partnership with the IRS. The program uses volunteer tax counselors to help low-income taxpayers file their tax return. Other volunteer opportunities are also available. No experience necessary; all training is provided.
Should there be a bike path on Chappaquiddick? The island has been mulling over the question on and off for 30 years.
And rarely has the bike path been as live as today. There is a committee. There is a Web site. There are scores of letters and over 300 official positions.
But no definitive answer is likely to be forthcoming in the near future, particularly now that a frugally minded Edgartown finance committee voted Wednesday against recommending funding a survey for a path with Community Preservation Act money.
The program that connects Island residents with affordable health insurance has been forced to cut its staff and operations, as of the start of this year. Facing a shortfall of $80,000, Vineyard Health Care Access program director Sarah Kuh this week appealed to add an article to all town warrants asking taxpayers to make up for losses from shrinking grants.
“We have lost employees and we’re more restricted in the services we can provide,” Ms. Kuh told a panel of town leaders at a meeting of the All-Island Selectmen Wednesday night.
Tuesday will mark a day in history, the inauguration of Barack Obama as the first black president, elected only 44 years after Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964 granted suffrage to African Americans, and sworn in one day after the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday.
And while it remains to be seen how President Obama will navigate the chop ahead, his message of hope has set expectations high, and his entrance to the Oval Office is cause for celebration among all Americans.
Steamship Authority governors have opted to take a hit of up to $160,000 to boat line revenues this year so high-speed services to Nantucket can be maintained in the face of falling patronage.