The four big Island towns will for the first time allocate millions of dollars in community preservation funds at their annual town meetings this year, with recommended projects ranging from installing Edgartown street-style lanterns to a revolving loan program to help Oak Bluffs families install denitrifying septic systems.

In a break with tradition, Tisbury will hold a special town meeting next Tuesday that will include over $450,000 in spending articles for town improvement projects, including road and sidewalk work, caterpillar spraying and historic building repairs.

Voters will take up the 22-article warrant in the Tisbury School gymnasium, where town moderator Deborah Medders will open the meeting at 7:30 p.m.

Due to high bacteria counts, the state Division of Marine Fisheries closed portions of two large Island ponds to shellfishing this week - one up-Island and the other down-Island.

The closures are effective immediately in part of the Tisbury Great Pond and at Major's Cove in Sengekontacket Pond, although town leaders have not yet received official letters of notification.

Missing Whale Stumps Museum on Beach Dig

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

A dead 52-foot fin back whale is missing.

Last Friday, two officials from a museum in Oklahoma City, Okla. went to Norton Point with the hopes of recovering the whale, buried in beach sand two years ago.

They hired a Vineyard Haven excavating firm to do exploratory digging. After hours of effort, they couldn't find it. The project has now been abandoned.

Oak Bluffs finance director Paul Manzi routinely credits his Dukes County pension account with thousands of dollars he receives through special perks awarded to him through his personal service contract, including money for travel and lodging, the Gazette has learned.

Mr. Manzi has a contract with the town that pays him a base salary of $60,000 a year for a part-time position of 20 hours a week. Mr. Manzi ordinarily commutes to the job from his home in Tewksbury two days a week.

Police Outreach Aims at Illegals

Oak Bluffs Chief, Lieutenant Ready Pamphlet in Portuguese to Educate Brazilians, Ease Fears of Deportation

By MIKE SECCOMBE

Picture a road accident, one car rear-ended by another. The Oak Bluffs police are in attendance, talking to the driver of the car that was hit, who happens to be Brazilian. Another car drives by and a woman shouts out the window: "Why don't you leave those people alone?"