SSA Set to Vote on Fare Hikes Thursday at Cornell Theatre

By JAMES KINSELLA

When the Steamship Authority board of governors convenes next Thursday morning at the Katharine Cornell Theatre, Vineyard governor Marc Hanover anticipates voting for across-the-board rate increases to fund next year's $78.3 million budget.

But he said it will be the last time.

"We really have to get a handle on this," Mr. Hanover said earlier this week about the budget, slated to rise $4 million next year. "We can't keep absorbing these additional costs."

Regional Formula Set for Discussion

State Education Officials Travel Here for Public Meeting on Anticipated Changes in District Assessments

By IAN FEIN

With selectmen across the Vineyard weighing in on expected changes to the way their towns pay for the regional school districts, education officials from Boston will travel to the Island next week to field questions about the state-driven shift.

In many ways, this year's Martha's Vineyard Regional High School boys' soccer team is a study in contradictions.

While most of the players have been kicking the ball together since they were children, coming up together through the ranks of youth soccer and the recreation and travel leagues, other key players joined the team only recently, after moving to the Island from other countries like Brazil.

Enrollment in the Vineyard public schools has dropped for the sixth year in a row, according to school census figures released this week.

The water is swirling in the narrow channel connecting Cape Pogue Pond to the Edgartown outer harbor. Minutes before the tide hit bottom, the pond was as low as gets, and now the waters of the ocean are running back in.

Two Edgartown homeowners who tore down a historic backyard barn on their property at the corner of Cooke and Summer streets in March of 2005 without town approval have agreed to pay the town $10,000.