The Island Health Plan, which seeks to provide affordable health insurance for many of the estimated 3,000 Islanders now living without it, is poised to win legislative approval that will enable the nonprofit group to begin work this spring.

Boat Line and Private Developer Have Plans for Oak Bluffs Center

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

The Tivoli, a lost landmark of Oak Bluffs, may come back. This week two young Island businessmen proposed to build a pavilion resembling the old dance hall on the same site where the former town hall stands today. Their plan competes with a second proposal from the Steamship Authority, which would turn the old town hall into a ticket office.

Chilmark and Commission Will File Briefs in Sovereignty Case

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

The town of Chilmark and the Martha's Vineyard Commission will add their voices to the Aquinnah court appeal over sovereign immunity, which is now expected to come before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court this year.

Finances Improve at Windemere, Hospital

By JULIA WELLS

The Windemere Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center ended the year in the red once again, but senior managers said this week that the $200,000 operating deficit is a big improvement over last year and a step in a better direction for the Island's only nursing home.

Martha's Vineyard Hospital chief executive officer Tim Walsh said yesterday that some hard-won rate relief from Medicaid played a big role in cutting the numbers at Windemere this year.

As their town grows, Chilmark municipal employees are playing a game of musical chairs at the old Menemsha School.

No Standbys: At SSA Docks, Winter Season Brings a Hush

By C.K. WOLFSON

Early morning: The landscape has turned to gauze; the snow, white static in wind-driven billows, erases the harbor, leaving only the illusion of distant masts - faint vertical slivers among the flows of harbor ice.