The Aquinnah selectmen voted this week to accept a private donation to help underwrite the town’s participation in the Massachusetts Estuaries Project study of Menemsha and Squibnocket Ponds. Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg will contribute up to $15,000 to help pay for the town’s share of the project.

As meteorologists yesterday charted a storm creeping inexorably toward the East Coast, in Aquinnah a race was on to get someone behind the wheel of the town snow plow.

Though the retirement of highway surveyor Forest Alley is apparently imminent, town coordinator Jeff Burgoyne said yesterday Mr. Forest will be manning the plow this weekend.

“He is ready, willing and able,” he said.

Yet selectman Jim Newman said that a new hire is waiting in the wings.

Bureaucratic black holes, poor communication and a lack of tact that borders on comedic are to blame for a series of recent misunderstandings between the Aquinnah town government and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).

The first fiasco began in late July when building inspector Jerry Wiener sent a letter tribal chairman Cheryl Andrews-Maltais citing the tribe for violating town zoning laws and the state building code on three building projects.

In a move which acknowledges almost a year of bureaucratic missteps, Aquinnah selectmen have announced their plan to scrap an energy district of critical planning concern, created to help push through a pioneering bylaw on wind turbines.

But those involved have voiced a determination not to give up on an initiative praised as much for its concept as it was damned for its presentation during multiple appearances on the town meeting floor over the past year.

Aquinnah selectmen will seek permission to issue one-day liquor licenses for events held on town-owned property, as well as authority to set policy

Aquinnah selectmen voted last week to issue the first beer and wine license in town to the Outermost Inn.