Faced with rising operating costs, nearly no growth in the residential and commercial sectors and sharply reduced revenues, Oak Bluffs officials will have to cut spending even more this year as they begin to draft the town’s next operating budget.
Town administrator Michael Dutton on Tuesday told selectmen the town faces a $1 million deficit at the start of this budget season. Although it is early in the process, he noted, and that figure is expected to shrink, the early shortfall is a telling indicator of the tough economy facing the Island.
It was an up-and-down week for the Vineyard’s high school sports teams.
The boys’ hockey team won a pair of games to inch closer to a berth in the state tournament, while the girls’ basketball team lost both a blowout against an unknown opponent and a tight game against a familiar rival. Meanwhile, the girls’ hockey team shook off a slow start and began to show potential, while the boys’ basketball team won a game by 30 points and lost another by a single bucket.
Boys’ Hockey
Although names were never discussed, it might have been called Middletown or Centerville, a seventh town in the center of the Island that some envisioned as the future social and economic center of the Vineyard.
A 1972 study from the engineering firm Metcalf and Eddy suggested the creation of this town, both as a means to protect the integrity of the existing down-Island centers and to keep large-scale development away from the more vulnerable ecology and geography of the up-Island towns.
What was supposed to be a nice matinee match-up between two high school basketball teams turned into an all-out war on Saturday, as the Vineyard and Wayland waged battle for four periods and three overtimes in arguably one of the best games ever played at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.
After nearly three hours of play, countless lead changes and more twists than a Russian novel, the Warriors finally prevailed over the Vineyarders by a final of 66-63 to send the packed crowd home disappointed but undoubtedly entertained.
Oak Bluffs police received a call on New Year’s Day from a women who reported the unlikely combination of a fire and domestic violence at a residence on Beacon avenue.
But when police responded, they came across something entirely different. They eventually confiscated 70 pot plants while arresting a local man on charges of cultivating marijuana.
It was a year of ‘what ifs' for the teams of the Martha's Vineyard Regional High School in 2007, as several teams missed the playoffs by the slimmest of margins, while others lost games in the state tournament that could have turned on the bounce of a puck or a roll of the ball.
