The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School district committee voted this week to certify a $17.6 million budget for the coming fiscal year, an increase of $732,927 or 4.3 per cent.
“Much of the budget is driven by things we cannot control,” high school principal Stephen Nixon said during a public presentation of the budget last week, noting fixed costs that include salaries, debt service, retirement, shared services and health insurance. Those costs alone total $5.4 million, an increase of 13.3 per cent over last year, Mr. Nixon said.
Poker star Jesse Sylvia joined friends and family on Monday night for a hometown celebration at the Ritz Cafe in Oak Bluffs. In late October Mr. Sylvia won second place in the World Series of Poker Main Event, earning $5.29 million.
Biggie Shorty provided the tunes and a crew of two camera men followed Mr. Sylvia around, filming an MTV True Life episode on him as a young millionaire. Earlier, the camera crew had filmed Mr. Sylvia shopping for houses on the Island for his mother Marlene DiStefano.
Meverell Good thought he was coming to the high school for a small delivery.
Earlier in the week his wife, Anne Good, suggested they visit the school to give secretary Inez Montanile a gardening book.
Madeline Way tapped on an iPad in her Project Headway classroom at the West Tisbury School.
“The kids who use this program cannot talk,” she explained. “But they can go like this in a fury.”
Tap, tap, tap. The iPad speaks: “I — want — puzzles.”
Tisbury town employees will have to restrict their use of Facebook and Twitter while at work from now on.
The selectmen voted this week to approve a social media policy for municipal workers, becoming the first town on the Island to do so.
The policy allows town departments to use social media sites for public communication only, and sets guidelines for public records law, copyright laws, confidential information protection and defamation. The policy will be sent out to all departments for signing within the next two weeks.
In February of 1958, the Tisbury fire department rushed in freshly polished trucks to extinguish the first fire call from the new station on Beach street. Last week the fire department made its last run from the fire station. For pizza.
