Accusing West Tisbury businessman Paul Garcia of bolting on a $10,000 debt and dissolving his corporation to avoid paying it, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) came out swinging this week in the dispute that erupted when the deli still popularly called Back Alley’s closed abruptly at the start of this month.

When he shuttered Garcia’s Deli and Bakery after more than seven years, Mr. Garcia blamed his landlords, the tribe, for raising his rent, calling them incompetent and dysfunctional.

The federal first home-buyer’s credit appeared to pay off on Martha’s Vineyard, where October sales of existing homes were up on the same month last year.

A surge in home sales nationwide was reflected in Dukes County — the six Island towns posted 25 sales in October this year, compared to 17 last year, according to figures provided by the Warren Group. Those 25 are a big chunk of the 111 single-family home sales so far this year; by this time last year, the Island had recorded 145 sales.

Twin effects of the recession — less funding and more needy Islanders — led Martha’s Vineyard Community Services to post a deficit of nearly a quarter of a million dollars this year, according to the annual report enclosed in today’s Gazette.

The deficit is half that which Community Services accrued the previous year. “This represents real progress but is still not sustainable over the long-term,” wrote the director of administration and finance Bernadette M. LaPorte.

It appears that tenants will be secure at least through January in the four Island towns where rental housing contracts were put in jeopardy two weeks ago, when the Island Affordable Housing Fund could not pay the monthly subsidies.

Garcia’s Deli & Bakery, the take-out eatery behind Alley’s General Store in central West Tisbury, hung out “everything must go” signs last weekend and closed its doors Monday afternoon, not for the season but for good.