Oak Bluffs voters accustomed to cost cutting will get another chance to do so next Tuesday at a special town meeting when they will be asked to decide how to close a $300,000 budget gap. And town leaders hope that this latest round of belttightening will once and for all put the town on course for a sustainable future.
The special town meeting will be held on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Oak Bluffs School.
Cape Wind, the controversial 130-turbine, 50-square-mile project slated for construction on Horseshoe Shoal, hit a major roadblock late last week when a federal appeals court rejected a key finding from the Federal Aviation Administration that the wind farm would pose no hazard to pilots.
Senior circuit Judge Stephen F. Williams reached an opposite conclusion.
A broad-based effort to combat Lyme disease is now underway on the Vineyard, with the objective of better documenting and preventing the tick-borne illness that has affected untold numbers of year-round Islanders, summer residents and casual visitors.
The Oak Bluffs fireworks display, a cornerstone of Island summer every August, will be cancelled next year unless the town finds a way to continue the show after the town Firemen’s Civic Association voted to end their sponsorship of the event on Sunday.
A press statement released after the vote by civic association president James T. Morse and his fellow officers explained the decision while acknowledging the fireworks’ rich Island legacy.
A mile and a half off East Chop, 50 feet down, is a 380-foot World War I British freighter laden with motorcycles, steel billets, railroad car wheels, candles and clothes, still waiting patiently for delivery to the front lines in France. It is the Port Hunter and for photographer and anthropologist Sam Low it was a teenage playground.
After weeks of foraging, hunting and clamming, on Sunday Vineyard chefs from both amateur and professional ranks made good on their charge to serve up the wildest food the Vineyard has to offer.
