Remy Tumin
Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School principal Steven Nixon presented a final draft of his $16.9 million budget for next year to a school subcommittee this week. The budget is a two per cent increase over last year.
The subcommittee voted to preliminarily recommend the budget to the full high school committee Monday night.
It was a long and busy summer at Beetlebung Farm in Chilmark, and on Sunday night farm workers traded vegetable beds for guitars and poems at what was billed as the Beetlebung Festival of the Arts and Edibles at the Chilmark Community Center.
Farm owner and chef Chris Fischer made farm-raised pork meatballs, green salad, kale Caesar, broiled greens with crispy pork and ribolita, a Tuscan bean and kale salad. Chilmark Coffee company owner Todd Christy brewed fresh cups of Vineyard-ground coffee and tea to order.
Cable television customers on the Vineyard are all but assured of having Comcast service for the next 10 years, as a contract between the giant cable company and the six Island towns nears completion. But the question of whether the contract will guarantee service for outlying rural areas of the Island, including Chappaquiddick, remains unsettled.
With Menemsha falling away behind and the open sea ahead, the U.S. Coast Guard boat headed due west three miles off the coast of Aquinnah Wednesday afternoon. Then the engine was cut. The sun sank in the blue November sky as officers lowered the flags to half-mast and gathered on deck to say goodbye to one of their fondest shipmates, Bridger.
It was a committal service at sea fit for a commander. Coast Guard Station Menemsha crew members said goodbye to their mascot, Bridger, a yellow Labrador who died on Sept. 22 from complications of old age. He was 12.
The growing demands of special education classes in the public schools have placed extra demands on the budget for Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss, who is on track to spend $4 million next year, a five per cent increase over this year.
The All-Island School Committee voted 9 to 1 to approve the superintendent’s budget at its monthly meeting on Wednesday. The budget pays for a variety of shared services for the public schools, including special education.
A lbert (Ozzie) Fischer Jr. was a man of the land who always had dirt beneath his fingernails, a farmer and arborist with a fondness for practical jokes.