Sam Bungey
A man waiting for coffee behind me the other day at the Scottish Bakehouse was wearing a navy pinstripe double-breasted suit and recently shined shoes, and he may as well have been sporting a tutu and a beer hat for the looks he was getting.
You could see the customers’ minds working. He wasn’t en route to a funeral, his suit was too light. But at 10 a.m. on a dreary, rainy Tuesday in early April, a wedding seemed unlikely too. Maybe he was a hired gun, just grabbing a Danish before heading up-Island to rub someone out . . .
An attempt to hike Aquinnah commercial shellfish licenses from $200 to $1,000, to help fund an apparent six-figure shortfall in the town budget, sparked outrage in the fishing community this week.
Better cell phone coverage for up-Island towns appears still a way off, judging by the opposition to a proposed system voiced at a long and arduous meeting Monday night.
Aesthetic, financial and health topped the list of concerns over a pitch from American Tower Corporation, a Boston-based company which won a bid late last year to build a distributed antenna system for the three rural towns. Cell phone coverage up-Island ranges from spotty to nonexistent.
A warrant long on articles but short on controversy awaits voters at Edgartown annual town meeting Tuesday.
Voters will be asked to approve a $26 million operating budget for the coming fiscal year along with a legion 53 warrant articles. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in the Old Whaling Church; moderator Philip (Jeff) Norton Jr. will preside.
Selectman Arthur Smadbeck credited early and conscientious work of town departments for the lack of fuss on the warrant this year.
In business on the Vineyard, one man’s downturn is another man’s opportunity. Particularly in spring.
“Why here?” said Douglas Hewson this week, sitting in the building site of the new venue for Mediterranean, a building recently vacated by Lola’s restaurant following a 15-year run.
“In a word? Potential. We traded our water view for 75 parking spaces.”
Mistakes made in a restoration project at Bend in the Road Beach have resulted in pulled beach grass, a run of complaints about unpleasant sand and a smaller beach, according to Edgartown town administrator Pamela M. Dolby.
Speaking at a selectmen’s meeting Monday, Mrs. Dolby said a number of people have criticized the project including one man who had come to her office with video footage of the beach.
“There have been a number of complaints about sand quality and the loss of beach,” she said.