The Oak Bluffs selectmen’s meeting opened on a sober note on Tuesday as board chairman Duncan Ross announced that fellow selectman Gregory Coogan is recovering in Massachusetts General Hospital after breaking his hip and femur in a fall from his roof on Monday. Mr. Ross conveyed Mrs. Coogan’s gratitude to the Island EMTs who responded to the accident.

Convening a meeting of the town affordable housing trust, the selectmen and Community Preservation Committee member Jim Westervelt approved a transfer request for $400,000 of Community Preservation Act money to carry out affordable housing activities. Selectman Ron DiOrio said affordable housing committee members had been looking at a number of distressed properties to purchase and that the request was not site specific, a detail that Gail Barmakian, who voted against the measure, said made her uneasy.

“I do have concerns about such an enormous amount of money without direct town oversight,” she said.

But Mr. DiOrio said the money would be subject to oversight at town meeting.

“This is not an attempt to do something without town meeting,” he said, adding: “Town meeting has to approve whatever dollar amount CPA recommends, and by that point in time it will be site specific and will be a specific project. Town meeting will have the final say because they can vote no.”

Mr. DiOrio also said the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development was interested in funding rental properties of four or more units and that the trust would also focus on such properties to try to lure grant money to match any CPA funds.

At over 50 per cent of the available CPA money, the $400,000 request was still unpalatable to Ms. Barmakian.

“It’s too much for me,” she said.

The vote was 4 to 1 to approve the transfer.

Selectmen also voted to appoint Sondra Murphy as the new children’s librarian. Speaking on behalf of the library trustees, Beatrice Green praised Ms. Murphy, who began working summers at the library two years ago.

“If you go upstairs [in the library] you will see 10, 11, 12-year-olds” she said. “You will see 15, 16-year-olds, which we have not seen in a long time.”

Town administrator Michael Dutton subsequently announced that the town library had been given a three-star rating by the Library Journal, one of only 10 Massachusetts libraries to receive the honor.

Selectmen also voted to change the date of a planned special town meeting from Nov. 9 to Nov. 16.

Finally, chairman Duncan Ross noted Edgartown’s truant delivery of its dredge to Sengekontacket.

“Last Friday at a joint Sengie meeting Paul Bagnall told me that the dredge would be coming into Sengie this past weekend,” he said. “As it turned out that wasn’t true.” The dredge was finally delivered on Tuesday, according to commercial fisherman Bill Alwardt.