Two aspiring shellfish farmers were approved for Tisbury’s first aquaculture licenses at the select board meeting Tuesday night.

Concluding a public hearing on Noah Mayrand’s second application for an aquaculture grant, which drew letters of support from the town shellfish constable and others in the community, selectmen voted unanimously in favor of Mr. Mayrand’s license.

“Congratulations, Noah,” selectman Jeff Kristal said.

Mr. Mayrand plans to raise both oysters and bay scallops. The enterprise will benefit the environment and the town, he said.

“This is another step into the future, another thing we can do,” Mr. Mayrand said, noting that shellfish absorb more carbon than they produce and feed on free-floating nutrients that are already in the water.

“I want to keep this thing as green as possible and as beneficial to the town as possible,” he said.

Selectmen also unanimously agreed to sign a license for Husselton Head Oysters, whose proprietor is Jeffrey Canha.

Both one-acre aquaculture grants are located in Lagoon Pond. Mr. Canha’s is about 200 feet off the shellfish hatchery and Mr. Mayrand’s is roughly the same distance from the Park street landing.

The two businesses still have state regulatory hurdles to cross before they can begin farming. The Massachusetts Department of Marine Fisheries must approve the location of every grant and also requires growers to apply for annual shellfish propagation permits.

Also Tuesday, selectmen confirmed June 5 as the date for the annual town meeting, to be held for the second year under a tent at the Tisbury School.

Town meeting moderator Deborah Medders said she is studying the advisability of pairing the meeting with a special town meeting on the sole topic of the school building project, estimated to cost more than $50 million.

“It could be the day before or the day after,” said Ms. Medders, who asked for two weeks to bring selectmen a plan for the special town meeting.

Meanwhile, the board instructed town administrator Jay Grande to ask the financial and advisory committee to approve $25,000 in reserve funding for the school building committee to create a video and other materials to familiarize voters with the school renovation and addition project.

The money can only be used for educational purposes, town counsel David Doneski cautioned, and not to support a voting campaign.

A meeting is set for Wednesday evening with the select board, finance committee and school committee to discuss possibilities for funding that would reduce the amount of borrowing voters will be asked to approve. The meeting on Zoom begins at 6:30 p.m.; the agenda, ID and password are posted on the town website.

Among other business Tuesday, selectmen heard a proposal from harbor master John Crocker to hire a full-time, year-round natural resources assistant.

The position would replace the seasonal assistants hired annually for the harbor and shellfish departments, Mr. Crocker said.

“It is very difficult . . . to find qualified people just for summer employment and part-time seasonal [work],” Mr. Crocker said. “The idea here is if we have a full-time person, we can get someone who’s qualified.”

The person would help patrol busy waterways, assist boaters in distress and tow boats when necessary, respond to reports of fuel spills and similar responsibilities of the harbor department.

Basic maintenance of harbor department vessels, as well as of other equipment such as winter stakes and mooring balls, would also be part of the proposed position, as would operating the department’s two pump-out vessels that take sewage from private vessels.

Shellfish constable Danielle Ewart said the natural resource assistant would also be helpful to the shellfish department, which otherwise has a $7,000 budget for part-time seasonal assistance.

“Having an extra person year-round would be super beneficial,” she said. “Of course, they would have to know the regulations, waterways, aquaculture and so forth.”

Mr. Crocker said he expects the new job would be a union position and estimated an annual salary of $50,321.

Subtracting the budgeted part-time shellfish assistant and more than $15,000 budgeted for a seasonal harbor master assistant, Mr. Crocker said the net cost to the town would be $27,557, not including employee benefits.

Mr. Grande noted that the town’s general union, currently in the second year of a three-year contract, would need to weigh in on the new position through its bargaining unit.

“It’s an interesting proposal,” Mr. Kristal told Mr. Crocker and Ms. Ewart. “It has a lot of hoops to jump through first, but thank you for bringing it to our attention.”

Mr. Kristal also requested staffing plans for each department.

Tuesday evening also saw the board provisionally approve August 27 through August 29 for Beach Road Weekend, the multi-day music festival that made a successful debut in 2019 before the pandemic forced its cancellation last year.

“There are no national festivals that weekend and there are no regularly scheduled Vineyard nonprofit events,” event producer Adam Epstein told selectmen.

The board agreed to green-light Mr. Epstein’s schedule pending staff approval.

Selectmen heard reports from energy committee chairman Bill Straw and council on aging director Joyce Stiles-Tucker.

Mr. Straw made the first of what are planned to be quarterly reports to the board from the energy committee, which he said performs two primary tasks for Tisbury.

“We either make money for the town or we save the town money,” Mr. Straw said.

Energy generation, primarily through solar panels, is how the town makes money, more than $600,000 to date from the solar array at the landfill, Mr. Straw said.

To save money, the committee aims to make the 11 town-owned buildings more energy efficient, he said.

“The end goal of all of this, energy efficiency and generation, is to make all our building net zero (energy use) buildings,” Mr. Straw said. “We are on a track to be able to accomplish that.”

Mr. Grande praised the committee’s work. “These projects do save us a lot of money,” he said. “We have the LED streetlight program which has saved the town thousands and thousands of dollars a year.”

Ms. Stiles-Tucker of the council on aging said she has secured a $25,000 grant for automatic doors into the building’s reception area.

“We wanted to originally put an article on the town meeting floor, but on my research I found this Massachusetts Office on Disabilities and inquired through them,” Ms. Stiles-Tucker said. “I took a chance and wrote the grant and we received it.”

Work is expected to begin in March, she said.

Selectmen also agreed to create a town climate committee and approved business license renewals for Sweet Bites, Copper Wok and Bernier’s Market/Cronig’s Market (common victualers), Copper Wok (alcohol) and Nobnocket Inn and Vineyard Harbor Condo Trust (lodging houses).