Still well short of their goal to raise $4 million from private contributions to expand and renovate the Edgartown Public Library, town library trustees turned to the selectmen for help this week, asking them to place an article on the annual town meeting warrant for the money.

The trustees need to raise $4 million by next June in order to receive a matching grant from the Massachusetts board of library commissioners. To date trustees have raised just under $750,000.

“If we didn’t ask the town to vote for this money, there is so much at stake,” said library trustee and board chairman Patricia Rose. “The $4.6 million would disappear.”

The original deadline for the grant was Dec. 31 of this year, but the state board voted this week to extend it to June 15.

The selectmen did not balk at the idea of putting the question to the voters, but they said first a number of questions must be answered. “I have a feeling this is going to have to be a much more complicated article before all is said and done,” said selectman Arthur Smadbeck.

The library expansion project began five years ago when voters at a special town meeting agreed to buy the Captain Warren house, located next to the library building on North Water street, for $3.5 million, with the intention of turning it into an annex to the existing library. Later library trustees said after structural analysis that the Warren house would have to be torn down. The expansion project calls for renovating the existing Carnegie building and adding new space to create a new library of some 21,000 square feet at a cost of some $15 million. The project was eventually approved by the town zoning board of appeals after much discussion about design and parking requirements.

Town administrator Pam Dolby said she would contact the town auditor and town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport to determine the legality of asking the town to appropriate the funds. “We haven’t ever done a project like this, with a private, public type of arrangement,” she said. Mrs. Dolby said the town has already contributed to the project by purchasing the Warren House, and she reminded trustees that the rest of the money was supposed to be raised through fund-raising and private donors. Among other things, Mrs. Dolby said she will need to find out if town bidding laws have been met, if there have been public meetings or public hearings for town voters, and if there has been a complete cost analysis on the project.

“The principal of letting the town decide — I support that. I think that the town ought to make a decision this big,” said Mr. Smadbeck. “That being said, everything that Pam has said has to be answered.”

In other business Monday, the Chappaquiddick bike path committee notified selectmen that a group of graduate students from Northeastern University in Boston would be coming to the Island later in the winter to work on designs for a possible bike path. Committee member Dick Knight said that the group and one professor would come in March to do their work; when it is done the results will be presented to the town.

The committee asked for support from the selectmen, and direction about where the group might hold the public meetings. “We wanted to let you know that’s what we’re doing,” said Mr. Knight. He said the project will come at no cost or obligation to the town.

Debate about whether to build a bike path on Chappaquiddick has gone on for over three decades, with the latest round taking place over the last two years. The tiny island community is torn down the middle on the issue; some residents believe passionately that a bike path is needed for reasons of safety and prudence, while others believe just as passionately that a path will be more hazardous and ruinous to the remote rural character of Chappaquiddick. Along the way, the selectmen’s meeting room has become the neutral ground for discussion.

“We’re not ready to commit to anything, [but] I don’t see how we could say no to this,” said selectman and board chairman Michael Donaroma on Monday. “It’s a free thing, it’s not going to get in anybody’s way.”

There was also some discussion over the recent decision to increase the commercial scallop limit from three struck 10-gallon washbaskets to four. The recommendation from shellfish constable Paul Bagnall came after shellfish committee member and fisherman Cooper A. Gilkes 3rd had conducted an informal canvas of the fishing community and asked fisherman their opinion on the increase. According to Mr. Bagnall, Mr. Gilkes reported back that four out of five fisherman had been in favor. A public meeting was not called to discuss the issue.

The discussion continued at a shellfish committee meeting on Tuesday night.

Reached by telephone yesterday, Mr. Donaroma said the meeting was attended by some 20 fishermen. “They all seemed generally in favor of raising the limit.”

The shellfish committee will meet again next week, and the selectmen will hold a special meeting Wednesday to decide if the new limit should stand.