After receiving preliminary designs for the Carnegie Building and the old Edgartown School two weeks ago, the Edgartown Library building committee asked architects this week to come up with a smaller program and a smaller budget. The committee is hoping to see new design ideas at their weekly meeting this coming Monday.

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.

Debate about whether to build a public fishing pier on the harbor side of the Oak Bluffs Steamship Authority wharf grew contentious last Thursday, when neighborhood residents of the North Bluff protested the location, citing noise and garbage concerns.

While most in attendance at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission public hearing came to applaud the project, neighboring homeowners insisted the pier should be built on the far side of the SSA wharf.

They need no introduction, certainly not on the Vineyard.

Nat Benjamin and Ross Gannon, the well-known Vineyard Haven boatbuilders and owners of Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway, were honored last night at The Grange Hall in West Tisbury with the prestigious Creative Living Award, the annual honorarium given in memory of the late Ruth Bogan to an Islander who exemplifies the Vineyard way of life.

More than 100 friends and family members attended, including a number of respected wooden boat captains.

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission voted unanimously last week to approve a new two-story building at the Tisbury Marketplace on Beach Road in Vineyard Haven. The vote is a victory for developer Sam Dunn, who originally created the marketplace in 1984 and plans to build the new mixed-use retail and apartment building.

The vote concludes a process that began over a year ago when Mr. Dunn’s proposal was referred to the commission as a development of regional impact last fall.

The plan now goes to the town of Tisbury for review at the local level.

There is a world of difference, says Mike McCormack, between the role of a police officer and that of a sheriff. And between himself and his challenger.

“He’s about putting them behind bars. The sheriff’s job is about preparing them to go back into the community. They are totally different jobs,” said Mr. McCormack.

His point, if not already obvious, is that experience in one job does not equate to qualification for the other. And Mr. McCormack is running on experience

Neal Maciel’s policy manifesto relates almost exclusively to the running of the jail. It begins with a promise to prohibit transfers of prisoners from off-Island, something he claims the current sheriff allows too often and as a favor to his counterparts in other counties.

It’s a practice, he says, which has contributed to the Vineyard jail’s reputation as a place where fortunate prisoners can do soft time.

Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School quarterback Randall Jette walked off the practice field in the brisk fall air on Wednesday night after a hard practice that ran until almost 7 p.m. under the lights in preparation for tonight’s pivotal league game against Somerset at home. “Friday night is our Super Bowl,” Jette said.

Last year the Vineyarders lost 20-0 to Somerset and Jette is candid about what went wrong. “Me,” he said.

After days of bad weather, most of it wind, the fall derby busted open last weekend with great fishing from off Wasque to Devil’s Bridge in Aquinnah. This is the closing week of the 65th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. With more than 2,700 fishermen registered in the contest, a lot of fishermen were out on the water to make up for lost time. The contest ends at 10 p.m. tomorrow night.

Columbus Day weekend was the last chance most anglers would have to devote high energy to the sport.

Farm Pond, the 42-acre great salt pond that hugs the edge of the Harthaven section of Oak Bluffs along Beach Road, is ailing and at risk due to too much nitrogen, a draft study for the ongoing Massachusetts Estuaries Project concludes.

The draft report, which is now circulating among town leaders and water quality planners, also finds that rehabilitation of the pond is easily within reach and could be largely accomplished by significantly widening the culvert that allows tidal exchange between the pond and Nantucket Sound.