The phone is ringing at Nectar’s nightclub near the airport with requests to book shows for the coming summer, but the owners say before they can commit to scheduling musical acts, they need to be able to buy the place.

And they are hoping to do just that.

A light, peaceful snow draped the West Tisbury School last Friday morning. If principal Michael Halt sees snow again in the coming months, it may be a world away, perhaps from a remote outpost in the central highlands of Afghanistan or the jagged Hindu Kush.

Spokesmen for the Island Housing Trust found themselves on the hot seat Monday when they appeared before the West Tisbury planning board to ask for an amendment to a special permit for the eight-unit project nearing completion at 250 State Road. Required under bank lending rules, the amendment adds language that will allow the homes to be sold at market rates if they ever go into foreclosure.

The basis of John Thayer’s complaint to the Tisbury selectmen this week was simple inequity. Mr. Thayer receives a $240 a year stipend for being a Department of Public Works commissioner, while two other commissioners receive their stipend plus health benefits worth around $20,000 a year.

After more than eight years of controversy, a final decision on the Cape Wind development planned for Nantucket Sound will be made by the end of April, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar promised this week.

Mr. Salazar made the commitment after an exhaustive round of meetings in Washington on Wednesday involving all the major parties supporting and opposing the development, which would see 130 wind turbines, each more than 400 feet tall, placed in federal waters on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound.

MARGARET KNIGHT

508-627-8894

(margaret02539@yahoo.com)

This past January week truly felt like winter. The cold temperatures preserved the small amount of snow on the ground for more than a week, an unusually long time for Chappaquiddick. Where the sun melted the snow in our front yard, the sodden green moss and grass of the lawn make it look like an indoor-outdoor carpet in need of replacement.

John S. Alley>

508-693-2950

(alleys@vineyard.net)

Well, we have had a run of cold weather recently that has not allowed the snow to melt as rapidly as is the usual custom. Ed Konicki reports that the cat dish full of water just inside his kitchen door in Webster froze like a rock twice last week. We could use a January thaw to get us reorganized.

NANCY GARDELLA

508-693-3308

(vhavenvgazette@yahoo.com)

JUNE D. MANNING

508-645-2574

(lthslnks@gis.net)

Chilmark stands this week at what I think we can agree is midwinter. Let’s hope, anyway, that half of it is behind us! It is a very quiet time here as things are pretty much closed up, and Chilmarkers are doing their thing, whatever it may be, indoors and warm! The Menemsha Café on Basin Road closed last weekend and plans to reopen in April after a general rest for all who worked so hard there since early last spring.