Welcome Lily

Laura Street and Erick Street of Venice, Calif., and West Tisbury announce the birth of a daughter, Lily June Street, born on April 2, 2009, at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica. Lily weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces at birth.

She is welcomed by grandmother Margot Barnes Goodwin of Oak Bluffs.

The decline of eelgrass on the Vineyard and along the eastern seaboard has been known and documented for many years. Eelgrass is key to the health of a coastal pond ecosystem, and its disappearance has had a significant impact on sea life, fish and shellfish.

But in at least one area of Katama Bay, eelgrass appears to be coming back — thanks to the breach at Norton Point Beach, biologists believe. And the news could have ramifications for other ponds around the Island.

As Edgartown announced a special town meeting to pay its share of running costs for the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, selectman Arthur Smadbeck issued a scathing review of the planning agency’s behavior and budgeting process this week, bluntly questioning its continued usefulness as a regional body.

“Let’s analyze it,” he told the Gazette this week. “It’s based on a very unfair formula, and Edgartown pays more than one third of the whole budget, so are we getting our money’s worth?

Tisbury selectmen this week responded sharply to criticism of their style of management, following accusations of secrecy in relation to police chief John Cashin’s departure, and broader criticism about undue interference in the affairs of town departments.

At the beginning of Tuesday’s meeting of the selectmen, board chairman Tristan Israel gave a spirited defense of the board and its actions, saying he believed the town to be the most open on the Island.

As the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School’s ninth graduating class prepares for commencement tomorrow, this small community will celebrate the achievements of its largest group ever — nine students, fittingly.

With the summer rental market still soft and an economy that has grown overly reliant on real estate and construction trades, business leaders on the Vineyard are keeping a wary eye on trends in commerce as the summer season begins.

Memorial Day weekend brought a small flood of visitors and many businesses reported sales were brisk.

But it was not enough to bolster confidence.

It has been 2,755 days since the Cape Wind project was first formally proposed. It is a controversy older than the war in Iraq. Hostilities began only a few weeks after the war in Afghanistan.

And, as in those other conflicts, indeed in any protracted battle, it’s crucial to maintain morale of the troops, particularly when your allies are dropping off and it looks as if you’re losing. Surveys show public opinion in the state is strongly in favor of the wind farm, and the Patrick administration in Boston, too.

Oak Bluffs leaders said this week that a special town meeting will be held in late summer where voters will be asked to cut approximately $500,000 from next years’s budget — approved at town meeting only two months ago — in order to ensure that the state Department of Revenue will sign off on next year’s tax rate.

Corrections

A headline on a story about health insurance changes on the Vineyard published in last Friday’s Gazette was inaccurate; the changes do not mean that 1,500 Islanders will be without health insurance.

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A story in the Tuesday Gazette about Sengekontacket Pond carried the wrong last name for one of the quahaugers interviewed for the story. His name is David Oliveira.

The Gazette regrets the errors.

By LYNNE IRONS

I realize it is unpopular to want more rain but, honestly, the several days of hot, dry wind just sucked the moisture out of everything including me. Even after last Friday’s lovely shower, the soil was completely dusty a half inch down. I’m hyper-aware of this fact as I am attempting a new vegetable garden where the well has yet to be completed. I have become extremely grateful to turn on the faucet at my own place.