More than 2,400 Vineyarders cast more than 65,000 votes during the past year for their favorite businesses on the Island. The results were announced Wednesday at the annual Best of the Vineyard party.

With the Island’s supply of legal marijuana dwindling, state regulators broke more than a decade of precedent to allow dispensaries on the Vineyard to ship in mainland cannabis products.

A veteran housing project planned for Bellevue avenue in Oak Bluffs could break ground by next May after getting approval from the town’s zoning board of appeals this week. 

On Sunday night the gibbous moon appears close to the bright star Spica in the zodiacal constellation Virgo. Spica is one of the largest and thus brilliant stars in our night sky making our own sun as little beach ball by comparison. Spica is 12,000 times brighter than our own sun and it is seven times the size.

And Spica is far away too. This bright star is 260 light years away from our sun. For comparison, the bright Vega which is now rising in the East is only 25 light years away.

A proposal to allow cities and towns across Massachusetts to assess a fee on high-end home sales has been left out of a revamped housing bill unveiled by state lawmakers last week. But housing advocates say the idea, which has long been a priority for the Vineyard, is far from dead. 

Vineyard Lands for Our Community, a fledgling nonprofit, filed plans this week with the Tisbury conservation commission for a sweeping new development, kicking off a lengthy permitting process for the multi-million dollar project.

Islander idly rumbles
in her slip
calmly churning in the
dying light

Good afternoon my fellow Vineyarders and associated wash-a-shores. Thank you all for being here today.

Juneteenth on the Vineyard arrives next week with a full schedule of community, culinary and academic events to celebrate the holiday.

The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank reported revenues of $55,423.04 for the business week ending on Friday, June 7, 2024.