Red Stocking Fillers This Year Will Delight 270 Island Children
By ALEXIS TONTI
At the other end of the year from the sleek summer fundraising
season, a grassroots charity pursues its purpose.
The Red Stocking Fund holds no auctions or celebrity fundraisers. It
has no board of directors, and its managers bear no administrative
titles. The core group of volunteers meets only once a year to set the
date - this year, Dec. 19 - on which strained and straitened
parents will receive the Island's gifts for more than 270 of its
children.
Cable Cameras Changing Face of
Government
By CHRIS BURRELL
Amy Tierney never bargained on becoming a television celebrity. But
now when the top number-cruncher for the Vineyard public schools runs
out the door to attend yet another meeting, budgets and invoices
aren't the only things dogging her mind.
How about her make-up and wardrobe?
A List of Suspects in Threats at School
Graffiti Writer Would Face Expulsion; Videotape from a Hidden Camera
Was Used for Investigation
By CHRIS BURRELL
Relying on videotape and handwriting samples, Oak Bluffs police and
officials at the regional high school said they have narrowed down the
list of girls suspected of writing a threatening message in a school
bathroom last Thursday.
O, Christmas Tree! Park Landlord Says It Must Come Down
By MANDY LOCKE
A graceful Christmas tree is caught in a tug-of-war between
Edgartown leaders and the Benjamin Hall family.
The full-bodied spruce stands 20 feet tall in the center of a
treasured park on Main street. The Halls - who have leased the
so-called mini-park to the town for decades - are demanding the
tree come down.
In Passionate Session, Aquinnah Makes It Official: Not Appealing
By JULIA WELLS
A passionate and sharply drawn discussion in the village of Aquinnah
fell silent this week when the town selectmen voted without dissent to
abandon a court appeal of the sovereign immunity case - and along
with it a 20-year-old landmark Indian land claims agreement.
"This community is the tribe and sovereignty is something I
must uphold," declared selectman James Newman, who changed his
vote in a surprise move at the close of a public hearing on Monday
night.
One More Time, Fellows: The Vineyarders Play in Championship Match
Tomorrow
By ALEXIS TONTI
For the fourth time in five years, Vineyard football is set to play
for the state title. After defeating East Boston 17-12 in this
week's playoff contest, the Vineyarders now will face Manchester
Essex in Saturday's Division VI Super Bowl.
Tiring of Those Who Short Cut, Neighborhood Considers Gate
By MANDY LOCKE
In about eight minutes, a driver taking a shortcut from the West
Tisbury Road to the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road can get from the
entrance at Metcalf Drive to the exit at Dodgers Hole. It takes only six
minutes if he ignores the 15 mile per hour speed limits painted on the
asphalt between speed bumps on the narrow residential streets of the
cut-through.
New Hospital Costs Going Up
$50 Million Is a New Estimate; Leaders Plan Public Meeting for This
Saturday to Unveil Update on Their Thinking
By JULIA WELLS
Leaders at the Martha's Vineyard Hospital are moving forward
with an ambitious plan to replace the badly decayed 30-year-old hospital
on Linton Lane in Oak Bluffs - but they got a hard reality check
recently when they saw the price tag attached to the new plan.
Reversing a downsizing of seven years ago, the U.S. Coast Guard soon
will expand its Vineyard presence, including resumption of full use of
the Menemsha Coast Guard station.
As part of that process, Chilmark selectmen have been told the town
police department, now a tenant at the old historic station, located on
the hill overlooking the Home Port restaurant and Menemsha Pond, must
find a new home by May 1.
At Aquinnah Town Meeting, the Emotions Frame Museum Debate
By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer
The subject was a plan for a cultural museum in a historic homestead
high on a windswept bluff in the town of Aquinnah. But the discussion
that swirled for more than an hour and a half at a special town meeting
Tuesday night was layered with the emotion of a town torn down the
middle.
Underneath it all lay the central topic of the day: the recent court
ruling on sovereign immunity for the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head
(Aquinnah).
