CONNECTING FACTS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Last week after the snowfall, I went walking. I always try to beat the plows and the sanders, and for awhile I did. The only sounds were the squeaking snow beneath my boots and the wind soughing. It was just about dusk and a bird or two was uttering a goodnight chirp before tucking its head under its wing. The snow along West Tisbury’s Music street, gleaming under occasional street lights, seemed to me like that “ribbon of moonlight” in the Alfred Noyes’ poem The Highwayman.

Place Holders

From Gazette editions of February, 1959:

On Ice

For a Good Cause

The Community Preservation Act has been a fact of Island life for a relatively short period of time — it was only three years ago that all six towns had finally signed on to participate in the benefits of the state legislation, which matches a three per cent property tax surcharge with state money. This year the match has dropped below one hundred per cent, so suddenly the funds are even more precious. Community Preservation Act money may be used for open space, historic preservation and affordable housing.

Town Coffers on Empty

Calling Town Democrats

The West Tisbury town Democratic committee is holding a caucus meeting for all registered Democrats residing in West Tisbury on Saturday, Jan. 31 at 10 a.m. at the Howes House. The purpose of the caucus is to select delegates to attend the Massachusetts Democratic convention. A general meeting of the town committee will also be held.

Chilmark’s most diehard scallopers will have a chance to increase the bushel limit in exchange for some community service.

Menemsha seafood retailer Karsten Larsen convinced selectmen at a meeting Tuesday to raise the small pond limits from two to three bushels a day, arguing that those ponds are oversubscribed with small scallops which would die in a freeze and potentially damage the pond bed.

Tisbury firefighters were kept busy this week battling a pair of house fires — one that completely destroyed a home on Codding Lane on Tuesday and another that partially destroyed a home on Spring Hill Road last Friday. No one was injured in either fire, and the cause of both remains under investigation.

The fire at 74 Codding Lane was first reported around 2:50 p.m. on Tuesday. The owner of the home, Lewis Codding, later told firefighters he left home for 20 minutes to go the dump, and returned to find his house completely engulfed in flames.

Additional charges were brought this week against a West Tisbury school teacher who is accused of providing alcohol and pornographic materials to former students and hosting underage drinking parties at his home.

Daniel K. Johnson, 43, of Vineyard Haven was arraigned in Edgartown district court Tuesday on five new charges of furnishing alcohol to minors and one charge of disseminating obscene materials to a minor.