The question of what is a harvestable sized bay scallop will be the subject of a public hearing next week on the Cape. The state Division of Marine Fisheries is hosting the hearing at 3 p.m. on Jan. 6 to gather input, following emergency action they took last fall to quiet a dispute between fishermen and regulators.

The hearing will take place at the Barnstable Senior Center, 825 Falmouth Road, Route 28 in Hyannis.

Answers remain hard to come by about the septic grids buried underneath Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs, after a round of drilling at the park conducted earlier this month failed to shed any light as to why treated effluent is seeping to the surface of the popular public park.

Oak Bluffs wastewater superintendent Joe Alosso said the engineering firm of Stearns & Wheler dug about six holes around the park on Dec. 15. He said the digging yielded little information about why the leeching fields are malfunctioning, although that was not entirely unexpected.

Amid sinking consumer confidence nationally, Island towns and schools have received some rare good news: the RM Packer company agreed to renegotiate their fuel contract based on lower oil prices, saving them as much as $300,000 this winter.

While Methodists once came by the hundreds to worship on Martha’s Vineyard, now they come by the handfuls. The congregation that helped shape the Island’s history is grappling with such declining church membership that three of the four United Methodist congregations on Martha’s Vineyard have voted to consolidate into a single congregation.

An Edgartown woman was issued a citation following a two-vehicle collision on Christmas day at the intersection of Old County and State Roads in West Tisbury.

Police said the accident caused major front end damage to both vehicles but no injuries to either driver.

On July 8, four days after the devastating fire that burned Café Moxie and the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore, Tisbury defiantly held its summer street fair. Gazette photographer Jaxon White captured the event with a shot of an eight-year old girl on Main street, beaming through new front teeth and swirling a balloon. Her name was Hope. Hope Alwart.

And there was a single-frame metaphor for 2008, adversity and hope.

The Martha’s Vineyard Commission early this month unanimously approved a new policy aimed at regulating and reducing the amount of nonrenewable energy used in certain new construction projects. The new policy only affects larger construction projects that qualify for review as developments of regional impact (DRIs).

By LYNNE IRONS

About 30 years ago I spent my first Christmas morning alone. My children had a spend-over visit with their father. I was lounging in bed, feeling a bit sorry for myself, when I heard a ruckus in my kitchen and a loud, “Hey!” It was Craig Kingsbury with my donkey, Juan. He had apparently been roaming State Road in search of a Christmas pageant perhaps when Craig apprehended him. Talk about an eventful morning — removing a 700-pound animal from one’s kitchen in a nightgown with the help of an amused man.

I hope you all had a merry Christmas and that you are now thinking about spending some time outside scouting different Vineyard habitats for birds. This is important because Jan. 3 is the day set we aside for the Martha’s Vineyard Christmas Bird Count.

Three Falmouth Academy students from Martha’s Vineyard have earned places in competitive, high school music festivals — the Senior Southeast District Music Festival, which will be January 9-10 at Brockton High School, and the Cape and Islands Music Festival to be held February at Barnstable High School.