This November, many Vineyard families are thankful for something special: the gift of friendship with a New York city child. Through The Fresh Air Fund’s Friendly Town program, Island families open their hearts and homes to host inner-city children for up to two weeks during the summer.

One child enthused that during her visit, “I went horseback riding for the first time even though I was scared. Now I love it, like swimming in a lake!”

Oak Bluffs police arrested a Colorado woman last Friday after she reportedly backed into a police cruiser parked on Circuit avenue.

Police are seeking to charge Nicole Miller, 29, of Boulder, Col., with operating under the influence of alcohol. If charged it will be her second subsequent charge for drunk driving. She also faces numerous other motor vehicle charges.

The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School currently lights up the NStar energy grid brighter than any other single client on the Vineyard, but a high school green committee formed this year by students and faculty has a comprehensive plan to dim its glow.

A proposed Edgartown affordable housing trust, which would streamline purchasing and take spending out of voter control and put it into the hands of a seven-member board, is the subject of a public forum set for Tuesday.

The forum, scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Baylies room of the Old Whaling Church, comes ahead of a Dec. 9 special town meeting at which voters will be asked to approve the formation of a trust and an associated bylaw.

Some people, if they shared an award with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might be pleased to think they’d made it, big-time. Not Brendan O’Neill. He was gratified to think he’d made it, small-time.

Mr. Kennedy, of course, is famous both for his family name and for his record as a crusading and aggressive environmental lawyer. He plays on a national stage.

Spokesmen for MassHighway said this week that a plan to close Beach Road for six months to replace the Big Bridge and Little Bridge will not happen.

Last month, the Acton-based construction firm MIG Corporation filed a detour proposal with MassHighway requesting that Beach Road along Joseph Sylvia State Beach be closed from the start of construction until Memorial Day.

The news came as a surprise to Oak Bluffs and Edgartown officials, who knew about the planned bridge work but not about the plan to close the road.

The Vineyard bay scallop season is underway and the news is mostly good for local consumers and commercial fishermen alike. Chilmark is having one of its best seasons in years; Edgartown is having one of its worst. Oak Bluffs and Tisbury are doing fine and on Monday another banner year is set to open in Aquinnah.

How to handle a $40 million school budget — ratified months ahead of other annual town budgets — during a recession. That is the vexing question now facing school and finance committee leaders across the Island.

Move the town budget season forward? Push the school process back? Scrap the current budgets and start over with a fixed, lower bottom line?

Affordable child care on the Vineyard has been suddenly and severely curtailed due to state budget shortfalls.

Already, no new Island children are being funded; as of Nov. 3, even eligible working parents are being placed on waiting lists indefinitely, Vineyard child care advocates confirmed this week. Because of a multimillion dollar deficit, the state department that handles early childhood education has unilaterally frozen child care assistance for low-income families.

Announcing Cole

Linda Mosley Corfield and Eric Corfield announce the birth of a son, Cole William Corfield, born on August 8, 2008. Cole weighed 7 pounds, 5 ounces at birth. We is welcomed by sister Grace and Hannah and brother Christopher, as well as by grandparents David and Eleanor Corfield of Edgartown and Phylllis and Miles Goff.