Aquinnah is double-timing its effort to bring wind power to the community.

Selectmen on Oct. 21 submitted an application for an analysis of Aquinnah’s existing wind power, conducted cost-free by the University of Massachusetts renewable energy research lab under the auspices of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC).

Since its creation over 30 years ago, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission has served as one the most unusual political bodies in the nation — a regional planning agency vested with exceptional powers and charged with protecting the Island’s unique environment and character.

The developers of the high-end Field Club recreation project in Katama have bought an adjoining housing subdivision for $12.35 million from a group of Island businessmen that includes Edgartown selectman Michael Donaroma.

The deal, which closed on Oct. 30, relates to land around the old Grant’s pit site off Katama Road, bought by Mr. Donaroma and his three partners for about $800,000 six years ago.

SAT scores at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School have dipped below the Massachusetts average, according to a report submitted to the high school committee this week by guidance director Michael McCarthy.

Backstage at the high school performing arts center, director and manager Jim Novack, 61, has assembled a horror show of mangled pianos. A gnarly Hammond, salvaged for $50 from a Vineyard basement some years ago, is crammed into the darkened corner, next to an upright from the 1950s, with a missing front rudely exposing the instrument’s strings and hammers. To its right stands an Everett piano, manufactured for institutional use. Its keys stick, sounding flat notes in perpetuity until physically pulled back in to place.

Vineyard commercial fishermen are coming out ahead in a price war over bay scallops.

Yesterday, Island commercial bay scallop fishermen received as much as $15 a pound, while their counterparts on Nantucket were paid only $11 a pound.

Consumers on both Islands yesterday were paying essentially the same price, around $18 a pound. In Orleans, the price was $29.99 a pound.

The Vineyard and Nantucket still have viable bay scallops fisheries, though Cape Cod does have pockets of success.

Three years ago, the Nantucket bay scallop harvest suddenly more than doubled in size, from around 15,000 bushels to more than 32,000. It was the year the industry ate its future.

The following season the harvest crashed. The total catch in 2005-06 was one-sixth as large — just 5,500 bushels. It was even worse last season, when fewer than 4,000 bushels were hauled up, the lowest tally since they began keeping records 30 years earlier.

The Permanent Endowment Fund for Martha’s Vineyard, the Island’s community foundation, made grants to 14 nonprofit organizations for a total of $28,000 in October, chairman Deborah L. Hale has announced.

The foundation provided a grant to Martha’s Vineyard Museum to support the development of an American history course curriculum for high school. Development of the new course work will be done in collaboration with the Vineyard school system.

Peace Council

The Martha’s Vineyard Peace Council will meet on Thursday, Dec. 6 at 6 p.m. at Grace Church in Vineyard Haven to plan for activities. All are welcome. Call Sarah Nevin at 508-627-8536 for more information.

Tibetan monk Geshe Tenzin Demchok, from Dharamsala, will give a an evening talk on Monday, Nov. 26 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Society in Vineyard Haven, hosted by Natural Therapeutics Center. The suggested donation is $20 at the door.