After more than seven years of debate, West Tisbury voters this week soundly approved a $3.7 million renovation project for their town hall.

At a special town meeting held in the elementary school gymnasium Tuesday night, the town hall article, which needed two-thirds approval, passed 119-11, with more than 90 per cent of the vote.

But before the sound of hammers can begin to ring in the town village, voters must first approve the project again at a special town election next week.

This weekend recreational fishermen will take to the shoreline with dip nets and peep sights to search for one of the most prized gifts of autumn. They'll be looking for dinner. In Oak Bluffs and Tisbury recreational shellfishermen will be able to fish Lagoon Pond. Their commercial counterparts will begin fishing on Monday.

The bay scallop season is now open.

The Vineyard and Nantucket are two of the last places where bay scallops are plentiful.

Campaign Trail: Jabberwocky Is Hard at it Again with News Team

By TOM DUNLOP

NEW YORK CITY - After the unfortunate sporting events of last
week, this town needed a reason to believe in life again, and to laugh.
On Monday night it got both.

In one of those sleek studios with concrete floors down in the West
Village, 300 people jammed into a white room with tall, narrow windows
and caught a 25-minute glimpse of a new film being made by disabled
adults.

Sturdy brown envelopes, some of them mailed from as far away as the Netherlands, Italy and Russia, are stacked up tall on the desk of Wanda Williams, the town clerk in Edgartown.

Ask Ms. Williams or any of the Island's other five town clerks how things are going the week before Election Day, and you'll hear a deep sigh. They are swamped, not only with a surge of those brown envelopes containing absentee ballots but also with tallying up new voters.

A semi-retired financial consultant from Vineyard Haven is the lone
challenger vying to unseat one of three incumbents in this year's
race for a spot on the Dukes County Commission.

George J. Balco, a Republican from Vineyard Haven and former
chairman of the Martha's Vineyard Airport Commission, is running
against Democrats John S. Alley of West Tisbury, Leonard Jason Jr. of
Chilmark and Roger Wey of Oak Bluffs.

Community Services Launches Self-Study with Heller School

By C.K. WOLFSON

Martha's Vineyard Community Services announced this week that
it has launched a comprehensive internal management study with the
prestigious Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis
University.

The seven-month, privately funded study is aimed at developing a
strategic plan for the unique umbrella human services agency that was
founded in 1961.

Aquinnah Override Is Rejected for Third Time in Five Months

By MAX HART

A large turnout of Aquinnah voters said no to a Proposition 2 1/2
override yesterday for the third time in five months, dealing a final
blow to the town selectmen on the subject of town spending -
except when it comes to plowing snow.

In the end, it was a 12.48-pound false albacore hooked in the
shallows off Memorial Wharf in Edgartown, and a 10.13-pound bonito
snagged in 60-foot seas off Noman's Land that proved to be the
grandest catches of all as the 59th Annual Martha's Vineyard
Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby came to a close on Sunday.

Proposed renovations to the West Tisbury town hall will once again be the center of public debate when voters gather for a special town meeting in the elementary school gymnasium on Tuesday. Town moderator Pat Gregory will open discussion of the 11-article warrant at 7 p.m.

Other topics to be considered include an amendment to the affordable housing zoning bylaw, as well as appropriations for a consultant to examine the up-Island regional school district and preliminary planning of a path from the youth hostel to the town center.

Candidates Vie for Cape and Islands Seats

By CHRIS BURRELL

On paper, the race for the Cape and Islands senate seat in the state
house looks like a battle of the brains.

A pediatrician with a Harvard MBA, Republican challenger Dr. Gail
Lese is trying to bring down a history professor, the incumbent Democrat
Sen. Robert O'Leary. A third candidate, Luiz (Lou) Gonzaga,
running as an independent, holds a doctorate in business administration.

All top-heavy resumes aside, the politics in this race are anything
but tepid.