There was talk of class warfare and fascism. There were dark forecasts of Martha’s Vineyard as a community polarized between very rich and very poor. There was a crowd. Last Monday’s was not your standard meeting of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission land use planning committee.

But as commission executive director Mark London noted even before it began, there’s something about the subject of big houses which gets people going.

A private pier large enough to trigger the definition of a marina will return to the Edgartown conservation commission next week after the applicants for the pier decided to scale back the size this week.

The annual town meeting warrant which will be addressed by Tisbury voters on Tuesday night is one cut to the economic times, featuring none of the big-cost initiatives of recent years.

This is the year Tisbury abandoned its free-spending ways. There are no new fire stations this time around, no other big new projects, almost nothing of a discretionary nature. Infrastructure outlays are mostly confined to replacing that which is broken.

Oak Bluffs residents accustomed to the marathon week-long spectacle that has come to characterize town meetings in recent years will be shocked to see the length of this year’s warrant.

“It’s very short,” said selectman Ron DiOrio this week. The push for simplification comes as a reaction to last year’s town meeting which saw 30 warrant articles and some 12 Proposition 2 1/2 override questions. Voters rejected 11 of those overrides and sent selectmen scrambling to reorganize the budget. The town meeting ran into a second week.

A lean budget, new library and a series of zoning bylaw changes top a hefty 68-article warrant that awaits Edgartown voters at the annual town meeting Tuesday night.

Longtime moderator Philip J. Norton Jr. will preside over the session; the meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the Old Whaling Church.

Voters will be asked to approve a $27.5 million budget, up 3.4 per cent over last year, largely due to increased education assessments, a large police and fire department budget and funding for a town dredging project in Sengekontacket Pond.

A historic change is in the works for West Tisbury if voters approve the sale of beer and wine at town restaurants and inns at the annual town meeting on Tuesday night.

A petitioned article championed by the owners of State Road Restaurant, the Lambert’s Cove Inn and the Plane View calls for the sale of beer and wine at restaurants with a seating capacity of 50 or more patrons.

Dean’s List

Timothy L. McHugh of Edgartown has been named to the dean’s list for the fall 2010 semester at Merrimack College.

JOHN S. ALLEY

508-693-2950

(alleys@vineyard.net)

Farm Talk

From a Spring, 1948 Gazette:

JANE N. SLATER

508-645-3378

(slaterjn@comcast.net)

Chilmark looks like Dubai this week . . . great tall building cranes everywhere you look. Actually, there are three of them and they were all working at the same time some days this week. One is working for the town of Chilmark, rebuilding the way out to the fill dock; one is working for the U.S. Coast Guard on their dock and the third is working for a private home owner replacing a dock. I suspect manning the cranes has been a challenge with the strong winds that hung around Chilmark all week.