Several Island school employees have been punished for improper use of a school vehicle, using an off-Island school van to drive to a wedding on the Cape.

They were caught red-handed by Jeffrey (Skipper) Manter, a frugally-minded Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School committee member and West Tisbury police officer.

BETTYE FOSTER BAKER

508-696-9983

(bdrbaker@comcast.net)

Habitat Needs Help

Habitat for Humanity is seeking volunteers, skilled and unskilled, to assist in the construction of the house located at 21 11th street in Edgartown, off the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road. The group is working today and Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on framing. If you would like to help, call Bill Aitken at 508-693-3429 or 617-504-0694 or visit online habitatmv.org.

Oak Bluffs selectmen on Tuesday agreed to forward a complaint about Ben David Auto Refinishing to the state office of consumer affairs after an allegation surfaced that shop owner Eric Ben David may have forged a customer’s signature on a check from an insurance company and then cashed it.

Yvonne Harding of Valley Stream, N.Y., sent a letter to selectmen dated August 26 expressing her “extreme displeasure” with service she received after somebody accidentally backed into her car and her insurance company directed her to Ben David Auto Refinishing.

Just as high school athletics season kicks off comes the potentially good news that the Eastern Athletic Conference — a sports league made up of predominantly parochial schools from the south shore — has invited the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School to join its ranks.

Several Vineyard sports teams have been without a conference since the principals of the South Coast Conference unexpectedly voted in December of 2006 not to allow the regional high school to remain in the league.

They are proud to be a vehicle-free Vineyard household: instead of using a car to get around the Island, Rebekah Blu and her husband Adam Thibodeau — owners of the Midnight Mermaid gallery in Edgartown — bike, walk and take the Vineyard Transportation Authority. So when regular summer visitor Deidre Moncy and her boyfriend Dennis Mount approached the couple wanting to use the gallery to host a fundraiser for the the Clean Planet Fund’s auto program, they thought they were just the right people to do it.

Tomorrow the 31st annual Tivoli Day festivities begin and Oak Bluffs will be the center of the Island for at least a day.

“I don’t want to call it a fair, but in Oak Bluffs it is a fair. People can come out from across the Island, have a lunch and stroll the streets,” said Dennis DaRosa, president of the Oak Bluffs Association and owner of Martha’s Vineyard Printing.

John S. Alley >

508-693-2950

(alleys@vineyard.net)

The ducks and geese have begun their long trek southward that for years has included a brief rest stop in the Mill Pond to relax and refresh. People have been busy making jelly from the vast amount of beach plums, grapes and chokecherries. There seems to be a bumper crop of berries everywhere.

Jo-Ann Tilghman>

508-627-7669

(Tilghmanjb@aol.com)

KATHIE CASE

508-627-5349

(kathleencase@comcast.net)

We have survived and missed Hanna, the small storms have passed us over but at least we can say it hasn’t been an uneventful start of September.

Happy birthday to all who celebrated their day this past week.

Big balloons go out to Sam Leighton who celebrated his day Sept. 7. The family had a cookout but Sam enjoyed the cake the most.