Hello, Stella

Gina Heysek and Peter Breese of Vineyard Haven announce the birth of a daughter, Stella Vita Heysek-Breese, on June 24 at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Stella weighed 6 pounds, 3 ounces at birth.

The worldwide oil price crisis is hitting Island commercial fishermen hard. Already struggling with more restrictive regulations and declining landings, Vineyard small-boat fishermen now face fuel prices that have doubled in a year.

Capt. Wayne Iacono of Chilmark is a commercial lobsterman who fishes out of Menemsha. With the decline in lobsters in Vineyard waters, he already had taken a second job as a plumber.

Five workers from the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) yesterday began cleaning up Menemsha Pond and its waterfront, picking up stray oyster breeding bags owned by the tribe, according to Tobias Vanderhoop, who this week began working as tribal administrator.

The black plastic bags, left untended since the tribe’s oyster hatchery program on the pond reportedly shut down last fall, have washed up as far away as the Elizabeth Islands, Aquinnah selectman Camille Rose said, and were prompting complaints in Aquinnah.

There are times when it’s hard to see the environment for the trees.

Look across the Martha’s Vineyard landscape and that mantle of woods, growing where once the land was substantially denuded, and things look pretty good.

But beneath that green canopy, as Vineyard Conservation Society executive director Brendan O’Neill points out, are 78 parcels of land, ranging in size between 20 acres and 100 acres, which remain undeveloped, but also unprotected from development.

There are six parcels of 100 acres or more.

It was once a battleground for one of the most heated and divisive fights in the history of Oak Bluffs.

It has been five years since the dust settled over the proposal by Connecticut developer Corey Kupersmith to build a private 18-hole golf course in the Southern Woodlands, the largest tract of undeveloped forest left in town.

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it. So said the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde.

A plan to build eight affordable homes on eight acres off State Road in West Tisbury drew a number of neighborhood critics at a public hearing Monday night.

Built on Stilts

Built on Stilts, the Island’s own annual dance festival, will celebrate its 12th season with performances August 15 to 19 and 23 and 24, 2008. Submission guidelines and registration info can be found online at builtonstilts.org. Registration deadline is Monday, July 1.

Two West Tisbury property owners have agreed to pay $6,760 in fines for violating the state Wetlands Protection Act.

Stephen Rattner and Maureen White, who own property on Obed Daggett Road, were cited by the state Department of Environmental Protection for cutting violations in a vegetated wetland on the North Shore. The DEP issued a press release about the penalties this week.

It’s been more than 30 years since a Vineyard resident represented the Island at the State House. This year, four Vineyard candidates are looking to end that drought.

Daniel Larkosh of Vineyard Haven, Tim Lasker of Chilmark and Roger Wey of Oak Bluffs have announced plans to run in the Democratic primary this September. Jacob Ferreira of Vineyard Haven is running as an unenrolled candidate, which guarantees him a place in the general election.

They join four other candidates from the district, which also covers Gosnold, Nantucket and parts of Falmouth.