Health Insurance for Vineyard Towns Costs Millions; Plans Seen as
Outdated

By RACHEL NAVA ROHR

Two outmoded health insurance plans no longer offered by most cities
and towns in Massachusetts are the cause of dramatic increases in
spending on health insurance for employees in Dukes County, including
five of the six Island towns and public schools.

Almost four years ago, just after her 12th birthday, Jessica Rose
Seidman ordered a half dozen chicken eggs from a catalogue and built her
own incubator. One hatched. She named him Chickie and raised him as a
pet in her backyard coop.

A docile, tame and beautiful Rhode Island Red rooster, Chickie in
the time since has earned four first-place awards in Martha's
Vineyard Agricultural Society Livestock Show and Fair - three
times best in show.

Mary Louisa Butcher Hill always wanted a greenhouse.

So for her 100th birthday this week, Mrs. Hill - who is known to everyone on the Vineyard as Polly - finally got one.

Energy DCPC Gains Support

Annual Town Meeting Initiative to Create Islandwide District for
Energy Conservation Moves Ahead Slowly

By IAN FEIN

A first-of-its-kind initiative that would allow the Vineyard to
regulate its own energy use is slowly gathering steam.

The ferry Island Home is set to make the long trip home.

Steamship Authority general manager Wayne Lamson said this week that the double-ended, $32 million car and passenger ferry is due to leave the VT Halter shipyard at Moss Point, Miss., this weekend to make the 2,000-mile trip to the Steamship Authority maintenance facility in Fairhaven.

The Island Home was originally due for delivery in June of 2006, but construction was set back some seven months by Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast in August 2005, just after work had begun on the ferry.

Garage Case Is Heard by Judge

Town Counsel Presses in Court to Have Moujabber Garage Demolished as
Ordered, Calling it Hideous

By IAN FEIN

A three-story North Bluff garage built in open violation of town
zoning laws three years ago is an illegal eyesore and must come down
now, Oak Bluffs town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport told a Dukes County
Superior Court judge this week.

Nancy Coles Hegeman Stephens, a fourth-generation East Chop seasonal
resident, and for more than 50 years the Gazette's East Chop
correspondent, died Jan. 14 in Charlotte, N.C. after a long illness. She
was the wife of the late Page P. Stephens.

On an Island well known for celebrating anniversaries of all sorts,
the town of Oak Bluffs this week quietly passed a milestone with nary a
mention or nod. There was no celebration in Ocean Park, no ringing of
bells in town churches, and no plaques or statues were dedicated.

Oak Bluffs selectmen at their regular meeting Tuesday took a hard
line on how raises and bonuses should be awarded to town employees,
asking town administrator Michael Dutton to involve the board in such
matters in the future.

After the news surfaced last week that Mr. Dutton had approved a pay
raise and change in job title for building inspector Jerry Wiener in
October without the knowledge of selectmen, Mr. Dutton on Tuesday
defended his actions.

Art Buchwald, the familiar, funny and irreverent Pulitzer-Prize
winning newspaper columnist whose decision to refuse kidney dialysis and
end his life earned him international acclaim early last year, died
peacefully at home late Wednesday night in Washington, D.C. He was 81.