For the second time this week, Chilmark residents confronted increasing demands to reduce personal energy usage when the first proposal for a residential wind turbine in town came on Tuesday before the zoning board of appeals.

Chilmark resident Robert Green appeared before the regular monthly meeting of the board with his proposed contractor, Gary Harcourt, to request a permit to build a 114-foot turbine on his Old Farm road property.

Local pool builders, contractors and Chilmark selectmen showed up to a public hearing of the planning board Monday afternoon to discuss a proposed amendment to town zoning bylaws.

The amendment would require heated swimming pools built in the town to use solar thermal heating systems as the primary source of energy to heat that pool. The planning board hopes to put the amendment on the warrant for an Oct. 29 special town meeting.

BETTYE FOSTER BAKER

508-696-9983

(bdrbaker@comcast.net)

If Boston landscape architect Robert Morris Copeland were alive today, he would be pleased that the town he laid out and planned during the 19th century building boom in Oak Bluffs is holding fast to the heritage he created along with the Oak Bluffs Land and Wharf Company as one of only a handful of seaside resorts in the Victorian style in the country.

The Oak Bluffs Community Preservation Committee (CPC) is pleased to announce that application forms are now available to request funding for projects for historic preservation, affordable housing and open space/recreation for the fiscal year that begins in July 2008.

Requests for proposals are being accepted through Oct. 5, 2007.

Landowners around Edgartown Great Pond are looking at buying a half-million-dollar dredge to improve the water quality of their pond, and potentially that of other fresh and salt water ponds on the Island.

As a first step, they will put up between $50,000 and $100,000 to lease the small, easily transported machine to conduct test dredging of the pond this fall. If all goes well, the plan is to buy it and take pressure off the increasingly-overtaxed town dredge.

Hello, Nicola

Heather and Joseph Capece of West Tisbury announce the birth of a daughter, Nicola Josephine Capece, born Sept. 8 at the Martha’s Vineyard Community Hospital. Nicola weighed 7 pounds, 7.5 ounces at birth. She was also welcomed by sister Lucia.

Finella Arrives

Shelagh and David Smilie of West Tisbury announce the birth of a daughter, Finella Hackett Smilie, born on Sept. 6 at the Martha’s Vineyard Community Hospital. Finella weighed 15 pounds, 11 ounces at birth. She was also welcomed by big sister Fiona.

JOHN S. ALLEY

508-693-2950

(alleys@vineyard.net)

The ducks and geese have begun their trek south. For years, that has included a brief rest stop in the Mill Pond to relax and refresh, but the pond has become a stagnant mess no longer worthy of a visit for most of them.

TEAR IT DOWN

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

A building permit is given to an individual in 2003, to construct a garage to replace an existing 200-square-foot garage. The proposed cost for the replacement garage was to be $22,000. Instead, the project grew to a three-story building with balconies, sliding glass doors and a roof deck. The cost probably exceeded $200,000.

My questions are:

Why must this saga continue?

Wasn’t the present garage built illegally in the first place?

An open house at the former Denniston House on Masonic avenue in Oak Bluffs is scheduled during the Arts District’s Art Stroll on Saturday, Sept. 15 from 4 to 7 p.m.

The public will be able to meet the architects and members of the design committee who are renovating the property, which now will be known as Bradley Square.