Someone referred to her as the Islander on steroids. Others called her the cruise ship. One Steamship Authority worker, gazing up at the huge bulk of the ferry Island Home tied up at Woods Hole, simply called her a monster.

Whatever the metaphor, you get the picture. This is a big boat.

Police Outreach Aims at Illegals

Oak Bluffs Chief, Lieutenant Ready Pamphlet in Portuguese to Educate
Brazilians, Ease Fears of Deportation

By MIKE SECCOMBE

Picture a road accident, one car rear-ended by another. The Oak
Bluffs police are in attendance, talking to the driver of the car that
was hit, who happens to be Brazilian. Another car drives by and a woman
shouts out the window: "Why don't you leave those people
alone?"

After some three years of courtship, Cape Air and JetBlue Airways
chose Valentine's Day to announce a marriage of customer
convenience for passengers to and from Logan International Airport.

Beginning next month, passengers arriving from or departing to 20
destinations across America with JetBlue will be able to connect far
more easily with Cape Air flights to the Cape and Islands.

Oak Bluffs finance director Paul Manzi routinely credits his Dukes
County pension account with thousands of dollars he receives through
special perks awarded to him through his personal service contract,
including money for travel and lodging, the Gazette has learned.

Mr. Manzi has a contract with the town that pays him a base salary
of $60,000 a year for a part-time position of 20 hours a week. Mr. Manzi
ordinarily commutes to the job from his home in Tewksbury two days a
week.

In their continuing effort to support local commercial fishermen,
Chilmark selectmen want to better define such fishermen in the town.

At stake is who qualifies for Menemsha perks in matters such as dock
space and fuel prices - and who doesn't.

Missing Whale Stumps Museum on Beach Dig

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

A dead 52-foot fin back whale is missing.

Last Friday, two officials from a museum in Oklahoma City, Okla.
went to Norton Point with the hopes of recovering the whale, buried in
beach sand two years ago.

They hired a Vineyard Haven excavating firm to do exploratory
digging. After hours of effort, they couldn't find it. The project
has now been abandoned.

Due to high bacteria counts, the state Division of Marine Fisheries
closed portions of two large Island ponds to shellfishing this week
- one up-Island and the other down-Island.

The closures are effective immediately in part of the Tisbury Great
Pond and at Major's Cove in Sengekontacket Pond, although town
leaders have not yet received official letters of notification.

In a break with tradition, Tisbury will hold a special town meeting
next Tuesday that will include over $450,000 in spending articles for
town improvement projects, including road and sidewalk work, caterpillar
spraying and historic building repairs.

Voters will take up the 22-article warrant in the Tisbury School
gymnasium, where town moderator Deborah Medders will open the meeting at
7:30 p.m.

The Martha's Vineyard Catholic church is at risk for having no
permanent priest, possibly needing to consolidate three church buildings
into one and cutting Masses to three a month, according to a long-term
planning document prepared for the parish.

Support Uneven for Establishing Energy District

By IAN FEIN

Edgartown selectmen are poised to play spoiler in an Islandwide
effort to put an energy conservation proposal before Vineyard voters
this spring.

At their meeting last week, the selectmen all but announced that
they would not place on the annual town meeting warrant a proposed
article that would start the process of creating an Islandwide energy
conservation district of critical planning concern (DCPC).