Charter School Graduates Five Students
By MANDY LOCKE
The five sit around the schoolyard picnic table as naturally as a
family at the dinner table. Such an easy rhythm pulses through their
exchanges that the new addition to their group thinks this handful of
Island teenagers is, in fact, family.
And that, they agree, is exactly the point. It's all part of
the Martha's Vineyard Public Charter School experiment.
Tisbury's ‘Climate Has Been Tainted'
So Saying, Selectman LaPorte Decides it's Time for Town
Administrator to Take Work Elsewhere
By JONATHAN BURKE
Selectman Ray LaPorte broke a stalemate on the Tisbury town board
this week by withdrawing his support for the reappointment of town
administrator Dennis Luttrell.
Plan for Auction in Oak Bluffs Stirs Tempest: Is It Park Land?
By CHRIS BURRELL
When selectmen in Oak Bluffs first heard about the surplus land
their financial team had seized for nonpayment of taxes, they saw dollar
signs and quickly planned an auction as a sure-fire way to bolster town
coffers with extra cash.
While Schools Here Rank High in Per-Pupil Dollars, Enrollments Head
Down
By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer
School spending on the Vineyard is steadily rising on a flood tide
of property tax money and now ranks in the top third for the state,
while enrollment is steadily falling and expected to ebb even more in
the next five years.
This is the latest profile of public education on the Vineyard,
sketched through an array of statistics from the state department of
education and the local schools.
Bad Weather Brings Mixed Prognosis for Tick-Borne Illnesses
By CHRIS BURRELL
When you're talking ticks and the many illnesses they can
spread, bad weather can be a double-edged sword.
Donna Enos, the infection control nurse at the Martha's
Vineyard Hospital, will tell you that the combination of rain and cool
temperatures have kept many people indoors, significantly reducing their
risk of a tick bite.
On 28 Island Farms, It's Time for Annual Ritual of Shearing
By C.K. WOLFSON
With their limbs fit snugly against each other, the shearer and the
175-pound Corriedale sheep he holds form a shifting, flesh-and-bone
puzzle. It is a single, interlocking sculpture, a hologram of shapes.
Largest Moped Agency Fails to Meet Deadline for Renewal of License
By CHRIS BURRELL
After more than a year of tough talk about enforcing moped
regulations and showing scofflaw dealers no mercy, Oak Bluffs is now
giving a break to two brothers who own the biggest fleet of mopeds in
town.
Marketing Push Will Be Needed, Say Backers of Fast Ferry Service
By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer
Marketing the Vineyard.
That is the key to developing successful high-speed passenger ferry
service between New Bedford and the Vineyard, a partner in a new
business consortium has told the Dukes County county commissioners.
The weekend's torrents of rain may have been too much for
beachgoers, but Island farmers were grateful for it. Yesterday morning,
Jim Norton of Norton Farm in Vineyard Haven was out under the warm sun
planting young tomato seedlings. His assistants, Julie Roza and Lisa
Schoonover, were quick to put each one of the dozens of plants into the
wet soil.
Affordable Housing Plan Wins Approval
Bridge Project for Outskirts of Tisbury Wins Approval with Strong
Vote from Island Commission
By MANDY LOCKE
After four months of review, the Martha's Vineyard Commission
approved Bridge Housing Corporation's plan Thursday night to
create 30 below-market homes on eight acres of rolling woodlands in the
rural outskirts of Tisbury.
