The Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust on Wednesday celebrated the Aquinnah Cultural Center and its supporters with a prestigious award for their outstanding effort in restoring the Edwin Devries Vanderhoop Homestead, which sits atop the Gay Head Cliffs. It was no easy task, and it involved a partnership between a lot of organizations. The old house is now home to the cultural center.

A brief but acrimonious legal battle over a fence around an auto repair shop on Worcester avenue ended last month when the town of Oak Bluffs agreed to withdraw over $18,000 in fines previously levied to Allan (Buddy) deBettencourt, owner of Buddy’s Auto and Truck Repair.

In a return to form of sorts, Oak Bluffs selectmen on Tuesday clashed over what seemed like a relatively harmless plan to allow principal assessor Dianne Wilson to work a three-day work week with longer days instead of a traditional five-day work week.

In the latest move in what has become a prolonged legal chess game, Oak Bluffs selectmen on Tuesday unanimously agreed to refer the much-maligned three-story garage built by Joseph G. Moujabber on the North Bluff to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission for review as a development of regional impact.

Oak Bluffs police on Wednesday arrested a man for operating under the influence and driving a stolen car after a brief high-speed chase on Wing Road.

Officer Jeff Trudel pulled over Clemens Fraize, 38, of Amesbury around 1 a.m. on Wing Road and approached his vehicle on foot. As he neared the driver side window, Mr. Fraize put the car in gear and sped off, heading south on Wing Road.

Temperature: Precip.

Day Max. Min. Inches.

Fº Fº

Sept. 7 72 61 .00

Sept. 8 81 67 .00

Sept. 9 80 66 .00

Sept. 10 83 64 .00

Sept. 11 72 65 Trace

Sept. 12 73 60 .53

Sept. 13 75 50 .00

Water temperature in Edgartown harbor: 71º F.

By JACOB KRAMER

Theories abounded when David Merry began pouring sand and shells in a plot in the backyard of Cleaveland House, the home of Island author Cynthia Riggs, “There was all kinds of speculation — was it a bocce green, a tennis court, a place where I could burn brush, a garden, a memorial pet cemetery?” A writer of mysteries herself, Ms. Riggs no doubt relished the suspense. The public’s guesses were soon proved wrong when a 34-foot 1967 Egg Harbor pleasure yacht was trucked in to be berthed on the pad.

A $5 million funding bill before the Massachusetts House of Representatives would provide relief for Island businesses and their seasonal employees struggling with chronic housing affordability problems.

Although the proposal’s political fate is uncertain, it would be a welcome buttress to disparate housing and retraining strategies already playing out on the Vineyard, where employers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to sustain a stable workforce.

Island town building inspectors are bracing for a run of new building permits over the next three months in advance of a new state building code regulation which could raise building costs on average by five per cent and as much as 10 per cent.

The news comes as renovation and addition permits have driven the Island construction business this year. Renovation and addition permits ranged from 64 to 90 per cent of total permits issued, depending on the town.

Being a seasonal Island resident, when I return to my other homeland I am often asked what do people on Martha’s Vineyard do in the winter? My most immediate impulse is to react to this probing inquiry by saying that they, the entire Island population, immediately after the last seasonal resident or tourist has disappeared over the horizon, take off all their clothing, paint their fundaments an intense shade of aqua and indulge in the worship of various forms of fungi.