Island Summer Labor Market Avoids Shortages of Past Seasons

By JOSHUA SABATINI

The word spread from Martha's Vineyard to prospective summer
workers all over the world: The Island has a high cost of living and
there were fewer jobs available at the start of the season.

Adelphia Troubles Worry Vineyard Customers

By JOSHUA SABATINI

The concerns of the more than 9,000 Vineyard subscribers to Adelphia
cable and the six Island towns who last year signed a 10-year contract
with the cable company have come to the forefront as the company faces
possible bankruptcy and a potential buyout.

Special town meetings in June are supposed to be humdrum affairs, but the one coming up Tuesday in Oak Bluffs puts voters face-to-face with two of the most controversial issues in town and on the Island - cigarettes and mopeds.

Mary Jacobson knows that the Red Sox took a beating last week from
the Arizona Diamondbacks. She also knows that if you're teaching
math to a second-grade boy, it's not a bad idea to throw in some
baseball talk.

Seventh and eighth graders on the Island are consuming alcohol, smoking marijuana and having sex at rates far higher than middle schoolers from two years ago.

The way golf enthusiasts talk about the Island’s newest course — which officially opened just over a week ago off Edgartown-West Tisbury Road in Edgartown — you expect to see guys walking around the clubhouse wearing kilts.

Well, don’t worry. The course at the Vineyard Golf Club may be unforgiving Scottish-inspired design, but the garb is just the kind of pastel microfiber blends you’ll find on most any golf course in the country.

Make that private course. A membership costs about $300,000.

Seventh and eighth graders on the Island are consuming alcohol,
smoking marijuana and having sex at rates far higher than middle
schoolers from two years ago.

Vineyard Joins Cape Community in Compact to Offer Mutual Aid in
Disaster Conditions

By MANDY LOCKE

Martha's Vineyard emergency rescue crews will no longer be
left to battle disasters alone.

A simple phone call from an Island fire chief mobilizes additional
manpower and equipment to the Island - thanks to a mutual aid
agreement finalized this spring among Vineyard fire departments and
emergency responders on Cape Cod.

The Vineyard could see as many as 7,032 more homes on its 17,475
remaining acres of developable land, officials from the state Executive
Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) said at an Island forum held
Thursday night.

"That's a relatively short time frame to be faced with
some tough choices," said Christian Jacqz, director of
Massachusetts Geographic Information System, in a presentation to Island
officials at the Howes House in West Tisbury.

State Official Hit on New Bedford Stand

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

A prominent Boston attorney who represents the Steamship Authority
fired back yesterday at the state attorney general for climbing into bed
with the city of New Bedford in the latest political gambit around the
public boat line that is the lifeline to the two Islands.