Inside the new Tisbury Emergency Services Facility, hoses are neatly wound, office boxes are half unpacked and three emergency vehicles take cover in the high-ceilinged bay. The building, which was set to be occupied last July, finally is home to the ambulance department, with the fire department soon to follow after final repairs on the asphalt are completed.

Upstairs in the day room, EMT volunteer Ellie Beth sat comfortably on the couch with her computer last Tuesday morning.

“This is a certainly a huge improvement on what we had before,” she said.

After 35 years as chef and owner of his signature, classic French restaurant in downtown Vineyard Haven, Jean Dupon has put Le Grenier on the market.

“I love what I do, but I’ve had a good run,” Mr. Dupon said this week. “I just turned 69, I think it’s time for me to start relaxing a little.”

The restaurant will be sold along with its downstairs partner La Cave du Grenier. The asking price is $1.6 million for both the business and the two-story building. The restaurant went on the market in late August.

Town administrator John Bugbee will step down after nine years on the job, Tisbury selectman and board chairman Tristan Israel announced this week.

Reading from a brief written statement near the end of the selectmen’s meeting Tuesday, Mr. Israel said the selectman had decided it was time for a change.

A joint purchase last month by the town of Tisbury and the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank completes a decades-old aquifer protection plan around the Manter well.

The town and the land bank paid $400,000 for 9.5 acres off Old Holmes Hole Road, with the town putting in $300,000 and the land bank $100,000. The transaction took place on August 24.

One of the listed sellers was Ron Monterosso, acting as a trustee for Redmont Realty Trust, which owned a fractional interest in the property. The sale was handled through a trustee appointed by the Dukes County Probate Court.

The air-to-water pump, manufactured by Daikin, is used to operate a radiant heat system in the home and heat the water supply.
Last year Mr. Nelson installed an Altherma heat pump system, the first of its kind on the Vineyard, in the home of West Tisbury resident Ted Bayne. Since then, Mr. Bayne’s home has become a test kitchen of sorts for the heat pump technology. Based on Mr. Bayne’s careful recording of his propane and electricity expenses (he has kept track of these costs since January 2007), the experiment has proven a success — so much so that “It’s no longer an experiment,” Mr. Nelson summed up.

What do Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket have in common?

Vineyard residents can take advantage of a one-time opportunity to answer that question later this month when the Winnetu Oceanside Resort is offering a special getaway offer to visit our sister island.

From a May 1985 Vineyard Gazette article by Howard W. Young:

I first saw Fulling Mill Brook when I was barely eight years old. I couldn’t figure out why it was called “fulling” when it wasn’t at all full and, as a matter of fact, was just quietly meandering through a lot of ferns and weeds on its way to Upper Chilmark Pond.

I don’t think anyone can argue about how beautiful the blue moon was this past week. A few wacky things that happened around, which my mother always attributed to the full moon, but the nights were perfect and very bright.
Happy birthday to all who celebrated their day this past week. I have a lot of balloons to give out this week, but the list was not ready for the deadline of this column as the school has a new system. They are still getting used to it and should have it mastered by the end of the day. So we will list them next week

The Food and Drug Administration is now dealing with a suit regarding false and misleading information in a case against Chobani, the Greek yogurt company, for listing “evaporated cane juice” as a major ingredient in its pomegranate-flavored yogurt. The FDA has the power to regulate product labeling and can ask for a change if it deems a rule violation has been committed.

On August 24, at Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs, Angela Davis and her colleague Gina Dent reported to a packed room on a trip they took to the Occupied Territories of Palestine last year. Their articulate description of what everyday life is like for Palestinians under the 45-year long Israeli occupation, and among the illegal settlers who have moved to Palestine after the 1967 war, was an eye opener to many in the room, but reinforced what many others with direct experiences of the Palestinian situation already knew. In both tone and intention it was meant to be, and essentially was, about Palestinians and Palestine, not Israelis and Israel, although one can hardly avoid discussing all four in such a program.