She’s had her first 100 days, her first summer — including her first Possible Dreams Auction — and now Martha’s Vineyard Community Services executive director Juliette Fay is settling into the rhythms of year-round Island life. And she has some observations.

“What I’ve learned is that this is a very remarkable community,” Ms. Fay said this week.

Rising costs of special education services and cuts to federal grants are driving a dramatic increase in education spending for Vineyard schools in the coming fiscal year.

Schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss presented an operating budget to the all-Island school committee Wednesday night totaling $5.4 million.

Renovations began this week on the Edgartown town hall, closing part of the town hall parking lot and one of the entrances to the building.

Edgartown procurement officer Jen O’Hanlon said that the repairs are expected to last until January. The work includes putting a new roof on the building, as well as painting and other small repairs.

When he leads a service, Reverend Bill Clark, 61, wears a starched white hat and a rainbow-colored stole. He walks up and down the aisle during the hymns with broad strides, his chin tilted upwards, his voice easily filling the cozy wooden church.

“Whatever you are going through in this life, my friends, you are not going through alone,” he told his new congregants, the members of the Unitarian Universalist Society in Vineyard Haven, at a recent Sunday morning service.

A faded yellow building that once housed the Oak Bluffs laundromat may become the future site of a bowling alley.

Reid (Sam) Dunn, the architect who developed the Tisbury Marketplace in Vineyard Haven, presented a preliminary proposal to open a bowling alley, restaurant and bar on Uncas avenue to the town selectmen Tuesday.

“This is totally informational,” Mr. Dunn said. “We wanted to let you know that the project is in the works.”

The Massachusetts Attorney General has approved a new Edgartown bylaw that will require minimum maintenance on buildings in the town historic district.
Last April Edgartown town meeting approved the new bylaw, which will require owners of buildings in the historic district to “keep such buildings from falling into a state of poor repair.” This applies to the exterior of buildings or interior portions of buildings that, if not adequately maintained, will affect the exterior.

Violators are subject to a fine of $300 per day.

The West Tisbury selectmen adopted a new policy about use of town stationery this week after one selectman used the stationery without the consent of his colleagues.

In early October selectman and board chairman Richard Knabel sent a letter to the Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative and Cape Light Compact about the town’s upcoming solar panel installation. Mr. Knabel, a longtime critic of the electric cooperative, expressed concern that the town might bear future financial responsibility for the panels, among other things.

The announcement by Cape and Islands state Sen. Dan Wolf this week that he is ending his bid for governor in 2014 came as little surprise. But his strange imbroglio with the Massachusetts Ethics Commission over the last few months has left more questions than answers, particularly about his future as a legislator representing the Island.

It started with a headline. Two young Islanders won the derby. That was something to celebrate. Then on the Gazette website conversation stirred. They weren’t really Islanders, one reader said. Wrong at least on one count, replied the grandmother of Sam Bell, age twenty five, born and raised on the Vineyard.

Well, we had the “I’m Sorry I Called You That Terrible Name On Broadway In July But I Was Stressed Out Dinner” last Thursday. It’s an October thing, a let-down thing, a healing thing, slow, a little uneasy at first, and without energy.