Edgartown Planning Board Faces Dilemma on Size of Mansions

By MANDY LOCKE

The Edgartown planning board is torn.

The fracture - slow yet certain - led to a tense clash
last week.

Only one item appeared on the board's agenda - a project
that has inched toward a vote since Richard Schifter filed his
intentions with the board last spring.

Chilmark residents interested in owning a home may find the going a
little easier since voters at a special town meeting Monday night
approved a significant rewriting of zoning bylaws to create new
homesites in the years ahead.

The special town meeting at the Chilmark Community Center drew 174
voters.

Let Good Times Roll for Grads in Class of 1960

By C.K. WOLFSON

The cheerleaders are now grandmothers.

And they're celebrating. It's a communal 60th birthday
party hosted by Island members of the Class of 1960 - the first
graduating class of Martha's Vineyard Regional High School.

A fishing trip on Sengekontacket Pond turned tragic Monday
when two men from Oak Bluffs drowned accidentally several hours after
paddling a one-person kayak out to a sandbar and casting their lines.

Against the backdrop of a heated race for Massachusetts governor and a slew of ballot initiatives on everything from bilingual education to income tax, voters on Martha's Vineyard will face their own subset of important electoral decisions on the first Tuesday in November this year.

It doesn't happen often that students and school administrators find common ground so quickly, but a single question has united them for the time being: What's up with the cost of a school lunch?

Night Fire in Edgartown Leaves Fourteen Brazilians Homeless

By MANDY LOCKE

Charred Portuguese prayer books, scalded refrigerators and a
few box springs are all that remain of the worldly possessions of 14
Brazilians who had been living in a three-bedroom house in Edgartown.

Torn down the middle for the third time in three years, the expressions eloquent and heartfelt on both sides of the street, a strained and weary Martha's Vineyard Commission voted 9-8 to reject the Down Island Golf Club plan for the southern woodlands late on Wednesday night.

"The applicant has come back with changes to the plan and the word is that he has addressed all of our concerns. But he hasn't ever addressed my main concern and that's my concern about the character and identity of Martha's Vineyard," declared commission member James Athearn.

Testing the power of their weighted vote for the first time
since the board was expanded, the two Island Steamship Authority
governors yesterday blocked a proposal to launch seasonal freight
service between New Bedford and the Vineyard next summer, calling for
more study.

"As we develop New Bedford service, I feel it's more
important to do it right than to do it right now," declared Vineyard
SSA governor Cassie Roessel.

Lagoon Pond has millions of baby bay scallops. On Tuesday afternoon,
David Grunden, shellfish constable for Oak Bluffs, was out moving some
of them around. There is a gold mine of baby bay scallops out there.
While this doesn't help the fishermen of today, it may be a sign
of a good year to follow.