As Vineyard towns convene for annual town meetings this spring, most will be grappling with new bylaws in the face of a state law legalizing medical marijuana.

With ongoing discussion about Islandwide coordination over how to address the new law, five of the six Vineyard towns will vote this spring on whether to adopt bylaws prohibiting public marijuana consumption and imposing a one-year moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries in all zoning districts. The moratorium is meant to give towns time to come up with their own regulations before marijuana dispensaries can open.

The Chilmark conservation commission voted this week to allow a house and several outbuildings dangerously close to the edge of a cliff overlooking Stonewall Beach to be relocated.

They are all captains but don’t wear lifejackets. Membership in their yacht club only costs $5 a year. When a severe storm is brewing, they don’t have to worry about moorings, storm surges or high winds. Their boats weather the worst usually on a shelf in the living room.
The dozen members of the Martha’s Vineyard Model Yacht Club are a unique group of mariners. This month they are gearing up for a busy sailing season with frequent racing and gams.

The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank reported revenues of $126,253 for the business week ending on Friday, March 29, 2013. The land bank receives its funds from a two per cent fee charged on many Vineyard real estate transactions.

The Edgartown selectmen this week voted to give two commercial fishermen until Friday to pay outstanding citation fees.

Shellfish constable Paul Bagnall said Michael Briggs and David Viera had two unpaid shellfish citations apiece, and the selectmen could suspend their licenses for one week if they decided to hold a public hearing on the matter.

Demolition of the old public works building, a new beer and wine license for Cafe Moxie and three signatures on a new cable contract for the town were all in a day’s work for the Tisbury selectmen at their meeting Tuesday.

At the request of town building inspector Ken Barwick, selectmen voted to approve the demolition of the old DPW building on Spring street “at the earliest reasonable time.”

If there is a more widely recognizable on the Vineyard than the American robin, we’ve yet to hear of it. The combination of a gray back and an orange breast and belly on a robin is obvious and known to all. Sheer numbers help boost our familiarity with robins: this species is a very common nesting bird on the Island, and contrary to the cliché of the first robin of spring, robins are present and often numerous throughout all but the most brutal winter weather.

This is the time when voters in Island towns gather to direct their community’s public activity for the year. Hundreds of thousands of dollars will be approved for new fire trucks, historic building renovations, wastewater upgrades, road and sidewalk repairs, police cruisers, public park projects and affordable housing initiatives. Millions more will be pegged to annual town operating budgets.

A thin crescent moon rises early in the morning tomorrow. The moon is in the zodiacal constellation Aquarius, a constellation we normally associate with autumn and late summer. It appears Sunday and Monday mornings, but even closer to the eastern horizon.

Ray Hopper died the day our first child was born. It wasn’t a natural death, or a peaceful death. At the time Ray was the husband of the storekeeper and he had a daily ritual. He would load his antique dueling pistol and his muzzle-loading rifle, roll up a couple of dog-haired, dust-bunnied, washashore joints and head out looking for deer. His route was exactly the same every day, so when he did not show up by dark, the island went looking for him. They found him, still warm, with his much-loved antique guns, pack, wallet and one joint neatly stacked on a rock nearby.