In a sequel to the failed effort of the board of the Quansoo Beach Association to frustrate access to two large parcels of south shore conservation land, the association’s annual general meeting has replaced its chairman, James B. White.

But Mr. White’s legacy remains, in the form of environmental damage caused by the necessity to bulldoze a new section of road to provide access to the conservation land, and a legal bill of more than $30,000 incurred by the beach association in its dispute with the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation.

President Obama is due to land on the Vineyard on Thursday for a planned 10-day family vacation up-Island, and three days before the arrival few details have been released by the White House.

The Massachusetts Land Court has upheld the town of Aquinnah in a pivotal case that will ultimately decide whether a large swath of rare, salt-blasted coastal heathland along Moshup Trail remains forever wild or is opened up for development.

As the Island faces continued growth in its congested commercial areas, one project before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission has begun to emerge as a symbol of the breaking point.

This week’s evening lecture at the Chilmark Community Center is Inside Enemy Lines: How Technology Is Changing the Business of Media with Jessica Vascellaro, deputy bureau chief in New York, and formerly San Francisco, for the Wall Street Journal.

For the Birds

The Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club will hold its annual meeting today, August 17, at 1 p.m. at the Old Mill in West Tisbury. The topic for this month’s program is How Birds Have Changed, presented by Islander and Gazette columnist Soo Whiting. A hospitality hour with refreshments will follow the program. Anyone interested in horticulture, home gardening, flower arranging and preserving the best qualities of the Island environment is welcome. Admission is $5 for guests, free for members. For details, call 508-693-5334.

Correction

A photograph published in the August 13 Gazette of Vernon Jordan at the Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs incorrectly identified the person Mr. Jordan was standing with. It is Union Chapel president Alphonse Carter. The Gazette regrets the error.

Poet Judith Tannenbaum, the author of By Heart: Poetry, Prison and Two Lives, is presenting her work at Featherstone on Thursday, August 19 at 6:30 p.m.

Nina Gomez Gordon will be the featured artist at a a wine and cheese reception on Thursday, August 19 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Made Here on the Vineyard in Nevin Square in Edgartown,

Ms. Gomez-Gordon earned a bachelor of arts in fine art from Bowdoin College and studied painting and sculpture at the school of the Art Institute of Chicago and Maine College of Art. She has been a professional artist on Martha’s Vineyard for more than 16 years, specializing in plein air landscapes, abstract art, figure drawings from life and portraits by commission.

By MEGAN DOOLEY

On Thursday night, soprano Jeanine De Bique told the story of a woman torn between her loyalty to her family and her love for a man whose family ties made him enemy to her own. She asked that the gods strike her down with lightning, “because it’s better to be dead, I guess, than to be in love,” said Ms. De Bique. She told another story of a woman who found herself unexpectedly pregnant by a cold, cruel man, and the heartbreak that ensued.