The Permanent Endowment Fund for Martha’s Vineyard announced this week that it has created a new fund and will hire its first full-time executive director, efforts designed to raise awareness of the organization and make more funds available more quickly on the Island.

Erik Blake Takes Over

As Chief of Police Chiefs

Oak Bluffs Police Chief Erik G. Blake was sworn in Wednesday, Jan. 9 as the president of the Southeastern Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association.

The organization consists of police chiefs and police excecutives from 96 cities and towns in southeastern Massachusetts.

Chief Blake previously held the position of first vice president. He has been a member of the organization since becoming chief of the Oak Bluffs Police Department.

MARGARET KNIGHT

508-627-8894

(margaret02539@yahoo.com)

During the last few weeks, North Water and Daggett streets have been turned into a construction site as the electric and telephone lines are being buried underground. The ferry line has moved back and forth between Daggett street and Dock street, depending on where they’re digging that day, so it’s been a challenge to know which route to come down to the ferry.

KATHIE CASE

508-627-5349

(kcase1@verizon.net)

First, I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. My New Year’s resolution is to figure out how to take care of my computer when it goes haywire. It usually wins but eventually I get it back where I can work it.

NANCY GARDELLA

508-693-3308

(vhavenvgazette@yahoo.com)

I want to warn you there is going to be a custody battle in my neighborhood that will make Britney Spears and K-Fed look like United Parents of America.

HOLLY NADLER

508-693-3880

(sunporch@vineyard.net)

In the Agatha Christie novels someone always gets around to observing, “De mortuis nisi nil bonum,” which means, as we all know, “Speak nothing but good of the dead.” This is always in response to a police inspector (or Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot) asking, “Why would anyone want to kill your Great-Aunt Beatrice?” The object of this query always starts with the “De mortuis” bit before launching into an all-out character assasination.

For Rick Karney, director of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, 2008 is becoming the Year of the Blue Mussel.

In recent weeks, Mr. Karney’s group has received positive news about the prospects of raising blue mussels in local waters.

While the Island group already raises juvenile bay scallops, quahaugs and oysters for participating towns on a regular basis, the organization also is participating in a blue-mussel experiment that could expand aquaculture to the open water.

It was an up-and-down week for the Vineyard’s high school sports teams.

The boys’ hockey team won a pair of games to inch closer to a berth in the state tournament, while the girls’ basketball team lost both a blowout against an unknown opponent and a tight game against a familiar rival. Meanwhile, the girls’ hockey team shook off a slow start and began to show potential, while the boys’ basketball team won a game by 30 points and lost another by a single bucket.

Boys’ Hockey

Fish Talk

Fish, Fish, Fish will be the topic of Louis Larsen’s talk at the next Friends of the Library speakers bureau at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 20, at the Vineyard Haven library. Mr. Larsen is the owner of the Net Result. Refreshments will be served following the talk.

Tonight’s crescent moon appears low in the western sky after sunset in the zodiacal constellation Aquarius. The moon reaches first quarter phase on Tuesday and is in the zodiacal constellation Pisces.