Oak Bluffs raced to balance its current town budget at the finish line of the fiscal year, after voters at Tuesday’s special town meeting moved to transfer more than $216,000 to cover shortfalls.

About 100 residents appeared at the Oak Bluffs School on Tuesday to vote on the six-article warrant. It was the town’s third special town meeting since January.

The scramble included taking $106,000 from the town’s so-called “rainy day” fund to pay for unforeseen health insurance costs.

With a bonfire blazing in late afternoon sunlight behind them, eight women gathered to celebrate the summer solstice. These women have special reason to celebrate the passing of spring into summer and the new cycle of life it brings — they run Hospice of Martha’s Vineyard.

Under increasing pressure over his performance, Oak Bluffs town administrator Michael Dutton is now the subject of a disciplinary proceeding in front of the town selectmen.

Selectmen have held two closed-door sessions within the last week to discuss Mr. Dutton’s performance under a section of the state open meeting law that allows executive sessions to discuss and consider the discipline or dismissal of a town employee. A third executive session is scheduled for July 5.

All winter, my venerable sailboat, Blue beard , has sat on her trailer in my Music street backyard. But as spring turns to summer, I have been sensing from the stirrings of the tarp that has kept her cozy on snowy days, that Bluebeard is longing to return to the water. Not that she controls the actions of the tarp. The wind does. But in my years of tending Bluebeard, I have learned a bit about her temperament — and mine.

Clam chowder, bay scallops, fried oysters. Wampum bracelets. Shellfish are the grand bounty of the soft, sparkling salt ponds that ring the Island shore. We’d be hard pressed to find a local cultural symbol more significant than the water-worn purple and white quahaug shell. Purple — the Island color.

It’s hard to say which was more shocking, witnessing the near drowning of an elderly man and a young boy or the refusal of a couple on a nearby motorboat to help rescue them. Either way, it was an afternoon to remember.

They’re the unsung heroes of the Vineyard, the volunteers and staff of The Trustees of Reservations who work tirelessly through the winter and spring to ensure the Island’s beaches, properties and other attractions are primed and ready for the enjoyment of visitors and residents during the summer. Significantly, their mission includes actively managing the lands for the care and protection of our wildlife habitat.

As a cyclist, I am sadly accustomed to abuse, including ignorant and aggressive drivers (thankfully rare on the Vineyard), so-called bike paths that are substandard in design and upkeep, and the overall attitude (despite law to the contrary) that I’m a second-class road user. Even here in Edgartown, the town has put up illegal stop signs on the bike paths (and ignored pleas to remove them), and illegally tries to exclude cyclists from a section of Pease’s Point Way (a ham-fisted response to a fatality some years back).

Affordable Housing’s Gordian Knot

School’s Out, Safety’s In

The kids are all out! Special artworks that adorned school hallways were carried home to take new pride of place. Those old worksheets stuffed in the backpacks are now crumpled under beach towels, all freshly smudged with sunscreen. And, best of all, the bike helmets are at the ready, for students with free time to be freewheeling on two wheels.