Pending the ability to hire an accredited teacher, high school leaders announced this week that driver education will return to the regional high school next fall.

Former head of the state police, Neal Maciel, is set to begin teaching in the fall once he receives the proper teaching credentials from the department of motor vehicles.

Out with the old library and in with the new may take on a new meaning at the annual town election in Edgartown next Thursday. Against a backdrop of heated discussion in recent months and weeks over plans for a new town library, three seats on the library board of trustees are being contested.

Julie Lively is challenging incumbent Ellen Kaplan for a one-year term as library trustee. In a telephone interview this week Mrs. Lively said she was inspired to run when she saw a presentation about the potential new library.

Next Thursday Oak Bluffs voters will elect two selectmen from a crowded field of five candidates. With a still-sputtering economy and town coffers running dry, each one is claiming the mantle of financial leadership.

This week the Gazette spoke with all five candidates.

Despite the town’s recent fiscal woes both incumbents touted their financial credentials and promised innovative measures both to raise revenue and cut spending in the years ahead.

Responding to a fraud investigation launched last month by the Cape and Islands district attorney, on Monday the Edgartown wastewater commission voted to change the way the town collects its wastewater bills.

There was talk of class warfare and fascism. There were dark forecasts of Martha’s Vineyard as a community polarized between very rich and very poor. There was a crowd. Last Monday’s was not your standard meeting of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission land use planning committee.

But as commission executive director Mark London noted even before it began, there’s something about the subject of big houses which gets people going.

A private pier large enough to trigger the definition of a marina will return to the Edgartown conservation commission next week after the applicants for the pier decided to scale back the size this week.

The annual town meeting warrant which will be addressed by Tisbury voters on Tuesday night is one cut to the economic times, featuring none of the big-cost initiatives of recent years.

This is the year Tisbury abandoned its free-spending ways. There are no new fire stations this time around, no other big new projects, almost nothing of a discretionary nature. Infrastructure outlays are mostly confined to replacing that which is broken.

Oak Bluffs residents accustomed to the marathon week-long spectacle that has come to characterize town meetings in recent years will be shocked to see the length of this year’s warrant.

“It’s very short,” said selectman Ron DiOrio this week. The push for simplification comes as a reaction to last year’s town meeting which saw 30 warrant articles and some 12 Proposition 2 1/2 override questions. Voters rejected 11 of those overrides and sent selectmen scrambling to reorganize the budget. The town meeting ran into a second week.

A lean budget, new library and a series of zoning bylaw changes top a hefty 68-article warrant that awaits Edgartown voters at the annual town meeting Tuesday night.

Longtime moderator Philip J. Norton Jr. will preside over the session; the meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the Old Whaling Church.

Voters will be asked to approve a $27.5 million budget, up 3.4 per cent over last year, largely due to increased education assessments, a large police and fire department budget and funding for a town dredging project in Sengekontacket Pond.

A historic change is in the works for West Tisbury if voters approve the sale of beer and wine at town restaurants and inns at the annual town meeting on Tuesday night.

A petitioned article championed by the owners of State Road Restaurant, the Lambert’s Cove Inn and the Plane View calls for the sale of beer and wine at restaurants with a seating capacity of 50 or more patrons.