Incumbent West Tisbury selectman Glenn Hearn is an Islander with a no-frills, taciturn personal style.

Born and raised in West Tisbury, he attended Tisbury grammar school and high school. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1959 and holds two master’s degrees, one in engineering from Northeastern University and one in education from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

Robert Fynbo, a 49 year-old carpenter from Chappaquiddick, remembers the moment he decided to run for selectman. It was last December following the puffback incident at the Edgartown library, when oily furnace soot coated books and computers and forced the library to set up temporary headquarters in the Edgartown town hall.

A quiet and efficient presence at the weekly Edgartown selectmen’s meetings, Margaret Serpa has spent a long career scrutinizing municipal budgets on the Vineyard.

Born and raised in Edgartown, Mrs. Serpa was a member of the last class to graduate from the old Edgartown High School. She started to work at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School in 1972 and took over as administrative assistant in 1979, a position she kept until 2006.

Edgartown’s town election will be held Thursday, April 10 at the Baylies Room of the Old Whaling Church. Polls are open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Eleven positions on the ballot are uncontested, with no nomination papers returned for the board of health. In addition to the race for a selectman’s seat between challenger Robert Fynbo and incumbent Margaret Serpa, a five-year seat on the town planning board also will be contested.

West Tisbury voters go to the polls on Thursday, April 10 for the annual town election. One selectman’s seat and two library trustee seats are contested.

Polls are open from noon to 8 p.m. at the public safety building.

Incumbent selectman Glenn Hearn and challenger Richard Knabel are competing for a three-year term as selectman. James Powell, an announced candidate for selectman, recently notified the town clerk that he has withdrawn from the race. His name still will appear on the ballot.

Temperature: Precip.

Day Max. Min. Inches.

Fº Fº

March 28 51 41 Trace

March 29 45 32 .04

March 30 45 27 .00

March 31 44 25 .00

April 1 49 40 .05

April 2 54 41 .23

April 3 50 28 .04

Water temperature in Edgartown harbor: 45º F.

An Island man was killed last Thursday after he reportedly drove his vehicle off a 50-foot cliff along East Chop in Oak Bluffs into the shallow ocean water below.

The body of Benjamin Viera, 35, was recovered two days later after a passenger aboard a Steamship Authority ferry spotted the body inside the Vineyard Haven harbor breakwater.

Police this week declined to comment on how Mr. Viera’s vehicle went over the cliff, although there were indications that the incident may have been a suicide.

A Pennsylvania woman who was driving a sport utility vehicle carrying three people that fell off the Chappaquiddick ferry and into the Edgartown harbor last week has been cited by police for negligent operation of a motor vehicle and operating under the influence of alcohol.

Susan McLean, 54, of Ambler, Pa., was issued a citation by Edgartown police last Thursday evening. She has since requested a show cause hearing in front of the Edgartown district court clerk magistrate. The date of the hearing is kept confidential.

In an unprecedented act of cooperation between conservation organizations, the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank and Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation have completed a $3 million deal which will see 145 acres at Quansoo fully protected from development.

The land was given to Sheriff’s Meadow by the late Florence (Flipper) Harris, whose great generosity was matched by the great prudence to realize the foundation might have to sell off part of the land if it were to raise the money to properly manage the rest of it.

It was Emily Dickinson who wrote, “a letter always seemed to me like immortality.”

After spending the past two decades uncovering boxes of handwritten diaries, letters composed on old typewriters and files of personal documents, professor and sociologist Adelaide Cromwell would have to agree.