Residents at West Tisbury town meeting next year will be asked if they want to use paper ballots for some votes at town meeting.
Responding to resident requests earlier this year for secret ballots, selectmen last week prepared a bylaw amendment which says a written or paper ballot “shall be taken on any town meeting article if a motion is made, seconded and approved by 20 voters (whether required to be a counted vote or not.)”
Vote totals on any paper ballot in terms of ayes, nays and abstentions will be announced by the moderator.
The Dukes County Commission is between a rock and a hard place. Faced with a looming budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 and a financial advisory board which has refused to consider an unbalanced budget, the commission on Friday voted unanimously to slash funding by 50 per cent to two county programs and 100 per cent of another.
The commission will ask the six Island towns and the town of Gosnold to contribute the balance to continue the three programs — the Health Care Access program, the rodent control officer and the county engineer.
Voters at the next Aquinnah town meeting would decide on beer and wine licenses for two Up-Island eateries, if governor Deval Patrick signs a bill enacted in the statehouse last week allowing selectmen to license restaurants to pour beer and wine by the drink.
Last week the House and Senate enacted a town home rule petition that would allow licenses for establishments that seat at least 15 people. Both the Aquinnah Restaurant and the Outermost Inn meet that criterion. If the town ballot vote approves licensing, Aquinnah’s 100-year dry run would end.
Two Vineyard Haven Raffle
Prizes Are Still Unclaimed
Two winning tickets, one for $1,000 and one for $100, remained unclaimed as of late yesterday morning in the Vineyard Haven Holiday Raffle.
Two other tickets had been claimed. One for $500 was bought at C.B. Stark and the other for $250 was bought at the Mediterranean Restaurant.
It was a year of ‘what ifs' for the teams of the Martha's Vineyard Regional High School in 2007, as several teams missed the playoffs by the slimmest of margins, while others lost games in the state tournament that could have turned on the bounce of a puck or a roll of the ball.
The classic 1951 family feature film Alice in Wonderland screens Monday, Dec. 31 at 11:30 a.m. at the Katharine Cornell Theatre as part of the Last Night, First Day celebrations.
Based on the 1865 book by Lewis Carroll, this is the classic Disney animated version of Alice’s adventures as she follows a white rabbit into a wonderland of her own imagination. On her journey, she encounters the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, and a host of other beloved characters brought to life with the usual Disney zest.
Over the past year on the Vineyard, there was plenty of wind, storms for almost every season and so much summer sun there was a concern about drought.
A big ocean storm in April opened the barrier beach at Norton Point to the ocean. A northeaster on Valentine’s Day and another last month with near-hurricane winds kept reminding Vineyarders the ocean can get nasty.
In other words, it was another classic year of variable New England weather on the Island.
HOLLY NADLER
508-693-3880
Hey, who knew Dean Martin wrote Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas? I just learned this important piece of information from Terry Gross on National Public Radio. Judy Garland first sang it in Meet Me in St. Louis. She gave it a tragic subtext, but basically it’s a merry little song, as witnessed by the fact that the average American is likely to hear Have Yourself 437 times per Christmas season (statistical data supplied by The Nadler Research Group).
MARGARET KNIGHT
508-627-8894
When we walked down the Chappaquiddick Road on Christmas Day, the sun was out and the air was still. There were no sounds of any kind of motors to be heard — it was almost at the half hour and the ferry ran on the hour that day — so we had the road to ourselves. Other walkers and runners and running dogs were out enjoying the perfect Vineyard early-winter day.
