The worst blizzard in several decades dumped at least two feet of snow on the Vineyard last weekend, leaving roads impassable, homes isolated and emergency workers in a state of exhaustion.

The northeaster which began late Saturday night and continued into Sunday with gale force winds and gusts up to 70 miles per hour paralyzed the Island Sunday and Monday, and in the case of schools, right on through the week.

Officials Announce Delay in State Forest Clearing; Restoration Plan
Altered

By TOM DUNLOP

State environmental officials said this week that they will delay
and radically change a plan to clear more than 500 acres of planted
trees in the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest.

School Study Group Sees Little Progress

Task Force Charged with Fiscal Probe of Up-Island Regional School
District Hits One Roadblock After Another

By IAN FEIN

A study group charged with evaluating the finances of the Up-Island
Regional School District hit yet another snag this week, as the deadline
for consultant proposals came and went without a single response.

The financial analysis was supposed to be ready for annual town
meetings in April - but that timeline now appears well out of
reach.

Oak Bluffs voters this week narrowly defeated a proposal to include the North Bluff section of town in the Cottage City Historic District.

At Tuesday night's special town meeting, voters also argued over how much money a resident could earn and still qualify for town-subsidized property for affordable housing.

In the end, voters opted by majority voice vote to qualify households making up to 140 per cent of median income in Dukes County - a level that advocates said would include people such as teachers and police officers in the program.

Against a backdrop of escalating property values and the high cost
of construction, housing starts on the Vineyard fell in 2004 for the
second straight year.

A total of 1,210 building permits from the Island's six towns
were issued in 2004, down seven per cent from the 2003 total of 1,300
and eight per cent from the 1,311 permits granted in 2002. Four of the
Vineyard's six towns saw drops in the number of total building
permits issued; only Aquinnah and West Tisbury saw increases.

As Martha's Vineyard approached and then passed the millennium, the Island could rely on one wintertime certainty: Lola's, the restaurant at the bend on Seaview avenue in Oak Bluffs, would be open for business.

The 200-seat restaurant was a magnet for off-season life, a place where families looking to eat, couples looking to dance, and amateur hockey players looking to unwind all felt at home.

But this winter, the parking lot at Lola's is quieter than the waters of Vineyard Sound lapping the shore a few hundred feet away.

Pat Jenkinson's lobster boat Solitude sits idle at the dock in Menemsha. The last time he took the boat fishing was right after Christmas, and it wasn't much of a trip. Mr. Jenkinson says he won't go fishing now until spring. "There is nothing out there," he says.

The shaky wooden dock is stacked with green wire lobster pots from another season. Sparrows fly in and out of the pots. Captain Jenkinson says he knows of at least one local hawk that pays close attention.

Fueled by a federal grant aimed at countering a bioterrorist attack, scientists at a Providence, R.I., pharmaceutical company are banking on the collection of blood samples from nearly two dozen Vineyarders to help them develop a new vaccine against tularemia, the rare disease with an unexplained presence on Martha's Vineyard.

Ecology Map Aids Planning

Released By Nature Conservancy, Sophisticated Color Blueprint Shows
Diverse Habitats End to End on Island

By IAN FEIN

A detailed map that identifies all of the ecological habitats on the
Vineyard was released this week by the Islands office of The Nature
Conservancy. The map is the first of its kind for the Vineyard.

Silver Screen: Theatres Seeing a Mere Trickle of Moviegoers

By MAX HART

At the Edgartown Cinemas on a recent evening, the most popular movie
in America plays to an almost empty theatre. About a dozen patrons enjoy
a laugh as Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro engage in madcap hijinx in Meet
the Fockers.

Over at the Island Theatre on Circuit avenue in Oak Bluffs, Brad
Pitt and George Clooney are scheming their way to riches in
Ocean's Twelve, the fifth highest earner at the box office. But
they, too, look down from the screen to a mostly empty room.