A longstanding effort by the town of Edgartown to protect five ancient byways suffered a setback last week when a superior court judge sent a district of critical planning concern (DCPC) designation back to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission for another review.

The five paths are Middle Line Road, Ben Tom’s Road, Pennywise Path, Watcha Path and Tar Kiln Road. Their use as cart paths and byways dates to Colonial times, and in 2007 the commission approved a town-sponsored initiative to designate them as special ways under the Island Road District DCPC.

Correction

A story in last Friday’s Gazette about bees and the pollinator crisis provided the wrong date for a talk by Beekeeping for Dummies author Howland Blackiston. Mr. Blackiston will speak at the Wakeman Center in Vineyard Haven on March 15. The Gazette regrets the error.

Eighteen-year-old Nicole Level, one of Mexico’s top junior windsurfers from Cancun, is alive today because of the quick thinking of 13-year-old Rasmus Sayre from Vineyard Haven.

The rescue took place last Saturday during a world-class windsurfing championship in Cozumel. The young teenage female sailor was found adrift amid four and five-foot seas, far offshore, without her board and not wearing a life jacket. Mr. Sayre happened to notice her while racing in a tight competition, and without hesitating he left the highly competitive race to make the rescue.

If coach Michael Joyce’s varsity boys’ basketball team hopes to make any noise in the state tournament in the coming weeks it will likely come down to which team shows up: The one that went into halftime against Norton on Wednesday with their tails between their legs down 38-19, or the second half team whose stifling press and relentless intensity on offense earned them a thrilling 70-61 victory in their last game of the regular season.

It must have been some half-time speech.

Wind, tides and sun are intense subjects for discussion on the Island these days and it’s not all talk about the weather. Alternative energy projects are under way on so many fronts, both private and public, that it is sometimes hard to keep track of them all. But the Vineyard is moving ahead on three projects independently to generate electricity for its own needs, beginning with wind farms.

A major public works project to install new power cables deep beneath the Edgartown harbor to Chappaquiddick must start over, a spokesman for the electric company NStar confirmed this week.

NStar spokesman Mike Durand said three of the four conduits beneath the harbor have collapsed and must be installed again. The project, which has caused a fair amount of disruption for the people who live on Chappy, is now projected to be completed by spring.

Sky-high gasoline prices on Martha’s Vineyard — a universal truth here and an unending point of annoyance among Islanders of every stripe who pay dearly at the pump — are not the result of price-fixing, the United States Court of Appeals has found.

The Adult and Community Education Program (ACE MV) announces a new session of 38 courses and seminars for the spring session from March 8 to April 10, with professional development classes ending in June. Enrichment classes meet on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Registration begins now online; early registration is strongly advised. There is one day only for walk-in registration on Monday, March 7 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.

Drama Competition Preview

Every year the Massachusetts Education Theater Guild holds a statewide drama competition. For the past six years running Martha’s Vineyard has been represented at this festival, going all the way to the final round once.

This year the first round matchups take place on March 5 at Joseph Case High School in Swansea. However, a preview performance will be performed this Sunday, Feb. 27 at 4 p.m. at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven.

To us Islanders Linda Fairstein is, first and foremost, one of our best known summer Chilmark residents. To the rest of the world, she’s the best-selling author of the Alexander Cooper series, featuring Assistant D.A. Cooper of the Special Victims Unit in Manhattan.

In actual life Ms. Fairstein served as the Assistant D.A. in the Special Victims Unit in Manhattan. So when her fictional character files a particular brief or points out that it’s a point of law that the public is entitled to attend a court hearing she knows whereof she speaks.