Billy and Naomi Dias of Oak Bluffs welcome their son, Th’oder Joseph Jacob Dias, who was born July 30 at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. He weighed 8 pounds, 3.4 ounces. Theo joins his two sisters, Evelyn Joy and Penelope.

The people are coming — upwards of 5,000 are expected — and the town of Oak Bluffs is ready for them.

Nearly four years after the landmark sovereignty case was decided by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) has yet to secure a town building permit for the small shed and pier that were at the center of the dispute.

Aquinnah building inspector Jerry A. Weiner sent a letter to tribal chairman Cheryl Andrews-Maltais late last month formally notifying her that the tribe is in violation of town zoning laws and the state building code on three projects, including the shed and pier. The tribe has not responded to the letter.

On Tuesday morning, before most Islanders had their first cup of coffee, volunteers took a walk around Sengekontacket Pond looking for sources of pollution.

Carrying clipboards and cameras, the volunteers did a coastal shoreline survey, looking for anything that might signal a cause for the declining water quality in the 745-acre pond.

Charitable giving on the Vineyard remains almost inexplicably robust this summer season, even while across the nation there is mounting evidence the sagging economy is having a devastating effect on philanthropy.

Donations to the Salvation Army are reported to be down 20 per cent, contributions to church collection plates are off an estimated 35 per cent, and several charities tasked with providing aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina have nearly gone bankrupt.

It was billed as a public forum on race, gender, age and religion in the 2008 election, but right from the outset it was clear that one of the four topics would dominate the discussion held before a huge crowd of more than 900 people at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School Performing Arts Center on Wednesday.

Sen. Barack Obama should consider his defeated rival for the Democratic party presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, as his running mate in November, political analyst David Gergen told a Vineyard audience on Wednesday.

Without tough political fighters like Senator Clinton working with him, Mr. Gergen said, Senator Obama risks being overwhelmed by the same Republican attack machine which had so effectively “Swift-boated” John Kerry’s bid.

After receiving approval from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission earlier this summer by a nearly unanimous vote, the Bradley Square project on Dukes County avenue in Oak Bluffs has gone to the town zoning board of appeals and once again drawn the ire of abutters and neighbors.

A call for a fully engaged fire at Claudia jewelry store on Main street in Vineyard Haven Wednesday prompted a hasty response from firefighters following the Independence Day fire that destroyed the Caf Moxie restaurant and badly damaged the Bunch of Grapes bookstore in the same area.

But to everyone’s relief, the fire was relatively minor and was extinguished quickly.

Corrections

In a story about the publication of a collection of Civil War diaries kept by Charles Macreading Vincent, published in the Gazette of July 22, the name of a 19th century column in the Boston Globe was misidentified. The name was Table Gossip.

Due to incorrect information in a press release, an item in the Tuesday the Gazette incorrectly identified the hometown of Emily Hartford, who won a theatre award. She is a native of Middleborough.

The Gazette regrets the errors.