Chilmark voters, known for their thrifty ways, will be put to the test at their annual town meeting next week when they are asked to spend extra money on a variety of projects from affordable housing to education.

The meeting begins on Monday, April 28 at 7:30 p.m., in the Chilmark Community Center. Moderator Everett H. Poole will preside.

The annual town election will be held on Wednesday; polls are open from noon to 8 p.m. at the community center.

In the unheated carriage shed of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum on School street in Edgartown, where dozens of this Island’s outsized historical objects are stacked, there is a door from a Chappaquiddick fishing shack on which fishermen have scrawled — mostly in pencil — various items of local news. “Harbour frozen over to Cape Pogue — unable to get in or out. Man seen walking on ice,” reports a note from 1886. The bottom half is marked by an artful pencil sketch of a fish.

On an Island already known for its high cost of living, the Vineyard now claims the dubious distinction of having the highest gasoline prices in the state and among the highest in the nation. Prices for regular gas eclipsed the $4 a gallon mark at most Island service stations this week, while premium prices climbed as high as $4.39 a gallon.

The prolonged saga of the three-story garage built without a permit in 2003 by Oak Bluffs resident Joseph Moujabber along the North Bluffs resumed last Thursday when the Martha’s Vineyard Commission opened a public hearing on revised plans for the building.

The proprietor of the Bunch of Grapes bookstore in Vineyard Haven has confirmed that he intends to move off-Island but said any plan to sell the landmark Main street bookstore remains up in the air.

Jon Nelson Jr., who took over from his mother, Ann, as the bookstore’s chief executive officer in 2005, said this week that the business is not listed for sale.

“It’s a business, it’s always for sale, but officially it’s not listed with anyone,” Mr. Nelson told the Gazette.

Dean’s List

A number of Vineyard residents have been named to the dean’s list at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for the fall 2007 semester.

They are Quincy E. Dewing and Kathryn M. Noonan of Edgartown; Benjamin A. Madeiras, Jesse H. Nicholson and James A. Rebello of Oak Bluffs; and Allison C. Brown, Bess M. Child, Kathryn D. Hakala and Ruby R. Hoy of Vineyard Haven.

Roofs for Education

In educating the youth of the Vineyard, Island teachers provide a crucial public service.

Yet Island schools now face the alarming prospect that they will not be able to hire and retain teachers to teach certain subjects.

A confluence of two trends — one economic, one academic — has led the Vineyard to this unhappy turn.

Many Benefits>

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

The following letter was sent to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission:

I am 100 per cent in favor of the proposed Bradley Square project.

My reasons are many.

When Oak Bluffs (Cottage City) was founded, the first major and heavily populated neighborhoods were downtown. Businesses and residents lived side by side in a very compact and totally integrated location. This tradition that helped to define the character of Oak Bluffs still exists today.

Tisbury Split Down the Middle

The good people of Vineyard Haven fought to a draw last week in the collective duel over whether to allow beer and wine sales in restaurants.

It was by all accounts an extraordinary outcome — six hundred and ninety votes to six hundred and ninety votes — which now will be recounted at the formal request of the group which supports the measure, made up in large part by restaurant and business owners.

The question of election irregularities also remains to be put to bed.

When Warren Doty first moved the Vineyard in the late 1970s, the Menemsha harborfront was booming.

“Then there were five boats landing 10,000 pounds of sea scallops every three days,” he recalled. “There was a work force of ten shuckers in three different shucking shacks. That’s 30 Islanders working on the docks with about fifteen on boats. The season lasted from October to April every year. There were 45 to 50 jobs in Menemsha for six to eight months during the season.