Opinion Matters

The West Tisbury selectmen, finance committee and treasurer will host a public forum for voters on town finances at Howes House on April 4 at 10 a.m. All are invited to come share coffee and opinions with the town leaders.

Floral arranger Mary Louise Perry and assistant arranger Wiet Bacheller will represent the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club for Art in Bloom 2009 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

They will create a flower design that interprets a work of art, one of 50 designs to be done by New England Garden Clubs in this springtime tradition.

This three-day festival showcasing flower arranging as an art form takes place from Saturday, April 25, through Monday, April 27.

An uncertain economy coupled with unpredictable weather in the late summer has forced the cancellation of cruise ship visits to the Island this year.

The mammoth ships usually come into Oak Bluffs several times during late September and early October. But representatives from Norwegian Cruises and Royal Caribbean told town officials last month they were cancelling.

Tisbury voters will be asked to take an important step on the way to addressing the town’s burgeoning problem of unfunded liabilities for its retired workers, at a special town meeting Tuesday night.

A recent report on the problem by Jon Snyder of the town finance and advisory committee estimated the town’s unfunded liability for post-retirement benefits — largely health care — stands at some $19.5 million. Mr. Snyder further estimated the liability for all the Island towns and regional entities at almost $90 million.

Four suspects arrested in November in one of the largest heroin drug busts in Island history will face multiple felony drug charges later this month in Dukes County Superior Court during the spring court session.

The accused are Kaleb C. Garde, 26, of Vineyard Haven; Roseline J. Gaspar, 24, of Vineyard Haven; Garrett J. Gibson, 24, of Oak Bluffs; and Alexander W. Carlson, 22, of Edgartown.

The chief executive officer of Festival Network, the national entertainment promoter that has held a concert in Ocean Park featuring the Boston Pops for the past two years, has said the future of the concert is in doubt, largely because it lost money last year.

CEO Chris Shields has also leveled harsh accusations at the YMCA of Martha’s Vineyard, saying that the nonprofit organization still owes his company thousands of dollars from ticket sales last August.

The state might be constitutionally prohibited from supporting any religion in this country, but that does not mean it can’t support a church, at least if the church is historic and in dire need of repair.

Or so at least runs the logic behind a quartet of proposals to go before the annual town meetings of the four big Island towns this year, which would collectively give about $140,000 in Community Preservation Act grants for the upkeep of churches.

Herring have arrived in Vineyard waters, and this is particularly good news for a fish in trouble. Years ago local fishermen used to count the herring by the barrel; today they are counted only by the handful.

This is the fourth spring Massachusetts anglers have been prohibited from catching these fish. The state moratorium is a hardline effort to protect the fish from further decline. An initial three-year moratorium was renewed; it is to last another two years.

Mistakes made in a restoration project at Bend in the Road Beach have resulted in pulled beach grass, a run of complaints about unpleasant sand and a smaller beach, according to Edgartown town administrator Pamela M. Dolby.

Speaking at a selectmen’s meeting Monday, Mrs. Dolby said a number of people have criticized the project including one man who had come to her office with video footage of the beach.

“There have been a number of complaints about sand quality and the loss of beach,” she said.

For a second summer, Main street Vineyard Haven will have a vacant space where Café Moxie used to be, following the latest setback in plans to rebuild the restaurant.

Paul Currier, owner of the building destroyed by fire last July 4, told Tisbury selectmen this week work on the rebuilding would stop until at least September.

Mr. Currier previously had hoped the restaurant would be finished and trading again before the anniversary of the fire.