Winter is coming and the Aquinnah town hall needs a new furnace.

But first town voters must approve $8,500 to pay for it.

The money for the furnace is one of 10 articles and some $25,000 in spending — all transfers from one fund to another — that will confront Aquinnah voters when they convene for a special town meeting on Tuesday night.

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the old town hall and town officials are urging voters to turn out for what they expect will be a quick and painless — but necessary — business session.

With a scant four weeks left until the November election, the race for Cape and Islands state representative is heating up quietly as four candidates — one Democrat and three independents — begin to work their campaigns in earnest.

Saturday night, an hour before sundown. The ferocious northeast wind from the day before has died, the only reminder a thick blanket of seaweed covering the rocky north shore. My friend and I are fishing. He has entered the derby; I have not. We trade off using two rods, one big, one small. The small rod has a sluggo, apparently the lure of choice for catching bass this year, the large one a popper.

Another lone fisherman stands in the rocks several
hundred yards away. We can hear the quiet whine of his reel as he casts far out into the setting sun.

On Tuesday at noon it was quiet at the polls in Edgartown. The midmorning rush was over and the lunch rush (the town clerk wondered if there would be one) had yet to begin. Gray clouds scudded across a September sky. A small crowd of elderly tourists spilled out of a bus onto Church street. Eric T. Turkington ducked inside the Baylies Room at the Old Whaling Church. A lone voter arrived and headed for the empty booths, paper ballot in hand. He looked up and spotted the longtime Cape and Islands state representative.

In a clear sign of a cooling real estate market here, revenues at the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank fell in 2007 for the second straight calendar year. The total number of real estate transactions also was down last year, for the third year in a row.

The land bank collected $10.9 million in revenues in 2007, compared with $11.6 million in 2006, a drop of seven per cent.

And the land bank recorded 1,403 real estate transactions in 2007, a drop of five per cent from the previous year, when 1,474 transactions were recorded.

She stood outside and watched, numb with disbelief.

And Ann Nelson — whose name is still synonymous with the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore even though she turned ownership of the store over to her son Jon three years ago (she stills owns the building) — wanted to go inside.

The Chappaquiddick ferry, a singular enterprise and sole transportation link for the residents of this tiny island situated off the extreme eastern end of Edgartown, is set to be sold to Peter Wells, a seasoned captain who is a familiar face at the helm of the three-car ferry.

The Edgartown selectmen will hold a public hearing on Tuesday afternoon to consider the transfer of the license and ground lease from ferry owner Roy Hayes to Mr. Wells. Mr. Hayes, who lives in Edgartown, has owned the ferry since 1988.

Admitting the mistakes of the past and pledging a new future of transparency in their financial affairs, leaders of the Island Affordable Housing Fund took the floor at the Vineyard Haven library on Wednesday night and faced the public over what one member of the audience called a breach of public trust, when the fund defaulted on its payments to the county rental assistance program early this fall.

“How could you do this? There are single mothers using this rental program,” declared Penelope Dickens, a renter who also uses the program.

Contributions fell sharply and cash evaporated while debt soared at the Island Affordable Housing Fund between the years 2007 and 2008, audited financial statements show.

And the public was led to believe that the fund was flush with money from fund-raising, when in fact the opposite was true, said T. Ewell Hopkins, executive director of the fund, in an interview with the Gazette yesterday.

Revealing deep fault lines in its financial affairs, the Island Affordable Housing Fund announced abruptly this week that it can no longer pay for the county rental assistance program, pulling the rug out from under hundreds of Islanders who depend on the program for stable year-round housing.

The nonprofit fund not only has run out of money for the rental assistance program but is also in serious financial straits with its high-profile Bradley Square project in Oak Bluffs that drew Gov. Deval Patrick to the Island for a ceremonial groundbreaking in August.