Edgartown Allows Library Renovations

Trading democratic squabbles for efficiency, Edgartown voters marched resolutely through a 52-article annual town meeting warrant in just over two hours on Tuesday night, stopping briefly along the way to debate the merits of renovations to the free public library and adding a finance director to the town employee roster.

Voters said yes to the library improvements and no to the finance director.

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Ted Kennedy Fought to Protect Island

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the senior Senator from Massachusetts whose broad vowels were synonymous with Boston and whose liberal legislative record towered over all others, died late Tuesday night at his home in Hyannisport after a 14-month battle with brain cancer. He was 77 and had served in the U.S. Senate for 46 years. And he had long been a familiar presence on the Vineyard, where he is both credited for the infamy of Chappaquiddick and for the pioneering federal land trust bill that ultimately led to the creation of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

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Town, MVC Prevail in Moshup Trail Case

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court last week upheld the town of Aquinnah and the Martha’s Vineyard Commission in a key leg of a complicated and long-running property rights case that will ultimately decide whether a large swath of rare coastal heathland along Moshup Trail remains forever wild or is opened up to private development.

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Vineyard Gazette is Sold to Island Philanthropists

The Vineyard Gazette, the family-owned weekly newspaper that has been a prominent, much-decorated and enduring chronicle of Island life for 164 years, will be sold to new owners, the newspaper’s publisher Richard Reston announced today.

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Police Uncover Clues In Arson Case, But Make No Arrest Yet

Edgartown police have identified a person of interest in the arson and burglary case on Dunham Road; police also have seized cutting tools they believe may have been used in the early morning hours of Sept. 27 when a fire was deliberately set and propane gas lines were cut in the guest house owned by E. Burke Ross.

Police said this week they are focusing on a person who lives on property owned by the Vose family trust at 41 Dunham Road, directly next door to the Ross home. No names have been released and no arrests have been made.

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Nitrogen Tips Pond’s Delicate Balance

Farm Pond, the 42-acre great salt pond that hugs the edge of the Harthaven section of Oak Bluffs along Beach Road, is ailing and at risk due to too much nitrogen, a draft study for the ongoing Massachusetts Estuaries Project concludes.

The draft report, which is now circulating among town leaders and water quality planners, also finds that rehabilitation of the pond is easily within reach and could be largely accomplished by significantly widening the culvert that allows tidal exchange between the pond and Nantucket Sound.

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Arson Leaves Town Uneasy

Police, firefighters and the state fire marshal are investigating a rare arson in the Tower Hill neighborhood of Edgartown, and the owner of the home is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest in the case.

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Downgraded to Tropical Status, Earl Spares, Drenches Island

After a flurry of emergency preparations that went on through the week, Hurricane Earl was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it arrived on the Island late Friday night, sparing the Island any damage save from drenching rains that flooded some cellars and washed out driveways.

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State of Emergency and High Alert: Hurricane Earl Barrels Up East Coast

The Vineyard was in a state of emergency and high alert at nightfall yesterday as Hurricane Earl crawled up the Eastern Seaboard, a category three storm packing winds up to 111 miles per hour with drenching rains, its huge eye pointed straight at eastern Cape Cod, the Vineyard and Nantucket.

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Moshup Trail: No Easements

The Massachusetts Land Court has upheld the town of Aquinnah in a pivotal case that will ultimately decide whether a large swath of rare, salt-blasted coastal heathland along Moshup Trail remains forever wild or is opened up for development.

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