State Road restaurant takes a few weeks off every winter, but this year’s closure will start immediately and last until March.

Owners Mary and Jackson Kenworth, who hold year-round dining and alcohol licenses for the eatery, asked the West Tisbury select board’s permission to close because of their shortage of workers, town administrator Jennifer Rand said at Wednesday’s board meeting.

“They just don’t have any staff,” Ms. Rand said. The board swiftly approved the Kenworths’ request.

Also Wednesday, the select board authorized Ms. Rand to write a letter in support of legislation that would make the house in the state forest available for a resident superintendent.

At one time the home of the late forest superintendent John Varkonda, the house has since been renovated, but still stands empty.

“It requires an act of the legislature to be allowed to use as a house,” Ms. Rand said.

Among other business Wednesday, the board discussed with Ms. Rand and tree warden Jeremiah Brown the removal and replacement of damaged trees in the town center, including a tulip poplar at the town hall-Music street intersection.

Mr. Brown recommended replacing the large tulip poplar with a hawthorn, a smaller tree that would not grow into the power lines overhead.

The board approved the appointment of Dan Durawa and Roshawn Groce as reserve police officers and accepted Robert Tavares’s recent resignation from the highway department. Board chairman Skipper Manter, a West Tisbury police officer, abstained from voting on the reserve officer appointments.

The West Tisbury board meets next in a joint session with the Chilmark and Aquinnah boards Oct. 14 at 5 p.m. to discuss changes in the funding and reimbursements formula for the Tri Town Ambulance service.

The three towns have been equally splitting both the cost of the service and the insurance revenue it generates, despite their disparate number of calls for service.

“The new tweak is that it be done on a per-run-percentage basis,” select board member Cynthia Mitchell said.

On average, she said, West Tisbury accounts for 59 per cent of the ambulance runs, Chilmark 32 per cent and Aquinnah 9 per cent.

The board closed Wednesday’s public meeting by adjourning to an executive session for the purpose of discussing the possible dismissal of a Council on Aging employee following complaints.

Town labor attorney Jack Collins told the board that it is up to the individual employee whether such a hearing takes place in public or closed session, and this worker had chosen a closed session.

Mr. Manter objected to the secrecy, saying he felt employees should be prepared to face any shortcomings in public.

“We have no trouble praising them in public session,” he said, before adjourning.