Government
The search for a new manager for Dukes County hit a roadblock last week.
On Sept. 27, the screening committee appointed to review applications and recommend three finalists to the county commissioners recommended the commissioners re-advertise the position and said it would not continue the screening process with the applications received to date.
The recommendation was made in executive session at the regular meeting of the committee.
The tax rate in Chilmark will go up from $1.87 to $1.96 in 2008, assistant assessor Pamela Bunker reported at an annual public property rate classification hearing with the selectmen on Tuesday. This marks an increase of nine cents.
As the Chilmark shellfish department wraps up its first summer, efforts at spearheading restoration projects have been successful. Selectman Warren Doty, chairman of the board and liaison to the department, reported a low mortality rate among planted scallops and a very high production rate.
“It has been a very successful season,” he said.
To date, 100,000 scallop seed have been set to grow in an upweller, purchased by the town this spring and located in Menemsha, as well as in spat bags and pearl nets.
For the second time this week, Chilmark residents confronted increasing demands to reduce personal energy usage when the first proposal for a residential wind turbine in town came on Tuesday before the zoning board of appeals.
Chilmark resident Robert Green appeared before the regular monthly meeting of the board with his proposed contractor, Gary Harcourt, to request a permit to build a 114-foot turbine on his Old Farm road property.
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Saturday called the Bush administration incompetent, the federal Katrina response an embarrassment and the national health care crisis a moral imperative.
While other towns agonized over their town meetings, Edgartown residents breezed through theirs on Tuesday night, approving a $24 million annual town budget in minutes and working through 67 warrant articles in a little over two hours.
In an impressive display of support for the priorities of town authorities, the 200-odd residents who turned out for the meeting failed to approve only a few of the measures put before them.