Acting on a joint request from attorneys for the Martha's Vineyard Commission and the Down Island Golf Club, a superior court judge sent the golf club plan back to the commission this week for fresh review.

"This matter is remanded to the Martha's Vineyard Commission for further proceedings, including a public hearing to consider plaintiff's amended application," declared the Hon. Richard C. Connan, an associate justice of the superior court who sits in Barnstable.

Vineyard Addresses Task Force

By JULIA WELLS

The governor's ferry task force had a three-and-a-half hour lesson in local politics, economics, transit systems, self-governance and the cost of butter last night when some 300 Vineyard residents turned out for the final public hearing of the now-celebrated fact-finding committee.

"Most of our year-round constituents are middle-class working families, and the Steamship Authority is their lifeline to the mainland," declared West Tisbury selectman Cynthia Mitchell.

Tissue samples taken last September from a Chilmark skunk and a Katama rat tested positive for tularemia, the rare disease that infected 15 people on the Island last year, killing one man who did not seek medical attention in time.

Head varsity hockey coach Mike Jackson is serving a five-day suspension after an incident following Sunday's Fairleigh Dickinson tournament at the Martha's Vineyard Arena that left the team's trophy in pieces and the hockey community sharply divided.

In the view of Aquinnah police chief Doug Fortes, the turning point came in the fall of 1999, when rangers from the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) came back from a trip to the Oneida Indian Nation in upstate New York, packing a half dozen Glock nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistols.

Some 81 acres of land that was formerly part of the storied Pohogonot Farm in Edgartown was sold to a private buyer late last week for a total sale