Vineyard officials testified before the state legislature yesterday in support of a bill that would merge the Dukes County Sheriff’s Department into the state system and place it under control of the Executive Office of Public Safety.
Dukes County sheriff Michael McCormack, who would see a 27 per cent increase in his salary if the bill passes, appeared at the hearing, along with county manager Russell Smith and county treasurer Noreen Mavro Flanders.
A new federal law designed to protect children from lead products has forced the owners of Martha’s Closet II, the Island’s only consignment shop for kids, to go out of business.
The Gazette previously reported two that the same law has forced the two Island thrift stores to turn away donations and throw away children’s clothing, toys and books.
By JIM HICKEY
Edgartown police last week arrested a third man suspected in a string of recent break-ins.
Stephen Sullivan, 19, of Cat Boat Lane, West Tisbury, was arrested last Thursday and arraigned in Edgartown District Court on Friday. He was charged with multiple counts of breaking and entering, larceny from a building and malicious destruction of property. He was released on personal recognizance.
Oak Bluffs selectmen on Wednesday approved three ballot questions for voters in April — including one that would authorize $500,000 for dredging at Sengekontacket Pond — as well as the warrant for the annual town meeting, which calls for a balanced budget of $24.1 million among other things.
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission last Thursday postponed a vote on Vineyard Haven resident Donald Muckerheide’s proposal for 12-unit condominium development on Dukes County avenue in Oak Bluffs, voting instead to send the project to the commission’s land use planning committee.
Mr. Muckerheide, who has a history of animosity with the commission, left the hearing midway through deliberations.
Against the backdrop of a sustained national recession, the board of directors for the YMCA of the Martha’s Vineyard voted unanimously last Friday to begin construction on the long-awaited 38,000-square-foot YMCA building to be built across from the regional high school on the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road.
