The West Tisbury town hall is a problem that just won't go away.

Just in time for the holidays, there is closure to the long-standing discussion over how to dispense a $16,500 gift to Martha's Vineyard Community Services workers.

The gift - from singer Carly Simon and author Norman Bridwell - funded a one-time bonus to nonmanagerial employees of the health service agency; the money was divided equally among more than 100 of them, amounting to something above $100 each.

Flu season is here, and the biggest concern now is who might get it.

Dr. Melanie Miller, a pediatrician, said this week: "We have been inundated by concerned parents. There are a lot of panicking parents out there."

For the moment, the main challenge to health care providers is education rather than treatment.

Reversing a downsizing of seven years ago, the U.S. Coast Guard soon will expand its Vineyard presence, including resumption of full use of the Menemsha Coast Guard station.

As part of that process, Chilmark selectmen have been told the town police department, now a tenant at the old historic station, located on the hill overlooking the Home Port restaurant and Menemsha Pond, must find a new home by May 1.

Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs shellfishermen saw a banner start to the bay scalloping season, and they share their reason why: Lagoon Pond.

Derek Cimeno, shellfish constable for Tisbury, is watching shellfishermen surrounded in bay scallops. "Six hundred bushels of bay scallops were taken in the first two days by family shellfishermen," Mr. Cimeno said.

It started two weeks ago when one of the four underwater cables providing electricity to the Vineyard failed somewhere between Falmouth and West Chop.

Then, last Saturday, a second cable failed.