Aquinnah will cut operational spending by 10 per cent in next year’s budget, the board of selectmen voted Tuesday night, leaving open the question of eliminating cost of living adjustments for town employees as well.

Selectmen Jim Newman stressed, “We’re not cutting services ... You’re going to have the same number of police officers; you’re going to have the dump opened two days a week. I’m not asking them to cut down on what they’re doing.”

Edgartown selectmen voted Monday to allow several old trees to be taken down and replaced with new specimens.

Chilmark is a Yankee town, no doubt about it. Some might call it behind the times, but Chilmark is quite content to preserve the quiet simplicity of the past, both in its rustic landscape and in its traditional methods of settling business and political matters.

Case in point: The hand-cranked ballot box.

Chilmark still uses one, an old-fashioned wooden box that takes hand-marked paper ballots.

Edgartown selectmen voted Monday to reapply for a housing rehabilitation program under the federal Community Development Block Grant that allows eligible homeowners to borrow up to $35,000 for critical home repairs.

Under the grant, homeowners who make 80 per cent or less of median income are eligible for the no-interest loans, which are forgivable over a period of 15 years.

After polling a group of commercial shellfishermen in the room, the Edgartown shellfish committee agreed on Tuesday that the commercial scallop limit should stay at four struck 10-gallon washbaskets. The new limit went into effect on Dec. 10, and was previously set at three 10-gallon washbaskets.