The Steamship Authority is on track to finish a difficult year in reasonably good financial shape, the last board meeting of 2009 was told last week.

As of the end of October, the boat line’s net operating income was almost $12 million, some $2.8 million better than forecast.

The monthly business summary continued the good-in-parts trend of recent months: revenues were sharply down, but so were costs.

The depressed real estate market resulted in a 23 per cent fall in Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank revenues in 2009, on top of a 33 per cent slide the previous year.

There was a dramatic fall, too, in the amount of land the organization was able to put under conservation protection. It acquired just 7.2 acres of new land this year, compared with its long-term annual average of about 130 acres.

Following last week’s town vote in favor of a new $5.8 million emergency services building, Tisbury selectmen this week continued to wrestle with the problem of what to do with town workers who will be displaced by the new construction project.

The new building will go on the site of what is now the town hall annex, which means those people will have to work elsewhere. Which means a trailer.

Or maybe two trailers. Maybe single wide, maybe double wide. If they will fit and it doesn’t cost too much.

Bridge Housing has 14.9 acres of land on State Road in Vineyard Haven, and completed plans for 22 affordable houses on that site. It also has no money, little prospect of raising any money and a $2.35 million loan on which it is currently in default.

And it has written promises from the financially-strapped Island Affordable Housing Fund of more than $1 million for the development, Bridge Commons.