The Tri-Town Ambulance service is requesting a 60 per cent increase for their budget next year due to a new state mandate that requires full-time paramedics for the service.

If all three towns — Chilmark, West Tisbury and Aquinnah — approve the hike, the cost of the service will go up $275,420, from an operating budget of $452,995 to one of $728,415.

As political fault lines continue to undermine the struggling Edgartown library rebuilding project, the town selectmen have called a special meeting for Monday afternoon to address the problems.

The meeting will be held at 3:30 p.m. prior to the weekly selectmen’s meeting.

“This committee has been making bad decisions for six years,” declared Edgartown selectman Michael Donaroma, also a member of the library building committee, following a tense meeting with elected library trustees on Tuesday night.

A chimney fire on Pennywise Path in Edgartown last Tuesday destroyed a bedroom and has forced a family out of their home for the next month. The fire broke out in between the chimney and wall of Lisa and Herb Tilton’s home around 3 a.m., engulfing the house in smoke.

We’ve been accused of being lazy, complacent, having everything handed to us on a silver platter, growing up in the boom years without a care in the world. Trust me, I know some of those people.

Two commercial bay scallopers in Aquinnah are facing punishment for fishing without a permit in November. Selectmen voted at their Dec. 14 meeting to fine George Baird $200 for scalloping two days on Menemsha Pond without a license, but referred a complaint against Wilde Whitcomb to town counsel.