Remy Tumin
The chrysanthemums are out, Morning Glory Farm is a sea of orange with pumpkins on display, and there’s a little extra crunch under your feet as the first fall leaves begin to drift downwards. Juicy apples, hot cider and roasted butternut squash fill Vineyard kitchens, and the students at Island schools are busy harvesting corn for popping and potatoes for soup. Fall is in the air.
There’s a place on the Vineyard where the boundaries are constantly changing and forms of artistic expression take on new meanings and challenges. It’s a bracing environment where the creative process is valued over the end result, where audiences regularly give standing ovations, not because they are easy critics but because they appreciate the hard work and dedication that goes into this work.
Five of the six Island towns are applying for Community Development Block Grants for the 2011 fiscal year, with more applications than ever expected this year from needy residents. At their meeting Tuesday, Aquinnah selectmen praised the block grant program, which this year includes funds for rehabilitating homes and child care assistance for income-eligible residents. Aquinnah, Chilmark, Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and Tisbury are all applying for grants.
Funds for replacement of the West Dock and carway at Menemsha, emergency response funds from the July 12 fire, money for the Tea Lane Farm project and a bathroom addition at the Chilmark School will come before Chilmark voters at a special town meeting Monday night.
Ten articles are on the warrant; the meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Community Center. Moderator Everett H. Poole will preside over the special session.
At a meeting Monday, the Edgartown Library building committee discussed three early-stage construction options for a new town library: renovating the Carnegie building and adjacent Warren House; renovating the old Edgartown School, and renovating only the Carnegie building with a small addition on the back. The last two options would include the sale of the Warren House.
The Chilmark selectmen will award bottom grants next month for 15 acres of north shore water to shellfishermen who want to grow blue mussels in Vineyard Sound.
The selectmen will hold a public hearing on the grants on Oct. 5. The current site has been used for an experimental mussel program supported by the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, the Chilmark shellfish committee and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole.