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1. A number of unspecified additional things; 2. pl. additional items, odds and ends

SCALLOP DEMOGRAPHICS To measure how well bay scallops are reproducing in Nantucket's harbors, Peter Boyce, working with the Maria Mitchell Association, set out five spat lines from June 15 to July 1 that were to be hauled in after two months. Of the two lines that he has brought in so far, the contents of infant scallops look promising, and much better than his spat collections in 2006, he said.

The town and the Maria Mitchell Association set out spat lines to collect the products of scallop spawning events that occur in the early summer when the water temperature climbs to 68 degrees and in the early fall when the water dips to that reading on the thermometer.

The anchored lines of plastic mesh bags packed with monofilament (fishing line) are placed in areas known to be thick with spawning scallops. After the scallops release their sperm and eggs into the water - scallops are hermaphrodites, animals that contain both male and female reproductive organs - the fertilized eggs grow into larvae that swim around for about two weeks before attaching themselves to eelgrass or to the monofilament in the spat bags.

The collected scallop spawn is merely a way to discern the level of reproduction in the harbors and is not kept and grown out to releasable size. Of the spat collected by Boyce and Maria Mitchell through Sept. 1, Boyce received the most baby scallops from spat lines in the Head of the Harbor - around 30 per bag, compared with under five in 2006 - and about 80 per bag from lines at the Horseshed (near First Point off Coatue), compared with 40 per bag collected in 2006.

COMMISSION APPLIES FOR CPC MONEY FOR HOUSING PLANNER At a special meeting of the Nantucket Planning & Economic Development Commission on Aug. 26, Planning Director Andrew Vorce received the board's blessing to apply to the Community Preservation Committee to fund a housing planner position.

But the 4-1 positive vote did not come easily, as several commissioners could not understand the necessity of a housing planner in light of several island organizations - the Nantucket Housing Authority, the Nantucket Housing Office, Habitat for Humanity, Tryworks, the Nantucket Aids Network - already on the affordable housing beat.

"I'm not in favor of hiring this individual," said NP&EDC member John McLaughlin. "To me, you have Linda [Williams] as the Housing Authority and Aaron [Marcavitch] as the Housing Office and they should handle the housing on Nantucket. To hire someone to do a duplicate job - we've already got housing people working here - why do we need another one?"

But as Vorce explained, the housing planner would have no power over any of these entities, and would operate more as a coordinator and liaison between town, state and federal housing programs. Vorce said this person would act much like Transportation Planner Michael Burns, who orchestrated the new roundabout and runs traffic studies. Vorce called the housing planner more of a consultant than a planner.

Commissioner Michael Kopko agreed and said that such a consultant should be part of the NP&EDC team.

"This is one of the things that regional planning commissions do, this is right up this organization's alley; to study this issue and strategize this issue - where do we need housing, who needs this housing? This is a great use for CPC funding," he said.

Which is why the vote on Aug. 26 was so crucial. As Vorce explained, CPC's funding application deadline is Sept. 14. The commission's vote to have Vorce prepare and file the housing planner application is simply that. It does not mean the position will be filled and the money spent. The Community Preservation Committee must first approve the housing planner funding allocation of $83,578, of which $60,445 is for salary and the rest for expenses, and then Town Meeting voters must adopt the CPC article authorizing the transfer of funds from a three-percent property tax surcharge from the town and the matching grant from the state.

If all that happens, the money is available at the beginning of the next fiscal year, July 1, so the housing planner could not be hired until then.

Nantucket's Planning Department last had a housing planner in 1993, Sarah Hathaway, who held the job from 1989 to 1993 and drew her salary from state funding.

During her tenure, Hathaway created a housing action plan and wrote and successfully pushed through bylaw amendments in Town Meeting articles for inclusionary housing provisions and accessory housing units. The position ended when state funding dried up.

COLLABORATION TO ASSIST VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE The Nantucket Police Department and A Safe Place - the island-based provider of domestic violence, sexual assault and trauma services - announce a new collaboration that will give critical information and free, confidential services to Nantucket homes where there may be issues of family violence. Funded by an anonymous donor, A Safe Place will provide multi-lingual written materials for police to leave at homes where they have been called as a result of domestic violence and/or sexual assault, and a trained civilian police advocate will follow up on all calls to assist victims and their children.

Chief Pittman, the moving force behind the development of this project, states that "police are not social workers or victim advocates. This is what the experts at A Safe Place are trained to do. Providing immediate information and follow through relative to critically necessary services will assist this community in providing the most comprehensive services for victims and their children and may decrease the number of repeat calls for the Nantucket Police Department for domestic violence cases. Family violence related calls to the police department consume a significant percentage of the available patrol time, and nationally are among the most dangerous

for police to respond to." I