Two days before a special town meeting, Aquinnah selectmen are sharply divided over whether a pioneering energy bylaw should go to a vote, leaving the future uncertain for the Island’s first set of regulations on energy use.

A 16-page document, the energy bylaw remains largely unchanged from when it failed to achieve a needed two-thirds majority at the final session of the annual town meeting in June. A series of amendments to the bylaw were still being worked on at press time yesterday and were due in at the selectmen’s office this morning.

The special town meeting begins at 7 p.m. on Thursday night at the old town hall.

As of last week, two former backers of the energy bylaw — planning board member Peter Temple and selectman Jim Newman — had shifted their positions, saying they could not support the bylaw in its present form.

Mr. Temple, a planning board member who himself helped write the bylaw, described the language as boilerplate and opaque.

“It’s bureaucratic and confusing,” he said. “It needed to be reworked,” he added.

Mr. Newman agreed. “It’s not good enough, the public is just not happy with it,” he said. “I wanted a delay because there’s not enough public input. I suspect that it doesn’t allow enough freedom for the individual who wants a small tower.”

At the selectmen’s meeting last Thursday he told his board colleague Camille Rose, a leading proponent of the bylaw: “You’re going to have an uphill battle with this.”

The bylaw focuses purely on wind turbines and would form part of a separate energy district of critical planning concern for Aquinnah, the only Island town with its own townwide district of critical planning concern. The bylaw includes regulation on both communal wind energy development and for residential turbine construction. State law requires that the two be enacted together.

Led by Ms. Rose, the town is in the early stages of plotting out a community wind turbine project.

Two of four articles on the warrant for the special town meeting are dedicated to the energy issue.

The first deals with the bylaw itself and a second asks for voter approval for supporting town investigation of a communal wind turbine to be set up on town property.

“The language is a bit cumbersome but it has to be,” Ms. Rose said yesterday, countering the critics. “There has to be a lot of technical stuff, it’s there to protect the individual.”

At the meeting last week she said some Aquinnah residents think the restrictions aren’t tough enough.

“Some people out there think this is loosey goosey,” she said.

But Mr. Temple said: “If we’re doing something cutting edge, as we’re doing here, we want the whole town behind it. There’s a way to do this without taking the wind, so to speak, out of the communal sails.”

Jay Theise, an Aquinnah resident who attended the meeting, pointed out that the introduction of windmills to Holland in the late 17th century was met with widespread opposition.

“There was a great furor over them and today we revere them,” he said.

Selectmen and others present at the meeting voiced concern that if the issue was knocked back, tabled, or the town failed to reach a quorum on Thursday, it would be a difficult message to change.

Ms. Rose pointed out that though it didn’t pass at the last meeting — more than half of the voters backed the bylaw.

“Yes but it’s a small town — the third bit is important,” countered Mr. Temple.

Mr. Theise proposed that the selectmen endorse a more stripped-down version of the bylaw.

“Why don’t we pass a minimum version to get to the greater good and then improve it as the need arises?” he said.

But Ms. Rose said that the day the bylaw passes the town will receive a handful of applications for private wind turbines — and without a full set of restrictions that consider noise and visual impact among other factors, the town may face problems.

“All it takes is one bad [construction] to spoil it,” she said.

Selectman Spencer Booker who spoke little until the end of the meeting, said he supports keeping the bylaw on the warrant.

“I support this going to a vote and going through the democratic process,” he said, but he added a warning to Ms. Rose: “If the amendments are not ready like ducks in a row [at the town meeting], I’ll table it right there.”

She replied: “You’ll have the amendments by Tuesday.”

Yesterday Ms. Rose said she had given the amendments to town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport for review.

“They’re not major changes but they’re enough I hope to satisfy the concerns raised at the annual town meeting,” Ms. Rose said. She added that the energy initiative will change with community involvement.

“Everyone will have the opportunity to comment along the way,” she said.

One issue centers on the definition of what constitutes public benefit, an integral phrase in the bylaw. Aquinnah’s existing district of critical planning concern states that residential development should have minimal impact on the landscape. This rule can only be contravened if the benefit of the development to the town outweighs the detriment.

Among other things, the bylaw requires at least three public hearings for private wind turbines.

Yesterday Ms. Rose said she hopes that town voters turn out and support the bylaw.

“I’m praying that it does [go through], because we really need it and we can’t wait,” she said.

Hanging in the balance is not only the town’s early application with the state for a community wind turbine, but also a process at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission that includes a townwide building moratorium. The moratorium has been in effect since May, when the town failed to achieve a quorum at a continued session of the annual town meeting in June.

If the bylaw is approved, the building moratorium will be lifted. If it is not approved, selectmen must decide the next steps to take.

Also on Thursday’s warrant is a proposed amendment on Aquinnah’s new alcohol rule, which allows restaurants with 30 or more seats to sell beer and wine. The vote would extend the rule to cover one-day permits for nonprofits and civic groups. The final article deals with the proposed sale of a piece of town-owned land.