Thanks For The Joy Editor: A grand celebration of life has been taking place every Tuesday evening this summer at Brooks Park in Harwich Center. After last year’s dark season, the Harwich Town Band, under the direction of Tom Jahnke, has been playing its heart out. Audience members have been cheering, clapping, and singing along to familiar melodies. Kudos to all who have given their time and their talen...

Labor Day has been a federal holiday since 1894 and was celebrated earlier in some locations, including Massachusetts, which passed a law establishing a day set aside to celebrate workers in 1887. In most locations it's a respite for workers, although here on Cape Cod, the rest has to wait, as Labor Day marks the end of summer with a long holiday weekend that usually signals the final opportunity to capitalize on...

When crafting an update to the Monomoy Regional School District agreement, school officials might want to consider a slight language alteration that would allow changes to the document to be brought before any town meeting, not just annual meetings. School and town officials have been advised that the wording of the existing agreement only allows changes to be made at an annual town meeting. This came up after...

State Owes Chatham An Apology Editor: Whoa! Mass. Dept of Transportation officials didn't want Chatham citizens to attend an on-site inspection of our new West Chatham roadway? These MassDOT officials have apparently forgotten that we Chatham citizens, through our state tax dollars, pay their salaries.  We are their employers, and we have every right to examine their work. I sincerely hope that State...

Maybe it’s because we’re all a little dulled to disaster preparedness because of the pandemic. Or maybe it’s just been long enough since our last significant hurricane that most people don’t remember the havoc such storms can wreak. In the lead-up to Henri, when the hurricane was expected to make a direct hit on Cape Cod, we saw few crowded supermarkets. With one or two exceptions, cars weren’t lined up at gas...

Some states, rather notoriously at this point, are prohibiting school districts from mandating that students and staff wear masks in classrooms and school buildings. Some are even threatening to withhold funding from districts that insist on requiring masks inside buildings. Aside from being contrary to the U.S. tradition of local control of schools, it is contrary to science and misguided because it puts at risk...

A Day To Remember Editor: What a day July 2 was!  Long to be remembered, my 108th year!  I am happy everyone enjoyed it.  Thank you, everybody! A special thank you to all who set it up!  How can I ever forget it?  The police sirens!  The clanging of the fire engines!  The wonderful food! Juliet Bernstein Chatham   Pleasantly Surprised By W. Chatham Editor: Before returning to Chatham in Ma...

There’s no doubt that MassDOT suffered a self-inflicted black eye when it denied the public permission to attend Tuesday’s walk-through of the West Chatham Route 28 road reconstruction project. It was more than bad optics, more than the loss of a photo op of local and state officials working together. It was a violation of the public trust, and evidence of the strained relationship between the state agency and th...

Addressing Housing Crisis Is Paramount Editor: When Rome burns, we mustn't fiddle. Our housing crisis is worse now than before the pandemic. Town leaders in Orleans need to act now. I am concerned that Orleans officials are proposing a three-year process to determine what to build on the Governor Prence property, since this site has been through two extensive potential use studies including input from hundr...

Improvements to Kate Gould Park proposed by the Chatham Chamber of Commerce and Merchants Association are long overdue. Given its key location in the middle of the downtown business district, the park should represent Chatham putting its best foot forward. But it doesn't. The Main Street entrance is, while not quite shabby, somewhat less than pleasing. The first thing that greets visitors is trash receptacles....

Wastewater Funding Decisions Editor: The Harwich wastewater sewer construction project could cost close to a billion dollars over the 40-year life of the project, when inflation and spiraling construction costs are taken into account.  After years of discussion, isn't now the time to decide on a governing document and whether to join with Dennis and Yarmouth, or go it alone to build Harwich’s own treatme...

Popularity can ruin a place, especially one that's environmentally sensitive. We've seen that happen at some national parks. Is Cape Cod in danger of it happening here? Some residents who live near conservation areas, trails and town landings in Orleans suspect that they are the “canaries in a coal mine” when it comes to overcrowding. One resident counted an astonishing 12,000 people crossing private property ...