CHATHAM — When it comes to senior citizens' housing needs, there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. That was the message the planning board heard from elder advocates last week. In a rare joint meeting with the council on aging board of directors last Tuesday, the planning board posed a series of questions designed to help them consider zoning changes that would encourage the development of sen...

CHATHAM – Efforts are underway to improve the playground behind the elementary school on Depot Road, beginning with the installation of a well and irrigation system early next month. The longer term project will eventually involve upgrading the existing playground equipment, but for now officials are concentrating on making the playing field on the east side of the school more usable. Currently the area is cov...

In the alphabet soup of state standardized tests, local students have once again risen to the top. Results of the spring Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) tests were released Monday afternoon, and students in the Monomoy Regional School District, Cape Cod Tech and the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School performed ...

CHATHAM -- State shark biologist Dr. Greg Skomal, working with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, tagged the season's 20th shark today. The 15-foot shark was tagged off the northern tip of North Beach Island at about 1:30 p.m. Skomal is in the third year of a five-year population study which aims to get a handle on the number of white sharks that frequent the waters off Cape Cod during the summer.  Since...

CHATHAM – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe issued a statement Wednesday saying he was disappointed that the town is seeking federal legislation to resolve the dispute over the western boundary of the Monomoy Wildlife Refuge. The Fish and Wildlife Service worked “tirelessly” with the town to develop the comprehensive conservation plan for the refuge, he said, resolving significant differences th...

CHATHAM — When there's a vacancy on the department, Police Chief Mark Pawlina hires people, not robots. And because police officers are human beings, there's a risk of racial bias. The key, Pawlina said, is to be aware of that risk, to train officers to use their authority sensitively and judiciously, and to make sure the general public understands how law enforcement works. Speaking with a small group of...

CHATHAM — An unsigned pamphlet that was bulk mailed to Chatham residents this week blasts Harbormaster Stuart Smith for allowing his brother's boat mooring in Ryder's Cove to be used by Selectman Seth Taylor. In the style of a parody, the mailing advertises the “Selectmen's Choice Access Mooring Plan,” or SCAM, and encourages people to call the harbormaster to “see if you qualify to jump the line and get a m...

CHATHAM — In 2014, voters purchased land near the Mitchell River drawbridge for a wide range of potential uses, from a commercial fishing vessel offloading pier to a handicap-accessible platform for recreational anglers, a new home for the town's shellfish upweller, or a new dock for Coast Guard boats. Now, with the property already in regular use by the public, town officials are asking stakeholders to help th...

Last Friday researchers tagged the 19 th great white shark of the season, a 15-foot animal located off Nauset Beach in Orleans. According to the Chatham Shark Center, that brings the total number of sharks tagged in Cape waters since 2009 to 97. Since 2014, the state Division of Marine Fisheries, working with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy (AWSC), has identified 200 individual sharks, 20 of them so f...

CHATHAM – A bill clarifying the town and state's right to manage the resources in the submerged lands west of the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge was expected to be filed Tuesday by Congressman William Keating. The bill that was filed differs from previous draft bills, which sought to specifically set the western boundary of the refuge at mean low water to make it clear that the town and state are responsible...

CHATHAM — Thanks to quick work by a charter boat operator, the Coast Guard and the Center for Coastal Studies, a young humpback whale was freed from fishing gear off Chatham Friday afternoon. Captain Darren Saletta of Monomoy Sportfishing and a fishing party were about two-and-a-half miles east of Chatham when they came upon the juvenile whale tangled in lobster gear. The whale was “extremely fatigued, strug...

CHATHAM – What really happened on Feb. 18, 1952? While the book and movie of the Pendleton rescue, “The Finest Hours,” tells the story of how a four-man Coast Guard crew from Chatham saved 32 men from a sinking tanker off the town's coast, like any historical event, there's always a lot more to tell. At the Chatham Historical Society's Atwood House Museum Sunday, those other stories of the CG36500 and the P...