CHATHAM – Does a Christmas tree have to be a tree? Not if it's festive enough. The Chatham Merchants Association and Chamber of Commerce is assembling a “buoy tree” to bring the holiday spirit back to the Sears Park triangle. For many years the small downtown park hosted the town Christmas tree, a large evergreen donated by a resident annually and festively decorated by the park department. It was the fo...

On Monday, one day after alerting parents to a positive COVID-19 case at Monomoy Middle School, Superintendent of Schools Scott Carpenter sent a second email announcing another case at Harwich Elementary. “Based on what has been shared with the school from both the family and public health officials, the student was not in the building while infectious, and we do not need to quarantine any classrooms,” Carpent...

CHATHAM – Who has the ultimate authority over Chatham Municipal Airport? The airport commission? The board of selectmen? The Federal Aviation Administration? All three, to one degree or another. For three hours Tuesday evening, officials hashed out the various levels of airport oversight, delving into state statutes, obscure town bylaws and term definitions. They didn't quite get down to the level of defini...

CHATHAM – For years, the town has taken every available opportunity to add sand to Nantucket Sound beaches, especially in the Cockle Cove area. Erosion nonetheless remains a major problem along the south shore, and addressing it in a comprehensive way will take more than just beach nourishment. “While that's very valuable, it's not sufficient to really maintain the beaches as we'd like,” said Coastal Resources...

CHATHAM — Each year, selectmen and the town manager begin the process of creating a budget by setting their goals and objectives, meeting in a special Saturday session. This year’s session yielded a list of priorities shaped in part by the pandemic. “Seeing that COVID-19 was impacting a lot of our ability to move forward with our work that we had been thinking about doing, we did review our established mission...

CHATHAM – The historic business district commission's denial of a request to demolish five buildings on the former Monomoy Theatre property was discriminatory and overstepped its authority, the owners of the property claim. Chatham Productions LLC is asking the board of selectmen to overturn the commission's Nov. 18 decision. In an appeal sent to selectmen Nov. 25, owner Greg Clark wrote that during the hearin...

First Woman Elected To Board Of Selectman Dies At 99 CHATHAM – For more than 275 years, half of the town's residents lacked representation on the board of selectmen. That changed in 1988, when Josephine Ives became the first woman elected to the board. “It was huge to have a woman represented on the board,” said Shareen Davis, the board's current chair. “She certainly did pave the way for others to step int...

The Monomoy Regional School Committee violated the state's Open Meeting Law in March when it discussed a topic that was not included on a posted meeting notice, the Attorney General's Office ruled this week. In a Nov. 23 letter, Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Carnes Flynn of the office's Division of Open Government wrote that an investigation found that the committee did not intentionally violate the law...

When the pandemic hit last spring and the hunkering down began, Peter and Bonnie Brenner decided to make lemons out of lemonade. Peter had retired from a 40-year career in the ministry, including two decades as a Navy chaplain, and Bonnie knew that there were boxes of his professional material stored in their basement. Bonnie also knew that Peter, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2013, would ...

And Puts Unfair Burden On Harwich Taxpayers A precipitous drop in enrollment, driven by the loss of young families from town, is threatening the future of Chatham Elementary School. That also has big implications for Harwich taxpayers and the pact between the two towns that form the Monomoy school district. In the short term, Chatham taxpayers will likely be asked to pay a larger share of the budget for the...

CHATHAM – Lacking a plan for redevelopment of the former Monomoy Theatre property, the historic business district commission last week denied requests to demolish five of the seven buildings at 766 Main St. and 70 Depot Rd. “I feel very uncomfortable approving a demolition of anything down there without a comprehensive plan,” said Chairman Dan Sylver. There were previous plans for redevelopment of the prope...

WEST CHATHAM — The new roundabout at the corner of Main Street and George Ryder Road is taking shape, and there have been reports that particularly long tractor trailers have had trouble navigating the traffic circle. The news seems to support longtime concerns raised by critics of the new traffic plan, but officials say the tractor trailer problem is temporary. Last Tuesday, a truck pulling a car carrier tr...