CHATHAM — Saying they need more money to promote the town as a destination, the chamber of commerce is seeking a $15,000 hike to its town budget appropriation next year, representing a 20 percent increase over the current year’s payment. On Monday, selectmen said they appreciate the chamber’s work to promote the town and could support some kind of budget increase, but they stopped short of approving the appr...

If and when it comes, the decision to change the grade alignment at elementary schools in Chatham and Harwich will be made by the Monomoy Regional School Committee and both town's boards of selectmen. Town meetings, however, will not have the option of weighing in on whether students from one town can be sent to the elementary school in the neighboring community, according to a change in the language of the Mo...

CHATHAM – New bleachers at Veterans Field, replacement of the fish pier observation deck, restoration of a downtown memorial and preservation of town records are among more than a dozen projects seeking Community Preservation Act funds this year. This year's CPA requests total $1,845,075, with the largest amounts for recreation projects. Six requests in that category from town departments and other agencies se...

CHATHAM – For 30 years, the Dennis-based Aquaculture Research Corporation maintained a satellite shellfish upweller on the shores of Stage Harbor. The facility allowed the company, which annually sells millions of seed shellfish to Chatham and other Cape communities, to take advantage of the warmer Nantucket Sound waters to grow out shellfish earlier in the season than it could at its Cape Cod Bay-side facility. ...

CHATHAM – “Hooked on Chatham” will be the theme for this year's Fourth of July parade. The theme represents the idea that people who live or visit become “hooked” on the town's many aspects other than the obvious fishing, such as the beaches, boating, shopping and history, Independence Day parade committee chairman Justin Bohannon told the selectmen Monday. It was submitted by Connecticut resident and regular ...

CHATHAM — From the town’s perspective, the latest volleys in the Monomoy refuge boundary dispute have added insult to injury, selectmen said Monday. On Jan. 5, federal officials replied to a letter the town sent to U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke more than half a year earlier, asking him to intervene in the town’s dispute with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The reply didn’t come from Zinke or from an...

CHATHAM – “Hooked on Chatham” will be the theme for this year's Fourth of July parade. The theme represents the idea that people who live or visit become “hooked” on the town's many aspects other than the obvious fishing, such as the beaches, boating, shopping and history, Independence Day parade committee chairman Justin Bohannon told the selectmen Monday. It was submitted by Connecticut resident and regular ...

CHATHAM — Thanks to a strong property tax base, a recovering economy and the town manager’s tight purse strings, selectmen Tuesday heard some good news about the draft FY19 town budget. Town Manager Jill Goldsmith is proposing an operating budget of $30,427,418, an increase of 0.57% over the current year’s spending plan. The draft budget not only stays within the constraints of Proposition 2½, but leaves alm...

CHATHAM — The name “Old Colony Rail Trail” is a nice tribute to the railroad that once serviced Harwich and Chatham, but it doesn’t communicate some key information: where the trail goes. “I see bikers between Thompson’s Field and [Route] 137 looking at maps and trying to figure out where they are,” Harwich bikeways committee member Shanna Nealy said. Nealy and her group met last week in a rare joint session...

CHATHAM – After months of negotiations between developer Eastward Companies and neighbors along Ocean Port Lane, the planning board last week approved a 13-lot subdivision off Barn Hill Road. The seven-acre Hunter's Rise development is one of the largest new residential subdivisions in town in recent years. The board approval came after Eastward Companies agreed to a 20-foot buffer strip along the subdivision'...

CHATHAM – The recent cold weather, coupled with seasonal habitat restrictions, will delay dredging near Fox Hill and Pleasant Bay. Planned dredging of the entrance to Mill Creek in the spring should still be on schedule, said Coastal Resources Director Ted Keon. The Barnstable County dredge Codfish was due to clear shoals from the channel between Pleasant Bay and Ryder's Cove, off Fox Hill, a few weeks ago,...

CHATHAM – For 27 years the Cape Cod Commission has been evaluating the economic and ecological health of the Cape. On Jan. 14, Paul Niedzwiecki, executive director of the commission, delivered a lecture at the community center about the ways that climate change is likely to affect the economic and ecological health on Cape Cod and what the commission is doing to protect it. The lecture, titled “The Price Tag: Eco...