ORLEANS – A request for funding to restore the Orleans Community Center on Main Street will not go before town meeting voters this spring as hoped. But advocates behind the project aren't about to throw in the towel on plans for the historic building. "We are committed to making this happen," Alan McClennen, who chairs the town's community center renovation task force, told the select board March 16. McClen...

ORLEANS - School officials in Nauset didn't have to look far to find their next high school principal. Patrick Clark, hired as an assistant principal at Nauset Regional High School in August, will take the reins as principal effective July 1, the district announced in a press release. Clark will assume principal duties from Chris Ellsasser, who informed the Nauset Regional School Committee in December of hi...

ORLEANS – As the town's first fire station, there's no arguing the historic value of the Main Street Community Center. But the community preservation committee wasn't sold on the need to spend $2 million to restore the aging building. The committee voted 5-4 March 10 against endorsing the use of Community Preservation Act funds to make improvements to and bring up to code the building at 44 Main St., which dat...

ORLEANS – Parking restrictions and fees could be in the cards for additional town landings, but not in time for the coming summer season. Select board members on March 9 said they didn't see a wide enough window to expand the restrictions and implement fees in time for this spring's annual town meeting, the warrant for which closes April 6. Restrictions were put in place last year at Cove Road Landing, Wild...

ORLEANS – Can equity in sewer betterments be achieved for users downtown and in the area of Meetinghouse Pond? If the select board's public hearing on the matter March 9 is any indication, it doesn't seem likely. "I think what we can take away from all of this is there is no fair and equitable way to assess a betterment in this town," Finance Director Cathy Doane told the board at the conclusion of the two-hou...

ORLEANS — The news from Cedar Pond isn’t all bad. “There have been some improvements since various management plans have gone into place,” marine and fresh water quality committee chair Judy Scanlon told members March 7. “The public needs to hear some of the positive developments.” They’ll have an opportunity to do that at the committee’s next meeting, on March 28, when the recent adaptive management monito...

ORLEANS — The town’s comprehensive wastewater management plan has an adaptive management component that accounts for changes in technology and other factors that may arise during the decades it will take to clean local waters. It appears that adaptive management can apply to financing the effort as well. A lot has changed in the wastewater financing world since 2011, when the town’s wastewater plan was approve...

ORLEANS — The Nauset Regional School Committee says it’s done what it could to hold down projected costs for the budget that begins July 1, but recognizes that some sharp increases are beyond its control. Members are ready to make their case and take questions at tonight’s (March 10) public hearing at 6 p.m. before voting on the budget. The operating budget for the regional high school is proposed to go up ...

ORLEANS — Modern management theory warns against “siloing” of an organization’s work, a situation in which one group labors away without meaningful interaction with others that may be working on the same issues. Yet, in the agricultural sense, silos can be active places where materials – or shall we say ideas – can ferment and transform. This week, we visited three “silos” in Orleans where residents, officials an...

ORLEANS — The select board was expected to decide last night (March 2) whether to recommend a new policy to pay for the downtown and proposed Meeting House Pond wastewater collection systems. “Since 2018, Orleans wastewater project planning has been guided by the select board’s decision to pay for the project by a combination of general tax revenue and betterment assessments on parcels that connect to the co...

ORLEANS — The lack of housing of all kinds was in the thoughts of the Governor Prence Planning Committee when it met Feb. 14 to review a draft public engagement plan. The focus was appropriate, given that town meeting voted last May to buy the five-and-a-half-acre acre property “for general municipal purposes, including but not limited to affordable housing...” But what of those other purposes? How much a p...

ORLEANS — Seaside Joint Ventures advanced another step toward opening a retail cannabis business with conditional approval of its formal site plan for 14 Lots Hollow Road Feb. 16. The OK from the site plan review committee required clarification on a stormwater drainage matter and a response to any comments from the traffic and parking study committee. “The group has been diligent in responding” to issues ra...