ORLEANS -- An article to expand universal pre-kindergarten options in town is expected to go before voters at a special town meeting next month. The select board on Sept. 1 voted 3-0 to create an article requesting the expanded programming for inclusion on the warrant for the fall session on Oct. 25. The Orleans School Committee is specifically seeking $495,000 through an override of Proposition 2½ to fund the...

ORLEANS -- For Jamie Demitri, the Finch Skate Park is more than just a place for kids to recreate. It’s an emblem of hard work. “Your community built that,” Demitri, who manages the Pump House Surf Shop in town on Route 6A, told the select board Sept. 1. “They came together and they volunteered their time, their money, their equipment, their workers.” Demitiri, along with other skate park advocates, express...

ORLEANS -- Several well-used couches populate a small room in the back of the community center on Main Street. Pictures and artwork adorn the walls, while the counters are populated with packaged snacks, board games and personalized mugs. For a few hours each weekday afternoon during the school year, it’s a space middle school students make their own. But it’s been almost 18 months since the youth after school...

ORLEANS -- Outside Nauset Middle School on Aug. 26, backpacks sat in orderly rows on the grass waiting to be picked up, each one specially packed up for individual students across different grade levels.  The Homeless Prevention Council has so far provided backpacks full of school supplies for approximately 285 students for the upcoming 2021-2022 school year through its annual Backpack to School program. Now i...

ORLEANS - In an effort to expedite a plan for the future use of the Governor Prence Inn, a new planning committee will help steer the town through potential options for the property on Route 6A. An outline of the committee’s work, as well as a timetable for identifying a recommended use for the inn, was presented during a joint hearing of the select board and the affordable housing trust board Aug. 18. The ...

ORLEANS - The town’s board of health stopped short of issuing a masking order last week, opting instead to get behind an advisory modeled after guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The board voted 5-0 in favor of the advisory, which urges people to wear masks "whenever indoors on the premises of a business, club, or place of assembly, including but not limited to retail establishments...

ORLEANS - The town is ready to partner with Housing Assistance Corporation to bring affordable housing to the site of the former Masonic Lodge on Main Street. But how it comes up with its share of the money to do so has yet to be decided.  The affordable housing trust fund board voted 8-0 Aug. 17 to accept Town Administrator John Kelly’s recommendation that the town partner with the Hyannis-based nonprofit to ...

ORLEANS -- What began as a plan to renovate the town’s fire station on Eldredge Park Way has become one to build a brand new facility. There is $5 million in capital improvement funding earmarked for Fiscal Year 2023 to make necessary upgrades to the existing building. But an Aug. 11 update to the select board from town officials made clear that a bigger project is needed to adequately bring the aging station ...

ORLEANS - What will Orleans look like in 20 years? It’s a big question to tackle, but the planning board hopes that an economic development study will help put it on the right path toward shaping the town’s future. Board members talked with members of the finance committee Aug. 10 about the plan, how it should be formulated and what they thought the town needs to plan for moving ahead. The planning board...

ORLEANS - Despite noise and parking complaints from some abutters, the select board will not amend the Barley Neck Inn’s existing license authorizing outdoor music this season. Failing to find a way to properly define what does and does not constitute “amplified” music, the select board on Aug. 11 instead opted to allow the inn to operate as permitted through Sept. 19. The inn’s license allows for outdoor m...

ORLEANS – A Barnstable Superior Court judge has denied a request for an injunction prohibiting the select board from moving forward with host community agreements with two recreational marijuana businesses. B/Well Holdings, Inc., which operates a retail marijuana business in Provincetown, filed the injunction June 16. In it, the company claims that the select board erred when it chose to move forward with n...

ORLEANS – Outside long-dormant Bayberry Square, grass sprouts up in patches through cracks across the expansive pavement. Meanwhile, the building itself screams vacancy. The storefronts are all abandoned, save for one sign on the building’s far end near Nell’s Way proclaiming “We’ve moved” in florescent green. The unsightly state of the square, better known as the Underground Mall, has left many Orleans reside...