ORLEANS — The Massachusetts School Building Authority smiled on the Nauset Public Schools last week, accepting for further consideration a plan to help pay for renovating 45-year-old Nauset High in Eastham. “We were chosen as one of 17 districts out of 87 to move forward,” Superintendent Tom Conrad said in an interview Feb. 17. “We are very excited and very happy.” Nauset applied last year as well but was...

ORLEANS — The Massachusetts School Building Authority smiled on the Nauset Public Schools this week, accepting for further consideration a plan to help pay for renovating 45-year-old Nauset High in Eastham. “We were chosen as one of 17 districts out of 87 to move forward,” Superintendent Tom Conrad said in an interview Feb. 17. “We are very excited and very happy.” Nauset applied last year as well but was...

ORLEANS — If 50 million Frenchmen can't be wrong, can a million oysters be just right? Town consultant Science Wares planned to file Feb. 14 with the conservation commission for review of a potential second stage of the oyster filtration pilot project conducted last year in Lonnies Pond. Sia Karplus of Science Wares and Dr. Brian Howes of the School of Marine Science and Technology at UMass Darmouth spoke wi...

ORLEANS – Higher than expected costs for some elements of the makeover of the key intersection of Route 6A and Main Street have the town seeing red – to the amount of $144,652. In his quarterly activities report to selectmen Feb. 1, DPW/Natural Resources Director Tom Daley presented the problem – and a solution. In 2014, town meeting authorized spending $428,000 on items that the state would not cover in its p...

ORLEANS — You might call it a fair exchange. The J-1 international visa program welcomes university and post-graduate students from overseas to enjoy a taste of the American experience while these visitors supplement the seasonal labor force. Those who've hired and those who've hosted the students gathered at the senior center Jan. 31 at the invitation of the chamber of commerce to encourage other residents ...

ORLEANS — It was a cold day for a walking tour of the town's freshwater ponds, but members of the marine and fresh water quality task force made the effort Jan. 9 without mittens and parkas. Led by chair Carolyn Kennedy, they walked around tables covered with sheets of water quality statistics at town hall. With some of the numbers collected by volunteers as far back as 2000, the data provided a picture ove...

ORLEANS — Planning board members may have found their way forward with an even more complicated downtown zoning amendment after a third public hearing Jan. 24. Speakers were supportive of doing something to make downtown more lively, but they differed on the ways and means. After 18 months of work, the board has hammered out a plan detailed at the meeting by George Meservey, director of planning and communit...

ORLEANS — Town Administrator John Kelly's recommended operating budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 includes the maximum 2.5 percent increase allowed by state law. “We're at a crossroads,” Kelly told the board of selectmen Jan. 18. “There is nothing left in the operating budget that we can reduce to maintain 2½ unless we reduce staff. At the end of the day, we will have to talk about what services we...

ORLEANS — Donald Trump was the man who wasn't there. As the Nauset Interfaith Association Annual Rev. Martin Luther King Day Breakfast unfolded Monday at The Church of the Holy Spirit in Orleans, attendees took a longer view of civil and human rights that encompassed achievements to be celebrated and barriers yet to be broken. “We're not where we ought to be,” the Rev. Wesley Williams, retired pastor of t...

ORLEANS — With significant borrowing for capital projects on the horizon, there was good news for the town from its independent auditor last week. Tony Roselli, managing partner of Roselli, Clark & Associates, said a recent audit and a conversation with Standard & Poor's indicated that the town would maintain its top-rank AAA bond rating. “You've managed to increase your reserves the last three years...

ORLEANS — A smoky fire in an electrical panel at Comcast's facility on Locust Road Wednesday, Jan. 4 led to a temporary service shutdown on the Lower Cape. Deputy Chief Geof Deering said the department got the call from Comcast employees at 5:22 p.m. The building was evacuated as firefighters wearing breathing apparatus searched the basement for the fire. One Comcast employee was evaluated for smoke inhalation...

ORLEANS — Selectmen Chairman Sims McGrath, whose term ends this May, is ready to move on if somebody else will step up. “I will not categorically say that I will not run, but I do feel that it's someone else's turn,” he said Tuesday. “So I hope someone, some qualified people, will take out papers, and I hope to get a vacation. But I'll do it again if I absolutely have to.” The board's vice chairman, David...