Town-Owned Housing Helps Retain Seasonal Workers ORLEANS – Summer has arrived, and the town’s public works and natural resources departments are ready for the seasonal influx at Nauset and Skaket beaches. Some Cape towns have encountered staffing issues for their beaches. In Chatham, for instance, the town had 19 lifeguards ready to work as of the end of May, far less than the 26 to 32 that typically c...

Consultant Eliminates Two Of Three Properties From Consideration ORLEANS – The town is officially down to one site on which to build a new fire station. Ron Collins, the town’s facilities manager, told the select board June 9 that Kaestle Boos Architects, the firm hired as a consultant to work with the town’s fire rescue station feasibility study committee, is expected to have a “site suitability analy...

Says Suit Is Without Merit, One Of Many Filed Against Lodging Businesses ORLEANS – Ed Maas left the Orleans Waterfront Inn Thursday afternoon to give blood at the Church of the Holy Spirit. When he returned, he found a man waiting for him in the lobby. “ The inn was locked,” he said. “The front door was locked. I came in through the back door and walked up the stairs, and there’s a man standing in our...

NORTH EASTHAM –  “What this community has meant to me these weeks, these months; let’s just say none of us is alone anymore.” That quote from The Riddler didn’t initially strike Katie Sanborn as an appropriate senior class quote. But the Nauset High class valedictorian eventually came around to it. “I’m not alone here as I stand before you,” she told friends, family, faculty and her fellow classmates during...

ORLEANS - What might a new Snow Library look like, and how does the town plan for a new community center around it? Recognizing the potential for an overlap in programming between the two buildings, the town's community center feasibility task force recently met with library officials to see how both projects might coexist. The task force is working through the results of an online survey that sought inform...

ORLEANS – Transports are up at the Orleans Fire Department, and with the impending opening of a new urgent care center next month on Route 6A, the trend is expected to continue. But to accommodate the additional call volume, Fire Chief Geof Deering said something needs to be done to boost the department's staffing levels. In his report to the select board June 1, Deering said ambulance transports went from ...

ORLEANS – There's no shortage of volunteer board and committee members in town. But the select board last week said more needs to be done to mentor and coach those members along into leadership roles. The town currently limits members to serving no more than two terms, but it's a policy that's not always adhered to. As a result, other members don't grow as readily into chairmanship positions on boards and comm...

NORTH EASTHAM –  “What this community has meant to me these weeks, these months; let’s just say none of us is alone anymore.” That quote from The Riddler didn’t initially strike Katie Sanborn as an appropriate senior class quote. But the Nauset High class valedictorian eventually came around to it. “I’m not alone here as I stand before you,” she told friends, family, faculty and her fellow classmates during...

Uvalde, Texas, is almost 2,200 miles away from Chatham Elementary School. But for the school's principal, Jennifer Kelly, it feels much closer to home. A total of 21 people, including 19 students and two teachers, were killed in the May 24 shooting at Uvalde's Robb Elementary School, making it one of the most deadly school shootings on record in the United States. The shooting has reopened the national debate ...

Looking back, Scott MacDonald realizes how fortunate he was to have bought his home in Brewster in 1999. "We paid just under $180,000 for that home, and I'll tell you, we worked really hard," said MacDonald, Orleans' chief of police. "We're very proud we were able to pay our mortgage and raise a wonderful family there." But the cost of housing has reached unprecedented heights on the Cape, and many police o...

ORLEANS – Master Chief Petty Officer Jeff Smith has lost count of the number of times he drove by the small park at the intersection of West Road and Skaket Beach Road. Alan Walker Square, as it is called, is dedicated to the memory of one of Orleans' fallen war heroes. Smith, an Orleans resident who served as Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Reserve from 2003 to 2010, wanted to know more. "Ala...

ORLEANS – In midst of questions concerning his time as athletic director at a Rhode Island high school, Keith Kenyon resigned last week as principal of Nauset Regional Middle School. Kenyon was hired in 2010 as athletic director and football coach at Nauset Regional High School. He was later named interim principal at the middle school, a post he assumed full time in November. Read our previous st...