Decisions last week by the Chatham and Harwich community preservation committees regarding affordable housing funding requests were shortsighted and not in the best interests of residents. The Harwich CPC cut in half the request of the town's affordable housing trust for $500,000, citing recent turmoil among the trust's board and with members of the board of selectmen. After recent contentious meetings, Town A...

Impediments To Tree Trimming Editor: The airport commission is presently trying to persuade 22 property owners to remove their trees at their expense. However, the real problem, documented in the airport layout plan, is the vegetation growing in the wetlands and vernal pool areas, which are very close to the southern end of the runway on the airport property itself. This vegetation penetrates the approach s...

When a person dies in a house fire, it’s always a deep tragedy. But when the victim is a child, it affects the entire community. We were heartbroken to report the death of an six-year-old boy, Kyi Bourne, in an apartment house fire in Orleans Saturday. We send our thoughts and love not only to Kyi’s family and loved ones, but to the first responders whose efforts were heroic; to the wider school community that...

After 2021 town meeting voters narrowly rejected accepting land at 1610 Main St. in West Chatham for a new senior center, there was widespread skepticism among advocates that a new facility for the council on aging would ever get built in town. Expectations were that the land was gone, that owner William Marsh — who had offered to donate the property — would move on with some other type of development. That di...

COVID Not To Blame Editor: Regarding “COVID Continues To Impact Monomoy School Budget” (Jan. 19): Sorry, as usual, COVID is being used as a smoke screen. It's obvious your paper incorporates a very liberal point of view. Utility price increases have nothing to do with COVID and have everything to do with Biden strangling our oil and gas production under the pretense that global warming is going to ki...

Harwich town and chamber of commerce officials who successfully lobbied for Cultural District designations for Harwich Port and Harwich Center are to be congratulated for their efforts. Now comes the harder work: making those designations work for Harwich. The Massachusetts Cultural Council's approval of the district designations last Thursday highlights the work Harwich has done to boost the profile of the ar...

New Festival Officers Editor: The Harwich Cranberry Festival Inc. is a non-profit, all-volunteer group that organizes and produces the annual July and August arts and crafts fairs at Brooks Park, Beach Day each September for the children, musical concerts throughout the year, and the hugely popular Cranberry Festival and Cran-Jam in September at the community center. Proceeds from the vendors and some donat...

Solutions to the ongoing housing crisis are proving elusive. Building new units is a slow process, and building them at any meaningful scale more difficult still. Some towns, like Wellfleet, have instituted buy-down programs which underwrite the purchase of entry-level homes for first-time buyers, but that one-at-a-time approach, while immensely helpful to those who benefit, also barely makes a dent in the proble...

Building Planning Is Important Editor: Recently the Harwich Selectmen questioned the need for a strategic/capital plan for our public buildings. They also appear to question the initiative and actions of people that began efforts in this area. I realized our selectmen are not experts in the domain of physical asset capital planning and management, however, every town facility should have a capital plan. ...

Ill-served By Elected Representatives Editor: Comments on letters by Bruce Everett and the You Guest It by Scott Barrett: First I would like to thank Scott Barrett and Bruce Everett for providing their informative comments on climate policies from different prospectives. I too, like Mr. Everett, question our climate policies. Billions of dollars to be spent on programs included in a bill consisting of ...

It’s a familiar and predictable refrain after storms. The lights go out and I need a warm place to shelter from the storm. Who’s responsible? I need a hot meal and a shower, and a place for my pet. I can’t tell my relatives I’m safe because my cell phone stopped working. Who’s responsible? Let’s add a new one. A flooded road is keeping me from accessing my home. Who’s responsible? We are. All of us. Once...

Rentals Are Businesses Editor: In your "Minding your business " column dated Dec. 29, the principals of a vacation rental company state that simple logic shows that vacation rentals do not take up workforce housing. Their argument, while obviously self-serving, is illogical. Many if not most of the rentals are used far more by renters than owners, many of whom own multiple properties or are corporations. T...