WEST HARWICH — A long shadow of sexual abuse came to light this week with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River settling eight sexual abuse cases against the late Rev. James Nickel, who served as a priest in Holy Trinity Church from 1972 to 1978. Seven of the eight boys sexually abused by Nickel were alter boys. Six of them served in Holy Trinity Church and one at Our Lady of Annunciation in Dennisport. The...

HARWICH — The state Department of Environmental Protection conducted an onsite hearing last week at the Resilient Family Farm off Chatham Road at the request of owner Barry Dino Viprino, who is asking the state to reverse a conservation commission ruling that the farm is not exempt from Wetland Protection Act provisions. The commission made the decision at a hearing in mid-February after determining the farm h...

HARWICH — With $5.7 million in tax liens sitting on the books, Treasurer/Tax Collector Amy Bullock has made the decision to sell the liabilities to a private investor. The sale could provide the town with a quick infusion of money. Bullock brought the idea to selectmen nearly a year ago, pointing out state law allows municipalities to sell tax liens to private investors. She said this week the town presently h...

Cape Cod Potters, Inc. and the culinary department of Cape Cod Regional Technical High School will host the 25 th annual fundraiser Soup Bowls for Hunger to benefit The Family Pantry of Cape Cod on Wednesday, April 12 in the cafeteria at tech school at 352 Pleasant Lake Ave., in Harwich. Tickets are now available for $18 each. The “soup-line” style meal consists of a roll, coffee or tea and a warming soup se...

HARWICH — Selectmen withheld support for a request by Protect Our Cape Cod Aquifer director Laura Kelley Monday night to have selectmen write a letter to the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) protesting planned herbicide spraying to keep vegetation down along power lines. Board of Selectmen Chairman Michael MacAskill stated at the beginning of the board's meeting that they would not be ...

EAST HARWICH — It's not unusual to see young people busily at work at Pleasant Bay Community Boating, but they're typically in boats or in sailing classes – not on the roof, swinging hammers or digging up the grounds. The teens are students at Cape Cod Tech, taking part in one of the school's most ambitious building projects in recent years. The future builders, landscapers, plumbers and electricians are carry...

HARWICH — Homeowners could be required to install expensive nitrogen-removing septic systems if the town fails to fund its wastewater management project. With voters being asked to provide more than $9 million in wastewater management funds to design sewering – as well as enter into an agreement to treat effluent from the Pleasant Bay watershed in East Harwich at the Chatham Water Pollution Control Facility an...

HARWICH — BackOffice Associates has closed its South Harwich office and relocated to Hyannis. The IT company, with offices around the world, had considered Harwich its headquarters for a decade. During that period there were as many as 110 employees working out of the building at 940 Route 28. But in the past couple of weeks moving vans filled the parking lot, the BackOffice Associates sign was removed and the...

HARWICH — The eighth annual Meet Your Local Farmers event drew a crowd at the community center on Saturday. The event was sponsored by the Harwich Conservation Trust and The Cape and Islands Farm Bureau. An opportunity to shake off winter cabin fever and kick off the annual growing season, the event provided a setting for people to meet with local farmers from across the Cape and learn more about locally grown...

HARWICH — The planning board has scheduled a public hearing on a zoning amendment that seeks to put a moratorium in place on the sale and distribution of recreational marijuana. The moratorium would provide the town with time to study and consider the effects the activity would have on the community. The moratorium is a reaction to the approval by Massachusetts voters last November of The Regulation and Taxati...

SOUTH HARWICH — The preservation and restoration of the South Harwich Methodist Church has been a labor of love for the South Harwich Meetinghouse, Inc. group that has been working since 2005 to restore the historic structure. The fruits of their labor were pleasantly revealing on Monday when selectmen were invited to see the accomplishments of the past year. The church, built in 1836, now belongs to the town ...

HARWICH — A petitioned article that would have asked town meeting to have selectmen authorize town officials to refrain from using town funds and other resources to enforce federal immigration laws has been withdrawn from the warrant. Town Administrator Christopher Clark said he received the request from the petitioner, resident Elaine Dickinson, last week. But the process was not as easy as just removing the ...