HARWICH — Voters will gather in two weeks at the Monomoy High School turf field for the FY2021 annual town meeting. The session is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 26 at 10 a.m., with a rain date of Sunday, Sept. 27 at 1 p.m. Attendees will face a warrant containing 46 articles, reduced from the 56 articles slated to be addressed last May, when the meeting was postponed due to the pandemic. Given the pandemic ...

Monomoy Regional High School’s new principal Jen Police and her staff are ready for the school hallways to once again be filled with the sounds of students engaged in learning come Sept. 14, though this year it won’t be quite as many, nor learning in quite the same way as they did in the days before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived on Cape Cod. Only about half to two-thirds of the school’s 687 students will be in...

HARWICH — The fire department has received notice through FEMA that it will be awarded an Assistance to Firefighters Program grant for $409,296 to replace self-contained breathing apparatus, compressors used to refill the apparatus and rapid intervention packs. Without the grant, the town would have to fund the equipment through the capital budget, said Fire Chief David LeBlanc. The department has to replace 4...

HARWICH – Pleasant Bay Community Boating wants to help folks of all ages and abilities get on the water, but with the pandemic it was uncertain how the summer would play out. Thanks to a carefully phased-in opening in June and strict adherence to safety-first protocol, however, PBCB is celebrating a successful summer season. “We phased in opening and took baby steps, opening the last week of June,” said Presid...

ORLEANS — After over a half century at the helm of the Lobster Claw restaurant in Orleans, what will Don Berig miss after the business’s final meals are served on Sunday, Sept. 13? “The people, I’m a people person,” he says without missing a beat. “I think that was my calling, to meet with people.” Berig, 81, reminisced about his 51 years running the award-winning Lobster Claw with his wife Marylou during a...

World War II in Chatham was reimagined last Thursday night in photos, videos, memories and songs as Dick Kraycir, director emeritus and past president of the Chatham Marconi Maritime Center (CMMC), hosted the last in the Center's virtual Summer Speaker Series. The program, which was Zoomed online to more than 100 participants, began with an evening flag ceremony in recognition of the 75th anniversary of the en...

When local schools open their doors next week for the first time since March, students won't be stepping back into classrooms as if nothing has changed. Everything has changed. And not just physically, though that will be the most obvious difference. With fewer desks to accommodate social distancing, classrooms look sparse. Signs everywhere remind students (and staff) to wear masks, wash hands and use sanitize...

Do Something For The Environment Editor: If you had the opportunity to do something for the environment, wildlife and your future that only took a bit of forward thinking and a small amount of effort, would you? If you don’t want to be swimming in, consuming, surrounded by, and overrun by ever mounting plastic trash, now is the time to support a Cape-wide ban on single-use plastic bottles. Otherwise, som...

CHATHAM – What a time to start a new job — during a pandemic. But that is exactly what the Rev. Tracy Johnson did when she joined the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House of Chatham as its half-time minister on July 1. “It has been interesting getting up to speed with the technology to hold people together in community when we can’t be physically together,” Johnson said during a telephone interview las...

ORLEANS — “I have grown gray in the service of my country,” George Washington said in 1783. This week, the town’s wastewater wars veterans, their locks now silver and white after decades of advocacy, gathered on the village green to break ground for a pumping station for a downtown sewer system and treatment plant. At the ceremony Sept. 8, Select Board Chair Kevin Galligan spoke of the moment in 2014 when wh...

ORLEANS — The zoning board declined to sink the Atlantic Workshop’s boat last week, leaving it up to Building Commissioner Tom Evers to fire another warning shot across its bow. The woodworking workshop at 94 Main St. was allowed by special permit as a customary home occupation by the board in 2017, with a number of conditions ranging from no retail sales to no signage and including an annual review. Since t...

ORLEANS — Like information, water wants to be free. And, like information, it isn’t. Your water bill pays for the infrastructure that pumps the liquid out of the town’s wells, treats it to ensure quality, and sends it out to homes and businesses. It flows into a house’s or store’s own pipes, where it’s controlled by the turn of a faucet – or is it? Things happen. Pipes leak or break, toilets keep running,...

In-Car Town Meeting One of Several Options  ORLEANS - They're stopping short of bringing back Liam's for car hop service, but the option of an in-vehicle town meeting at Nauset Beach next month is on the select board's agenda for Sept. 9.   It's one of several pandemic-moment alternatives that include a back-to-school approach (indoors at Nauset Regional Middle School or outdoors inside the school's trac...

CHATHAM – The number of positive COVID-19 cases among staff members at the Chatham Squire has risen to seven. Earlier this week the venerable downtown restaurant closed after one person tested positive. Subsequent testing of 15 staff members revealed three more positive cases. Three more cases were identified by town officials Friday. The restaurant has closed several times over the past week to do deep cleani...

HARWICH – Student athletes at Cape Cod Tech will have to wait a while for fall sports. All fall athletics have been postponed until February. Athletic Director Alan Harrison said the decision to postpone to what’s being called the “Fall II” season, which runs from Feb. 22 to April 25, conforms the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association’s guidelines regarding COVID-19 and is also in keeping with May...

“Tomorrow will be the pick of the week,” the weatherman said as he grinned through the TV screen at me. “The sun will shine, the humidity will drop and the temperature will be perfect. It may be the best summer day we’ve had and will have.” I took him at his word and gleefully planned my day. Amazingly, I had nothing on my calendar that couldn’t be moved around. I packed my sketching and painting things, m...