HARWICH — Selectmen have instructed Interim Town Administrator Joseph Powers to prepare the necessary paperwork to lease or sell the West Harwich schoolhouse and the former fire station and surrounding property on Bank Street. There have been numerous discussions and votes relative to the properties in recent years, some of which restrict what actions the board can take. Powers informed selectmen last week ...

HARWICH — Christmas in Harwich will not be as festive this year as in the past, when traditional events such as the Christmas stroll brought the community together for a tree lighting, the arrival of Santa on a fire truck, horse drawn carriage rides through the streets and local shops with doors wide open with holiday spirit. The COVID-19 pandemic has curtailed the festive side of the holiday season, but the c...

HARWICH — Local firefighters and police officers will join together for the sixth consecutive year to make the holiday season a little easier for those facing hard times. The public safety staff will be “Homeless for the Holidays” for three days beginning on Friday, Dec. 4. Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the setting will be changed this year. The homeless encampment set up in Brooks Park by fire and poli...

WEST HARWICH – Things were not going well for Adelia Marquis. Once, she lived and worked on Nantucket, enjoying her job as a landscaper. But then the hard times hit, and with force. “I struggled with homelessness for quite a while,” Marquis said. Thrown out of her home due to her sexuality, Marquis then lost her job due to COVID-19 layoffs. Faced with the unfathomable decision of where to go, Marquis opted ...

HARWICH — Connecting Harwich Port and Saquatucket Harbor with a sidewalk is a few steps closer to reality. Town Engineer Griffin Ryder said discussions have been taking place between the town and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, and a new directive from the state agency could pave the way for construction of the sidewalk. Officials are also looking for public input into the sidewalk proposal at ...

HARWICH — The Harwich Conservation Trust has met its goal of raising $1,225,000 to buy 6.65 acres in the Sand Pond Woodlands. The acquisition puts in place the final piece of a 75-acre land connection puzzle along the Herring River. Purchase of the 6.65 acres will not occur until the spring of 2021, said Harwich Conservation Trust Executive Director Michael Lach, because the trust will have to comply with stat...

HARWICH — Selectmen Monday night rejected reducing annual restaurant liquor license fees for the coming year. Restaurants had requested the reductions because of lost business due to restrictions under the commonwealth’s emergency COVID-19 orders. For a time, the emergency regulations prohibited serving of alcohol for on-premise consumption. Once restaurants were allowed to serve liquor on the premises, it ...

HARWICH — Selectmen are considering banning the sale of 50 ml bottles of alcohol, known as nips. The issue was raised by Selectman Donald Howell Monday night. He said there has been a lot of talk in town about the trash that nips generate. “We’re getting inundated with trash,” Howell said. Over the past few years those involved in the Harwich Conservation Trust’s Tour de Trash annual roadside cleanup hav...

HARWICH – Sarah Swain, founder of the Cape Wellness Collaborative and the Cape Cod Women's Music Festival, has been honored with The American Red Cross of Massachusetts Community Service Hero Award. Inspired to make a difference in her community after losing her mother to ovarian cancer, Swain, a local music ian, created the annual Cape Cod Women’s Music Festival (CCWMF) in her mother’s honor in 2012. In 2014, S...

"I can't imagine a more challenging time" to try to clarify the state of our politics and the road ahead, said former Massachusetts senator Dan Wolf last week as he addressed more than 40 people in the final Zoom class of the Eldredge Library Fall 2020 Learning Series. Wolf, a resident of Harwich who learned to fly 43 years ago at Chatham Airport, is currently the CEO of Cape Air. A Democrat, Wolf admits his p...

HARWICH — Under the newly approved multifamily zoning amendment, the owner of the former Royal of Harwich Center nursing home/assisted living property at the corner of Bank and Parallel streets will be going before the planning board next week seeking permits for a 26-unit apartment complex. A similar proposal for re-use of the two buildings drew opposition from residents of the area last spring, and the appli...

HARWICH — There will be a new flower garden at the entrance to the Harwich Food Forest Walking Commons at the Bay Road power lines in East Harwich, serving primarily as a pollinator habitat in the public gardens. The Food Forest Initiative of Cape Cod – working with the Harwich Water Department, which owns the land, and Eversource, the utility company that holds the power line easement – established a perennia...