CHATHAM — The conservation commission has officially been served with a suit by a Minister’s Point property owner alleging that it wrongly permitted future dredging in an area that provides the only deep-water access to Chatham Harbor. The area in question, just inside the North Inlet, was approved for emergency dredging last year, but the dredging was not carried out because of deteriorating weather. Filed ...

CHATHAM – The demographic shifts that the Chatham 365 task force was established to address aren't just affecting young families. Local institutions are also being forced to make tough decisions as the makeup of the community shifts. When Edmund Robinson, minister at the Chatham Unitarian Universalist Meeting House for the past 11 years, retires on Jan. 1, he won't be replaced by a full-time minister. In fact,...

CHATHAM – Construction of a retaining wall along the sidewalk in front of the Eldredge Public Library won't require the removal of a large stately horse chestnut tree that overhangs Main Street. If the tree is healthy, that is. The initial plans to improve the front lawn of the historic library called for removal of the tree, which probably dates from the 1930s, called for removal of the tree, which was in ...

HARWICH —The owners of two dogs which the board of selectmen ordered to be euthanized have appealed the decision in Second District Court in Orleans. The dogs, both one-year old American Staffordshire terriers owned by Melissa Sullivan and her daughter, Mary Spurrier, of Wendy's Way, were determined to be “dangerous” based on testimony provided to Town Administrator Christopher Clark in a public hearing on Mar...

WEST HARWICH — If it was a joke, public safety officials aren’t laughing. On Monday afternoon, police and firefighters were called to the Herring River marsh near the North Road footbridge for a report of a man face-down in the water. Unable to reach him from the opposite bank of the river, firefighters launched a full response by the regional dive team, as well as their own rescue boat. They summoned anothe...

HARWICH — Massachusetts Department of Transportation has confirmed that the Harwich Elementary School application for a Safe Routes to School project has been approved and $685,000 has been set aside for the work. The application was filed by Principal Mary Oldach in January. In March the Mass DOT's office of Transportation planning notified the school district the project was advancing to the funding process....

HARWICH — Town Administrator Christopher Clark said this week he is withdrawing the assistant town administrator candidate he put forward last week to selectmen because he did not think he had the votes from the board to confirm the candidate. Clark put forward David D. Flaherty, a Harwich resident and acting town administrator in the town of Raynham, as his choice to fill the position vacated when former assi...

EAST HARWICH — After months of stalled talks, 31,000 union workers at Stop & Shop supermarkets, including the ones in East Harwich and Orleans, walked off the job last Thursday. The employees, represented by Local 328 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, stood by the roadside and at store entrances and held picket signs. As of late Tuesday, there were no signs that the labor dispute would be ...

HARWICH — Voters will be asked in the annual town meeting to approve a petitioned article to amend a board of health regulation to restrict the sale of flavored tobacco products. The initiative is the work of Monomoy Regional High School students involved in Project Citizen. Project Citizen is part of the eighth grade civic curriculum in which identify social problems and propose means to address them. A coupl...

HARWICH — Behind the fiery rhetoric and splashy headlines of the current immigration debate, there are human stories and a lot of history. That’s what Monomoy High School students learned Friday at the annual Ambassadorship Day sponsored by the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum. Among the speakers was Paulo Paraguay, the owner of a successful candy store in downtown Hyannis, who emigrated with his family fro...

HARWICH – With his father, Michael, as a Little League coach, and older brothers that played, there haven't been too many days in Steve Porter's life without baseball, and the new head coach of the Monomoy boys varsity team wouldn't have it any other way. Porter, a graduate of Harwich High School and a past player, was promoted to the position this season after serving as the program's junior varsity coach for...

HARWICH – Chilly temps and icy winds had athletes at the Monomoy/Sturgis track meet huddling beneath blankets last Wednesday but didn't stop both teams from fierce yet friendly competition. While the boys prevailed, winning 84-52, the girls fell to Sturgis 58-70, but had some strong performances. Freshman Alice Murphy won three events for the Sharks beginning with the 400 hurdles, which she completed with a ti...

Everyone probably has a list of people they wish they could thank over and over again; people who made a difference in their lives, helped them through troubled times and eased their way. I am fortunate that my list is long, filled with mentors and advisors, family and friends that helped me find the right paths to walk when all seemed dark and foggy. As a young child missing my dad after my parents split up, ...

Don't Trash This Tour Editor: The Tour de Trash is the once-yearly town-wide litter campaign intent on preserving the attractiveness of our beautiful little patch of earth. Last year, 1,200 lbs. of trash, 513 lbs. of recyclables and over 1,200 empty NIP bottles were collected and hauled away. Much of it would still be around if it weren’t for the 100-plus volunteers who helped make the 2018 event the be...

In two well-attended public forums, the Chatham 365 task force heard from dozens of residents, and people who would like to be residents, about the challenges to living in town and how those challenges can about. The group heard about owners of downtown businesses living with their parents because they can't afford a house or find an apartment; about having to go off Cape to find a pediatrician; about housing ava...

Seth Wilkinson of Wilkinson Ecological Design Inc. in Orleans was recently awarded a patent for an invention that could revolutionize the way eroding shorelines on Cape Cod and beyond are stabilized. U.S. patent number 10,125,462 is for an “erosion control apparatus and methods of using and installing the apparatus.” Wilkinson submitted the patent for approval on Aug. 31, 2016 and it was approved last November...