CHATHAM – The owners of the Monomoy Theatre property say they have collected enough signatures to call a special town meeting and were expected to turn in petitions for certification this week. Greg Clark said he was waiting to collect a few remaining petitions before totaling the signatures. “We expect to have all of the original signatures together by Wednesday and file the paperwork by Thursday,” he wrot...

CHATHAM – After five years at the helm of the Atwood Museum and the Chatham Historical Society, Executive Director Danielle Jeanloz stepped down on Tuesday. “I have decided to retire to a more leisurely Cape Cod page,” she said in an announcement sent to historical society members Sunday, adding that she plans to remain involved “as a volunteer, member, and donor.” “It's never a good time,”...

And Aren’t Deterred By COVID-19 Protections On the roads and in Main Street shopping districts, the summer of 2020 was, not surprisingly, a bit muted. But aside from the social distancing and the face masks, things almost looked normal on the beaches. Last weekend, despite the cooler late summer weather, people flocked to the shoreline in impressive numbers. Nauset Beach in Orleans had hund...

CHATHAM — The town has raked in a $295,000 grant from the Massachusetts Seaport Economic Council to help design a new shellfish upweller facility at Stage Harbor. The grant will fund the next phase of engineering for the upweller and multi-use waterfront facility at 90 Bridge St. The funds will cover designs, permitting and bid document preparation for the projected $3.4 million project. The final plans m...

HARWICH — The Harwich town seal was designed in 1896 by renowned artist Charles D. Cahoon. The bottom half of the seal shows Pine Grove Seminary, today's Brooks Academy Museum, surrounded by trees. The top half depicts a Native American standing next to a teepee. Native Wampanoags, however, never lived in teepees. With efforts being made to correct inaccurate historical symbols across the country — monument...

HARWICH — It will take only 100 registered voters to reach a quorum for the annual town meeting scheduled to be held at the Monomoy Regional High School stadium field on Saturday, Sept. 26. The town has traditionally set the town meeting quorum at 150 registered voters, but given the pandemic and provisions in state statutes extending to municipalities the right to make adjustments to quorums, selectmen Monday...

HARWICH — The 12-acre photovoltaic array proposed for East Harwich received unanimous support from the appeals board this past week. There was no public comment offered on the proposal for a variance for the solar panels. The project is being proposed by DFN, Inc., Steven Clark president, owner of a 17-acre site between Depot Road and the Chatham town line, just north of the Harwich Town Forest. Access to the ...

HARWICH — In the past two weeks, the conservation commission and board of appeals have approved modifications to the Wychmere Beach Club redevelopment project. With one more approval needed — from the planning board — groundwork at the complex is scheduled to get underway this week. Wychmere Harbor Real Estate will go before the planning board on Thursday, Sept. 10 seeking an amended site plan review special p...

Just in time for the 400 th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower this fall are two books about the Mayflower for young readers. “The Adventures of Plimoth Plantation as Told by the Mayflower Mouse” (iUniverse, 2020) by Marian R. Carlson is a charming retelling of the Mayflower story from the diary of Uncle Sam, an English mouse. Uncle Sam is able to scurry unobserved “through my network of passages” ar...

In times of uncertainty and isolation, connection and self-expression are more important than ever. In the spirit of finding a silver lining around the cloud of COVID-19, the Coop restaurant in North Chatham is hosting an outdoor art show over Labor Day weekend, Sept. 5 and 6 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. featuring the work of the talented artists of Uniting US. Strict social distancing will be observed at the show...

Readers Have Mixed Experience During Unusual Season For some, it was the worst summer. Ever. Others had the exact opposite experience. The pandemic brought permission to slow down, spend time with family and enjoy some of the natural resources the Cape has to offer. With the approach of Labor Day weekend, the official last hurrah of the season, we asked readers to tell us about their experiences durin...

Disappointed By Anti-racism Vote Editor: As your recent article stated, the Monomoy Regional School Committee passed the Massachusetts State Association of School Committees’ anti-racism resolution at their monthly meeting and I applaud them for doing so. But in spite of strong positive support from Dr. Carpenter and committee members Terri Russell, Sharon Stout and Tina Games, the Monomoy vote was not unan...

For years, swimming has been prohibited in the Cockle Cove Creek that runs along the Cockle Cove Beach parking lot, where it bends east to merge with Buck's Creek and empty into Nantucket Sound. Consistently poor water quality readings resulted in essentially a permanent closure. A 2005 study failed to find conclusive evidence of a specific source of the contamination, ruling out effluent from the sewer plant, ro...

There are those who will roll their eyes when they read this week’s story about the Harwich town seal, which portrays a Native American standing next to a Great Plains-style teepee, rather than the traditional wetu dwelling used by Wampanoags. It’s admittedly a small detail, but it’s not inconsequential. We choose to believe that Harwich residents 123 years ago included a Native American on their new town seal...

Back-to-school anxiety is perfectly normal. But this year, it’s the parents who are worried about sending their kids to classes, while the kids are anxious about not going back to school – or at least to their normal school environment. It’s more evidence of the world gone topsy-turvy thanks to COVID-19. “I would say that probably more than 50 percent of my caseload is kids and parents with anxiety, anxiety th...

ORLEANS — With parts of Nauset Regional High School suffering air circulation problems, classes will be fully remote when instruction begins Sept. 16. That’s a switch from the original hybrid plan that called for split weeks of home and in-school learning. “We will… remain remote until the ventilation system is repaired and brought up to COVID standards,” Principal Chris Ellsasser wrote to teachers Tuesday m...