CHATHAM – The first payment by Harwich under the intermunicipal agreement for access to the town's wastewater treatment plant is in the bank. How should it be spent? To lower the tax rate? Pay for capital projects? Or pay down debt? Those and other options are being considered by town officials for the $2,265,000 initial payment under the agreement, which will bring in another $4.5 million in three more pay...

CHATHAM – Saturday is Oktoberfest in Chatham, and attendees who arrive in Bavarian garb will receive a free handmade commemorative pin. If that isn't incentive enough to come to the event – at least to see the costumes – how about free music, games, Pumpkin People and lots of seasonal food and drink from a raft of local vendors. Sponsored by the Chatham Merchants Association, the Oktoberfest celebration tak...

ORLEANS – A surfer and swimmer, Karl Hoefer was getting fed up with the presence of sharks at Nauset Beach. Shark attacks this summer, which severely injured one man and killed another, “tipped me over the edge,” he said. Sharks and seals, he believed, were being treated better than people. He decided to try to do something about “conserving” humans. “The Cape used to be a lot safer,” he said. “It's changin...

CHATHAM – Last Friday's downpours from the remnants of Hurricane Michael once again caused flooding at the intersection of Morris Island and Little Beach roads, but while a nuisance, homeowners are far more worried about the possibility of a repeat of the winter storms that caused severe damage in the low-lying neighborhood. The newly former Little Beach Association hopes to prevent the flooding that occurred ...

CHATHAM – A plan to stop taking cash at the town's transfer station has been put on hold. Officials originally planned to switch to a credit card and checks only system for payments at the transfer station gate as of Nov. 1. It wasn't clear exactly why the move was halted; there was some push back from residents, officials said, but they still hope to move ahead with the plan at some point. Department of Pu...

CHATHAM – Training local residents to respond to shark bite emergencies is the goal of a series of “Stop the Bleed” workshop that will be held at the Chatham Shark Center over the next few weeks. The first session will be held today (Thursday, Oct. 18), with additional workshops on Nov. 1 and 8. Each session will run from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Shark Center on Orleans Road and will be led by Orleans Fire and Rescu...

CHATHAM – Training local residents to respond to shark bite emergencies is the goal of a “Stop the Bleed” workshop that will be held at the Chatham Shark Center next Thursday, Oct. 18. The training is free and open to the public. Additional Stop the Bleed training sessions will be held on Nov. and Nov. 8, also at the Shark Center. Each session will run from 7 to 8 p.m. and will be led by Orleans Fire and Rescu...

CHATHAM – Only a handful of affordable housing units have been built in town since the town last housing production plan, and a draft update of the plan acknowledges reaching the target affordable housing goal is a “formidable challenge.” Currently 5.03 percent of the town's year-round housing stock is considered affordable, half of the 10 percent level established by the state and endorsed in the town's compr...

CHATHAM – With GPS mapping included with almost every smartphone and in most new cars, is there really a need anymore to post street address numbers on buildings? The answer, say public safety officials, is an emphatic yes. “GPS certainly gets us close,” said Fire Chief Peter Connick, but it can also leave fire and rescue personnel searching for the right address. And when the situation is an emergency, esp...

CHATHAM – It began innocently enough – a $1 charge appeared on a bank account on the Saturday of Martin Luther King, Jr., weekend and disappeared two days later. Then, a month later on the Saturday of Presidents Day weekend, $660 was charged by eBay to the same account. A quick series of phone calls revealed that someone had used stolen credit card information to purchase a camera from a Canadian citizen who clai...

Affordable Housing Issue 'Irrelevant,' Says Zoning Board CHATHAM – The loss of workforce housing to upscale residences, one of the main concerns of those worried about the inability of young families to afford to live in town, has become a focus of a proposal to replace run-down apartments on Main Street with high-end condominiums. Opponents say the plan will force working people out of what are now four mo...

And How The Town Purchased The MCI Properties SOUTH CHATHAM — Twenty years ago this month, an impromptu group of neighbors crowded into a cottage in South Chatham to consider a pie-in-the-sky proposal. A little more than a year later, they’d be credited with pulling off what is arguably the town’s most significant land purchase of the last century. Changes in the Telecom Industry By the late 1990s...