Years ago, Chatham's town fathers and then-Town Manager Bill Hinchey envisioned a program of capital projects, replacing aging, outdated town buildings one after the other, utilizing debt drop-off to fund each project without significantly boosting the tax rate. With support from voters at many town meetings, the building projects came to completion one by one, like falling dominoes. Now, in a span of less tha...

In the middle of winter – when the driveways of snowbirds and weekend residents may be blocked by unplowed snow – the population of the town of Harwich is around 12,000, while in the middle of summer, with the arrival of our Florida residents, second home owners, vacationers and tourists, that number increases to over 30,000, based on 2010 figures. The contrasts between the two dates are profound in terms of the ...

Once And Always Muddy Creek Editor: Names are important. Our own names are important to us. They tell everyone who we are. Place names are important, too. They reflect the history of our town and what has gone on before us. Since the early days of European settlement, our dividing line between Chatham and Harwich has been called Muddy Creek or Muddy Cove or Muddy River. In “The History of Chatham,” W....

Like most Chatham residents, we support the board of selectmen in its drive to roll back the western boundary of the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge to the low water mark. It makes no sense for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to suddenly assert jurisdiction over some 4,000 acres of waters and submerged lands west of the refuge, as the agency did in Monomoy's recent comprehensive conservation plan, especially ...

  Try A Little Civility Editor: To well over 6,000 people, the town of Chatham is home, but it is a town and home of a special kind. Chatham is also a state, regional and international destination. Visitors come here from all over the world. Walk down the street and you can hear the tones of England or the lilt of an Irish brogue, and, within a few blocks of the downtown area, it would not be remarkable to...

Reflecting on last week's editorial about the fascination with sharks, especially graphic shark predations on seals, we realize that despite these being examples of nature in action right on our doorstep, there is another factor at work here, a single entity that is the cause of both the proliferation of seals along our coast and the recent arrival of great white sharks. Hillary Clinton. And, through an in-...

Several years ago, I wrote that an entire Chatham summer passed by more quickly than two weeks in January. A number of readers wrote me to agree. Others stopped me on the street to concur. Well, this year, it is quicker than that. Picture if you will a huge rollercoaster. Most of us have spent a number of nervous moments on rollercoasters in our life. Perhaps not lately for some of you, but even now, I still r...

Early this week, photos posted on Facebook by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy received wide attention, like many of the nonprofit group's postings have this summer. This series of vivid pictures showed a large, bright red smear of blood, seen from the sky above, the aftermath of a great white shark predation on a grey seal. Similar postings this summer have shown sharks making meals of seals, sometimes ra...

Troubled By Shellfish Proposal Editor: This letter was sent to Dan McKiernan of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and copied to David E. Pierce and Gov. Charles D. Baker. As a concerned resident of Chatham, I attended your hearing regarding “In-State Sale of Undersized Aquaculture Reared Shellfish” and found the meeting very troubling. For generations, Chatham shellfishermen have been pro...

Now comes the great and long-awaited leveling. Not without fits and starts and shorts and coughs. But it comes as inevitably as the rising of the sun, as undeniable at the spinning of the Earth. Balance. The day after Independence Day, we awoke to the news that an orca was sighted a dozen or so miles off Chatham. Captain Bruce Peters of Capeshores Charters and customers were shocked to see the looming dorsal o...

Months after our recent move, I am still unpacking bins and boxes. I thought I had adequately weeded out unnecessary doodads and nonsense a year ago and seem to have survived quite well without any of the still-packed baggage we continue to haul down from the attic and up from the basement. Once in a while an old workhorse appears, like the crock pot or blender, which inspires me to concoct a savory stew or healt...

Harbor Run/Walk Tradition Returns Editor: The Chatham Harbor Walk/Run resumed on Sunday, June 26 after a two-year absence, with the help of its three main sponsors, Sealaw.org, The Chatham Squire and The Cape Cod Chronicle. The race opened back with over 200 runners and 70 walkers, a small but quality field. The winner, on vacation from Montana, blistered the course in 33:42. The top 10 runners included two O...