ORLEANS – What is life like day-to-day for students and staff at Orleans Elementary School? It’s a question that Molly Jenks gets asked a lot by people around town. “If you don’t have kids in school for whatever reason, if you’re too old or too young or not a parent, you don’t know what’s really going on,” said Jenks, a member of the Orleans Elementary School Council. “How do we get people to understand all th...

ORLEANS – The zoning board of appeals on Feb. 2 upheld an order from the town’s building commissioner that a boat in front of Atlantic Workshop be removed. But the back and forth between the business and the town may not be over yet. The appeal was the latest development in what has been an ongoing dispute between the board and the business’s owner, Scott Feen, over the status of the boat going back to 2020. ...

Book Drive Aims To Improve Literary Diversity in Monomoy, Nauset Schools Jennifer Kelly recalls attending a conference a few years ago when a statistic caught her attention. Close to 90 percent of books written for young students, she found out, either had a white person or a talking animal as their main character. “We’re really looking to make sure we have more than that coming into our classrooms,” said Ke...

EASTHAM – The Nauset Regional School District has its new superintendent. The Nauset Regional School Committee and Nauset School Union 54 on Friday each unanimously voted to remove the interim tag from Brooke Clenchy's title, making her the district's new full-time superintendent, pending contract negotiations. Clenchy, who was tapped as interim superintendent last spring in anticipation of Thomas Conrad's ...

ORLEANS – If Orleans wants to boost its economic profile, it needs to make better use of its waterfront and downtown areas. That's according to the consulting firm Streetsense, which the town hired in the fall to steer its economic development plan. The planning board was updated on the firm's findings to date at its Jan. 25 meeting. Streetsense's work began in November with a tour of the town's downtown ar...

ORLEANS – Water quality experts say that sewering is likely the best option for treating phosphorus loading in Baker Pond. The marine and fresh water quality committee was presented Jan. 24 with a draft final study on the 28-acre pond, which is on the Orleans-Brewster town line. The pond is the last of four waterways in town the committee has identified for study, with management plans already underway for Unc...

ORLEANS – By most accounts around town, the planned renovation of the Main Street Community Center represents a noticeable improvement to the existing building. But the Orleans Historical Commission has more specific concerns, namely whether the proposed work constitutes a historic restoration of the property. Commission members voted 5-0 Jan. 26 to find that they lacked the information needed to make a recomm...

EASTHAM - The Nauset Regional School District has its new superintendent. The Nauset Regional School Committee and Nauset School Union 54 on Friday each unanimously voted to remove the interim tag from Brooke Clenchy's title, making her the district's new full-time superintendent, pending contract negotiations. Clenchy, who was tapped as interim superintendent last spring in anticipation of Thomas Conrad's ...

ORLEANS – Is it a boat, or is it a sign? The zoning board of appeals on Feb. 2 will again take up the status of the boat out in front of Atlantic Workshop, even though the business' owner already won an appeal of an order calling for its removal in 2020. Scott Feen, who owns and runs the business out of his home at 94 Main St., is appealing a letter he received in November from the town's building commissio...

ORLEANS – If the town wants to move ahead with dredging the Nauset Estuary, some important questions need addressing. Questions include the location of the town boundary in the project area separating Orleans from Eastham, and can the boundary be moved? Town Counsel Michael Ford summarized for the select board Jan. 19 where things stand regarding the boundary as it relates to plans to follow through on the dre...

ORLEANS – Between state and federal COVID-19 funding and anticipated revenue from two recreational marijuana shops due to open in town, more money is coming to Orleans. But town officials need more guidance on how to spend it. The select board on Jan. 19 had a preliminary discussion on what the town can expect from state and county COVID-19 relief funding and tried to get a sense of how that money can and cann...

ORLEANS – Town officials want to have all of the information they need in place if and when the time comes to demolish the existing Governor Prence Inn buildings. The select board and the affordable housing trust board, which together co-own the 5.5-acre property on Route 6A, voted during a joint meeting Jan. 18 to begin the process of undertaking site reconstruction and a topological survey, funding for which...