ORLEANS — Town meeting was in a mood to approve some big-ticket items Monday night, including a $37.1 million operating budget for the town and schools and $4.2 million for continued work on water quality projects, but members were downright penny-pinching when it came to raising fees. The meeting voted down the finance committee's proposal to review all fees annually with an eye toward eventually bringing t...

ORLEANS — Some of the promises made at this week's town meeting will have to be kept right away. On Monday, voters said they wanted to spend $4.2 million to advance water quality projects, $450,000 to fund Other Post-Employment Benefits obligations, $275,000 to seed a new affordable housing trust, and $175,000 for a master plan to relocate facilities at Nauset Beach. Next Tuesday, they'll have to confirm tho...

ORLEANS — Town meeting was in a mood to approve some big-ticket items Monday night, including a $37.1 million operating budget for the town and schools and $4.2 million for continued work on water quality projects, but members were downright penny-pinching when it came to raising fees. The meeting voted down the finance committee's proposal to review all fees annually with an eye toward eventually bringing t...

ORLEANS — Appearances notwithstanding, the Academy of Performing Arts is not preparing an outdoor production of the logging musical “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” In fact, all the tree-clearing work so evident on Main Street near the theater has been done on a lot abutting the playhouse. “I can tell by the way people look up to the property that there is some concern about the tree removal, but rest...

ORLEANS — For years, town meetings have debated a sewer system in the abstract. When this year's session opens May 7, there will be facts on – make that in – the ground. “Next week, we will finish the first piping for the downtown sewer system,” Selectman Alan McClennen told the Orleans Citizens Forum April 26 at the senior center. “The contractor has been spectacular. He'll be out of there hopefully by May ...

ORLEANS — Fewer Orleans residents died in 2017 than in the previous two years, an even 100 as opposed to 114 in both 2015 and 2016. That's one of the facts in the Annual Town Report for year 2017, now available at town hall and worth a look-through before the May 7 town meeting. One of the 100 deaths in 2017 was that of Jean Finch, the founder of Cape Cod's first skateboard park, which is still located at...

ORLEANS — The list of what didn't happen at 353 South Orleans Rd. over the last two centuries could be shorter than the list of what did. The property at the corner of Namequoit Road and Route 28 has been home to a sea captain, a selectman, a state representative, a lay preacher, a salt maker, a farmer, and a cultivator of trees – and that's just the life of John Kenrick, Sr., who lived there for the first h...

ORLEANS – On July 21, 1918, the German submarine U-156 surfaced about three miles off Nauset Beach and shelled the tugboat Perth Amboy and the four barges it had in tow. The barges were sunk, the tug was badly damaged, and two people were injured. Several shots fired from the U-boat’s 5.9-inch deck guns hit the Orleans shore, making the town the only place on U.S. soil to receive enemy gunfire during World War ...

ORLEANS — Things look good on paper. There are 28 town landings, 28 opportunities to get your boat or kayak into the water. But “the major impact on every one is adequate parking,” Town Administrator John Kelly told the board of selectmen, meeting as park commissioners, last week. “The number one issue is, we don't have enough parking, regardless of use.” Except for restrictions during striped bass season...

ORLEANS — Cape Symphony Artistic Director Jung-Ho Pak isn't the only Cape Cod musician who's earned the title maestro. Applause, please, for the eight Maestro award winners of Nauset Regional High School, who received that honor recently at the Atlanta Heritage Festival competition. Take a bow, Gordon Clark (trombone), Sean Chung (euphonium), Keb Hutchings-McMahon (guitar), Parker Mumford (piano), Acacia Nel...

ORLEANS — The return of summer visitors – both people and white sharks – is only a few months away, and local researchers and public safety officials are thinking about a potential surge in shark ecotourism this season. A number of local businesses are already operating boat excursions for shark-watching and cage diving, and others are advertising plans to do so. Meeting in Orleans last week, members of the ...

ORLEANS — The aftermath of a death by suicide can be immobilizing for family and friends. Some can't even talk about it, yet others believe they must. “In October of 2016, we lost our youngest son Jeremy to suicide,” said Dr. Kim Mead-Walters, who practices family medicine in Orleans. “He was 16, a junior at Nauset (Regional High School). Over the following six months, we spent a lot of time with our family,...